Listening
Practical Speaking and Writing, Fall 2018
Spanish outside the classroom, listening to News in Slow Spanish
Early in my Spanish coursework, I chose to do a listening activity as part of my Spanish outside the classroom experience. I listened to News in Slow Spanish, which I note in my reflection was very slow for me at times. This is an example of how I can listen to a long form conversation between two native Spanish speakers and explain what I heard. I can also identify when I hear something that I do not understand, which allows me to grow my listening skills by looking it up later. One thing that I talk about in this reflection which I still find myself struggling with when listening to native speakers is understanding numbers. I still find that it takes me longer to register the meanings of numbers than words.
Spanish Film, Memory and Society, Spring 2019
Discussion board post- Music
Another example of my listening skills is listening to and interpreting music in a film setting. In this assignment, I identified an important song from a movie and analyzed the lyrics and use of the song within the scene. Due to the use of instruments and vocal emphasis to make music, I feel that listening to music is more difficult than listening to a conversation. In many cases, the singer sings at a pace that is faster than conversational pace. This shows that I can interpret complex material that I have listened to, and that I recognize the importance of listening to music in film. I did not have access to the official lyrics of the song, so I transcribed some of them to analyze key parts of the song. The transcription process is another example of my ability to listen to and understand spoken Spanish.