Functions

Reflection: I believe that my work in 'Functions' is between approaching proficiency and proficient. This is because I believe that people who are fully proficient with 'Functions' in Spanish are native speakers. I think that I have grown a lot in the 'Functions' aspect of Spanish from this class. Interestingly, despite not being directly taught many tenses in this class I think the format of being forced to talk constantly and simply just use my Spanish has really solidified what I have learned from my past years of Spanish. I think blog posts have really helped me solidify the first goal of 'Functions' which is expressing opinions and feelings. Nearly every blog asked an opinionated question, and by responding to the blog prompts fairly consistently I think I was able to show my understanding of writing opinions in Spanish. The second goal of descriptions and comparisons I think I largely learned in the classroom setting. From all of the classroom conversations and tasks I learned how to compare things. Descriptions I was able to show in my Presentational Writing IPAs where I had to write stories and use my descriptions to fill in details. Similarly, I was able to show my narrative skills in my Presentational Writing IPAs. I feel like I noticed the most narrative growth in my presentations in class. I used to be doubtful about whether I could get through a full presentation without getting caught on my words, but now I know that even if I get stuck somewhere I can fill it in with everything else I know. I think the hypothetical element of 'Functions we focused on mostly at the end of the year. I feel as though the majority of my learning in hypothetical sentences came from class work in the love unit. I feel as though in all I have learned a lot about 'Functions' simply by forcing myself to use things that I have learned in the past constantly in the Spanish 4 class.

Text Type

Reflection: From the description in the rubric I feel as though I am proficient in this category because I can consistently use full sentences and am beginning to be able to put together paragraphs. I think succeeding at the next step of being able to write in full paragraphs is going to be a long and difficult step, because writing paragraphs in English is still occasionally difficult. I feel as though I have definitely grown in this area, because I am much more confident know in my presentational and interpersonal capabilities than I was at the beginning of the year. I think much of this has to do with the fact that I am more comfortable putting together sentences and verb structures just because of how consistently I spoke up in Spanish. This year I really felt like I pushed myself to use all the Spanish that I didn't know I knew and I've shown myself that I am completely capable at using the language.

Vocabulary

Reflection: I think my vocabulary skills have grown a lot this year. I find it very interesting reflecting on how we took no tests on vocabulary throughout this whole year, yet I feel like I know many more words than I did when I started this class. I think that is a testament to how well this class worked for me. I think all the games we played with vocabulary, and all of the direct utilizations of the words really helped me internalize them. I think that I was able to remember more vocabulary long term than I have any other year, because I was forced to use them, instead of testing on them and forgetting.

Comprehensibility

Reflection: I think that this question is slightly difficult to show through work so I will try and explain how I work for comprehensibility. I think the main way I work on my comprehensibility is by reading my audience. Whether it be in conversation or presentationally, I watch people's reactions to what I am saying and if it seems like they are not understanding then I try and rephrase until they get it. It is easiest to see when I ask questions. If I ask a question that no one is willing to answer than it likely didn't make sense to them, or the question was too difficult to create an answer to. Next I will either rephrase my first question or simplify what I am asking to better fit the audience. I think being aware of the people around me and fitting what I have to say into that context is the best way that I maximize my comprehensibility. I think my comprehensibility is between approaching proficiency and proficient because I think I still have a ways to go with perfecting my Spanish meaning that I cannot be completely comprehensible all of the time. However, I am very happy with the growth that I have made in comprehensibility over this year, and I feel as though I have better skill set to 'read people' in conversations.

Comprehension

Reflection: Like comprehensibility I think comprehension is a very difficult aspect of my Spanish learning to show through work that I have done. I think the best way to show my growth in comprehension is unfortunately from my point of view. I think the most exciting success for my comprehension skills is that I came into the classroom everyday and I understood about 95% of everything said. I think it was a little lower - about 90% comprehension when I was listening to my peers talk (because they all weren't completely successful with their comprehensibility). However, I think I was near 100% comprehension of Enrique. I think that it is a pretty amazing accomplishment to have that level of understanding from this class. Especially because the conversations in class were not basic language, and while they did fit into a context that I understood I still had to understand all of the sentences that everyone was saying. I think that my comprehension abilities are definitely proficient and I am very happy with the growth that I have made over this year.

Cuba

I think the Cuba trip had a massive influence on my Spanish speaking ability and confidence. When we went, I was one of four people who were willing to use our Spanish in the "real world" so I ended up doing a lot of talking. I think it helped a lot with my interpersonal skills the most. I found the Cuba trip to be so amazing because I was able to prove to my self in a real life setting how much Spanish I know. When speaking with natives I was able to understand a lot of what was happening (and cuban Spanish is super hard). I am so happy that I was able to have this real life opportunity to use the Spanish I learned this year.

Otro trabajo de este año