Evidence and Reflections

Senior Year: Option A

8/13/22 Beaverton Night Market ( 2 hours)

The Beaverton Night Market is an event that happens once a year that allows local vendors to share a piece of their culture with the community. The fair was filled with many performers and over 60 vendors from many different cultures. I went to the fair with a friend and we tried to visit every stand. We listened to live music, most of which was in Spanish, as we walked around. We tried new kinds of food and talked with many people about what they were selling and listened to their stories. Most, if not all, of the products at the fair were handmade and very beautiful. I loved learning about how each product represented something different for each vendor. 

2/24/23 Spanish Podcast (30 minutes)

I listened to two short stories from a Spanish Podcast titled "Simple Stories". The first one was a story titled "Mi viaje espanol". It was a 14-minute story that described why the narrator of the podcast became interested in Spanish. She discussed how she was brought up around the language and how she loved the process of learning how to speak in Spanish. The second story I listened to was 16 minutes and titled "Una boda en Espana". It was a real story depicting a listener of the podcast's wedding. The woman was from Spain and her husband-to-be was from California. The episode talked about how the man was very nervous to have the wedding in Spain because he felt that he didn't belong. Both of these stories were told fully in Spanish. I was able to follow along and understood most of what was said using some context clues. I found this podcast to be very helpful and interesting to follow along with.

3/12/23 Watching shows/movies in Spanish (3 hours)

A friend and I watched The Book Of Life in Spanish with English subtitles. The movie follows the main theme of following your heart and being yourself while introducing aspects of Spanish culture such as dia de los muertos and the cultures' beliefs in what happens after death. The movie was about an hour and a half and involved many easy-to-understand conversations along with some more complex sentences due to some of the unknown vocabulary. We also watched some episodes of South Park and Dora the Explorer in Spanish with English subtitles which helped to further our vocabulary even more. The Movie and episodes both included conversations and songs that helped to improve my listening skills. I used the English subtitles whenever I didn't know a word which helped me to understand what was being said. I was also able to use this new understanding if the word was repeated later in the film. 

3/13/23 Anything For Selena Podcast (1 hour)

I listened to two versions of the episode titled "Spanglish" from the podcast series "Anything For Selena" by WBUR and Futuro Studios. The reporter for the series, Maria García, creates the episodes to honor Selena Quintanilla Pérez's legacy. I listened to the version of the episode in Spanish first and from that I understood that Selena, an American Tejano singer, didn't grow up speaking Spanish regularly. I learned about her revolutionary acts as she learned Spanish in the public eye and made mistakes as she went. I then listened to the 30-minute podcast in English to figure out what I had missed. I found that many others went through this struggle and were often ridiculed for not speaking the language of their culture fluently enough or with a Hispanic-American accent. This story really stuck with me as I am half-Hispanic, but don't speak Spanish around the house. The episode talked about how Selena took the hurtful comments with grace as she went from being told by teachers to never talk in Spanish at school to learning to speak and sing in the beautiful language. 

3/30/23 Translating and conjugating words related to my current job (1 hour)

I work as an arcade attendant in an arcade local to where I live. As a part of my job, I need to help answer any questions people have, run laser tag games, and check-out prizes for guests. Some guests that visit the arcade speak a language other than English and I believe that I should do my best to communicate with them however much I can. I am often called over by my coworkers to help translate what a guest is asking for if that guest only speaks Spanish. In order to improve my Spanish proficiency and communicate better I thought of words I commonly used while talking to guests and translated them into Spanish. I also conjugated some common verbs I often use when fixing games, running laser tag, and cleaning the arcade. I believe that both of these activities (and practicing what I learned) will help me to better communicate, make guests feel more comfortable, improve my confidence when speaking to a native Spanish speaker, and improve my ability to respond in Spanish on the spot. 

3/30/23 Practicing conjugation using Conjuguemos (1 hour)

I practiced present tense (regular verbs only) conjugation using the game Galapago! Go! and a crossword. The first game involved picking between subjects such as "we" and "you" and conjugating a verb to match one subject in order to go that direction. I played the game many times and I got more confident and quicker as I went. The crossword game involved filling in the boxes while knowing the verb and the subject it needs to be conjugated to as the answer. Next, I practiced conjugating verbs to the present tense (stem-changing verbs) using a word search and memory game. The word search took a lot longer than I expected it to take causing me to almost use a few hints, but I decided to keep working and eventually, I was able to remember which stem change went with which verb. Both games helped me to remember how to conjugate stem-changing verbs by utilizing the rules such as "o" to "ue" in real-time.

4/3/23 Listening to songs in Spanish (1 hour)

During a long drive, I decided to turn on a playlist filled with songs sung in Spanish. I found a playlist called "Spanish Bops" on Spotify that was filled with very recent songs that resembled some of the songs my friends and I listen to regularly. I also listened to some songs that my dad likes to play such as "Como La Flor" by Selena, "La Banda Del Carro Rojo" by Los Tigres Del Norte, and "La lámpara" by Chelo. I looked for words that I knew and figured out what tense they were in by how they were conjugated. I tried to follow along with the stories being told in each song which tested my receptive skills. I really enjoyed the variety of songs I listened to and I believe it helped me to discover new types of music to enjoy.

4/4/23 Reading Comprehension (1 hour)

I used the website 123 Teach Me to find reading practice and quizzes. I went through many levels, starting at the Beginner Mid Level, and I worked my way up the levels through the different exercise stages and stories within those stages. As I went up in stages and levels I felt more confident and I learned many new vocabulary words such as jilguero - goldfinch, campanario - bell tower, nuestro vecino - our neighbor, and abdominales - sit-ups. There was a range of short stories in paragraph form or an image to interpret, some with a word bank, and a short 2-5 question quiz about the text. These short stories were very interesting and I was very proud of my ability to use clues and my previous knowledge to understand them. 

4/6/23 Reading and interpreting Spanish poetry (1 hour)

I looked up "poems in Spanish" on Google and read many of them out loud. A friend and I took turns picking and reading short poems and then interpreting them into English. We looked up any words we didn't understand and one of my friends (a student who is fluent in Spanish) helped to show us how to correctly pronounce some words from the poems. Most of the poems were about aspects of nature, animals, and love which made them engaging and easy to connect to. I think that this activity was very interesting because I was able to study the Spanish language in a new context and I loved reading and listening to the beautiful stories. 

4/7/23 Research language conventions and patterns (1 hour)

I am able to learn and remember things much better when I know the rules or patterns that dictate what goes where. Knowing this, I decided to do some research on common language conventions and patterns in Spanish. I used many images along with two websites ("18 Essential Spanish Grammar Rules Every Learner Should Know" by FluentU and "All about Spanish accent marks and rules" by Lingoda) to help to understand these conventions. These patterns and examples of them being used helped me to greater understand the Spanish language as a whole. Some of the patterns I learned are:

• the language follows a subject—verb—object (SVO) pattern

• Ser is used to identify or describe people and things 

• Estar is used when you want to express something temporary (location, feelings, and states/conditions) 

• Spanish contractions: A + el = al, De + el = del

• Spanish conjunctions: 

  • • If "y" is followed by a word that begins or sounds like "i", it becomes "e"

      • • • Padre y hijo → Padre e hijo 

• If "o" is followed by a word that begins or sounds like "o", it becomes "u"

  • • • Ayer o hoy → Ayer u hoy 

• Key rules of Spanish stresses

  • • Word ends with a vowel, or the letters "s" or "n", the second-to-last syllable is stressed

    • Word ends with a consonant other than "s" or "n", the final syllable is stressed

4/9/23 Practice pronunciation with videos (1 hour)

I watched two Spanish pronunciation videos to practice pronouncing some of the hardest words in Spanish for English speakers. I watched "10 Hard Words to Pronounce in Spanish" by the channel Spanish and Go and "Learn the Top 10 Hardest Spanish Words to Pronounce" by the channel Learn Spanish with SpanishPod101.com on YouTube. From these videos, I was able to hear how the words were supposed to sound. I repeated each word out loud multiple times and I wrote down how the word would be said phonetically, which helped me practice (examples shown below). I learned many new vocabulary words, that accent marks are very important when talking in Spanish because they can change the meaning of a word, and some r's are rolled while others are not (known as soft r's).

waterprofing- impermeabilizante (em-per-me-a-be-le-zante)

railroad (train)- ferrocarril (ferro-car-ril) *rolled r

refrigerator- frigorífico (frig-or-if-e-co)

developers- desarrolladores (des-arr-o-ya-door-es) *soft r

difficult- difícil (de-fi-cil) *accent mark = stress

scarecrow- espantapájaros (es-pan-ta-path-a-dos)

probably- probablemente (pro-bab-le-mente)

unfortunately- desafortunadamente (desa-for-tun-ada-mente)

stasticas- estadísticas (es-ta-dis-tic-as) *accent mark = stress

scrambled eggs- huevos revueltos (whey-vos re-vuel-tos) *rolled r

idea- idea (e-day-ah)

airport- aeropuerto (eye-ro-puerto)

4/11/23 Comprehension & Listening Practice (1 hour)

I watched a YouTube video titled "Learn Spanish: Comprehension & Listening Practice – WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE DOING?" by the channel Butterfly Spanish to practice listening and understanding Spanish. The video represented a conversation between two people trying to decide what they wanted to do on their day off. The conversation was written in Spanish and English on a whiteboard in the background and the teacher in the video read each line, helped to interpret (sometimes including multiple ways the line could be interpreted), pronounced difficult words, and gave some background/context of words. The video helped me to practice understanding what is being said during a conversation in Spanish at a normal speed. This lesson also included a wide variety of verbs used in context, expressions commonly used and understood by native speakers, and tips on how to politely ask questions/give answers. I think that this video helped to improve my confidence in my ability to understand conversations at a normal pace as I am used to hearing the language a lot slower than how it is actually spoken. 

4/12/23 Practiced rolling my R's (30 minutes)

I have a very difficult time rolling my R's, but my family constantly encourages me to practice the trill. I found a video titled "How to Roll Your R's: The Definitive Guide" on YouTube by the channel SuperCoco App that demonstrates a step-by-step guide on how to do the alveolar trill (rolling your R's). I followed along with the video, starting with a lip trill, then the closed tongue trill, and lastly attempting the alveolar trill. By the end of the video, I had much more confidence in my ability to roll my R's, though I still need some more practice. This aspect of the Spanish language has always been a bit of a roadblock for me, so this small step and future practice will make a huge difference in my ability to confidently speak in Spanish. 

4/3/23 Listening and speaking comprehension practice (1 hour)

To practice my listening comprehension I found a video that portrayed a fake news update in Spanish. The video titled "SPANISH LISTENING PRACTICE | 30 Minutes of Spanish Listening Practice | NOTILOCA #1" by the YouTube channel Spanish Like a Pro! went through many stages of comprehension practice and questions that helped to walk me through the news update. With each step, I learned new vocabulary words and eventually, I fully understood all that was being said in the news update. Next, to practice some of my Spanish speaking, I watched a video titled "35 Minutes of Spanish Conversation Practice - Improve Speaking Skills" by the YouTube channel Learn Spanish with SpanishPod101.com. The video covered many common phrases and daily conversations in Spanish. There were many sections covering topics such as travel, emergency calls, and common phrases by parents. There was also a quiz to test my listening comprehension and many tips throughout the video on ways to practice speaking. Both of these videos were very helpful and I think that by practicing listening and speaking together my ability to comprehend aspects of the Spanish language will greatly increase. 

4/15/23 Called my grandma (a native Spanish speaker) (30 minutes)

To finish up my self-study process I decided to call my grandma and have a conversation in Spanish. My grandma is a native Spanish speaker and she is one of my biggest role models. She has always advocated for me to continue learning Spanish and she helps to keep the culture present in my life. Our conversation was mainly in Spanish, but she helped me through some phrases in English. We talked about graduation, school, my last soccer game, and how my Spanish studies were going. I have always tried to communicate in Spanish with her and her husband (who only speaks Spanish) which is why my proudest moment was when I understood and responded to him: something I have always had trouble doing without a translation. My grandma was very proud of all that I have recently accomplished and I was very happy to be able to tell her in Spanish.  

Duolingo (5 hours)

I used the app "Duolingo" to help me study Spanish when I had some time to kill, but I wanted to be productive. The app teaches users how to read, write, listen, and talk in Spanish through a series of questions and lessons. My highest streak on the app was thirteen days and in that time I advanced a level and moved up in rankings to join a new league (a scoring system or leaderboard). I studied vocabulary surrounding how to express travel needs, asking how people are, and talking about schedules through the lessons I took. I also practiced my reading and listening comprehension more through the stories on the app. These consisted of short stories between characters that periodically had me answer a few questions about what I had just learned. I think that Duolingo was a tool that really helped me move towards meeting my language goals because of the amount of time I used it and the repetition of vocabulary and ideas throughout the lessons. 

Studying using the book "Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day" (3 hours, 30 minutes)

Before I started my Spanish self-study process my Senior year my grandma bought me a book on learning Spanish. The book is titled "Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day" and it is written by Kristine Kershul. Throughout my senior year, I studied Spanish using this book and I believe that it helped to keep the basics of Spanish fresh in my mind through the repetition of the number system, alphabet, months, weather, etc., and helped to improve my reading comprehension and writing. The book was very interesting and told me details about Hispanic culture such as how the naming system works. I learned many different topics through reading, writing, and labeling vocabulary around my house. Studying Spanish through this book helped me to bring Spanish into my daily life and was a great tool to push me toward my language goals.