Portafolio 3B: Interacción con mi «compa» de conversación

Get to know someone in or near the Stanford community who is a native speaker of Spanish. Some members of the community are heritage speakers who grew up in a Spanish-speaking home in the U.S., and others are native speakers from Spanish-speaking countries.

To locate a conversation partner, consider using one of the Language Conversation Partners (LCPs) provided to you for free by the Center for Teaching & Learning, but keep in mind that your interactant for this assignment must be a native/heritage speaker. You may also ask your friends if they know anyone in the Stanford community who speaks Spanish, but take care to use politeness in seeking a conversation partner:  remember that speakers of Spanish, just like speakers of English, come from a variety of backgrounds, so don’t assume someone is a native speaker based solely on background or appearance. Try to find a conversation partner with whom you share interests or activities, for example, in other classes, campus organizations, music or art events, or athletics. Remember to be considerate when planning to get together: give your partner plenty of notice when scheduling appointments and be prepared to return a favor for one extended. For example, international graduate students have appreciated someone to proofread their research papers in English.  Many students have developed lasting friendships in this way.

Meet with your conversation partner often—once a week or more is ideal—to practice conversation in Spanish. (If you can chat in Spanish while doing a shared activity you normally do, that’s even better!) When you meet, your Spanlang 3 Progress Card will be a helpful tool for you to practice.  Then, for Portafolio 3B, converse for a full 15 minutes or more and then fill out the observation questions in this assignment.

OJO: During your conversations, be sure to be an active participant by asking questions and responding to your partner. Do your best to react appropriately to what’s being said by asking follow-up questions and/or adding personal comments, in order to initiate, maintain and close the various conversation topics. You’re a beginner, of course, and an occasional social gaffe may indeed occur. But do your best to say, for example, ¡Qué interesante! when your partner tells you something interesting, or ¡Cuánto lo siento! when they tell you something sad. But give yourself a little grace, too. Language learners do make mistakes, and that's ok. Saying ¡Cuánto lo siento! may come in handy for those instances, too!