Many people would say that growing up with parents who could not speak english would be to my disadvantage, but I disagree. Growing up I always believed it to be exhausting having to translate and never really feeling normal. I believed it to be dragging and many times protested against it, but besides it being tiring, I also felt embarrassed. Yeah embarrassed of having to deal with my parents and not being able to communicate with them like other kids did with their parents. As I grew older the issue only grew because at that point I began to resent them for putting me through what I believed to be embarrassing moments of confusion, but all of this changed when I finally realized that my parents did the best they could with what they had.…
I was the first generation of my family to be born in the United States, so my family often spoke English and Spanish at home. When I entered pre-school I began learning more English and less Spanish. Throughout that year I began to speak less and less Spanish at all because I was ashamed of it. I yearned to be like the other girls in my class, those who spoke without an accent. My family rejoiced that I began speaking fluent English,…
I came to the United States from Colombia when I was just 3 years old. I was brought into the country of bright opportunities because like every other parent, my mother and father wanted what was best for me. My mother had to give up her dream job in Colombia, which was being an accountant for an essentially important company, in order to facilitate my well-being and open up the doors for my future. As the years progressed, I began to acquire both languages, English and Spanish, but there was a point where I became tongue tied and had to assist in speech therapy. My parents would talk to me in Spanish at home but in school all I would hear was English, my mind was extremely confused to the point that I made my own language by using both tongues in one sentence.…
have always prioritized my academic achievements for the pursuit of higher success. Yet I have engaged in a variety of activities that have made me a more mature, well-rounded person. An organization, named Interact Club, had a significant impact in leading me to gain leadership, teamwork, and interpersonal skills.…
Language is speaked in many forms. Some people may grow up learning one language but choose to speak another and others might simply grow up speaking only one language. As Chinese myself, I have been speaking Chinese for my whole life. My first language was Chinese and although I’ve learned to speak Japanese and English throughout my childhood, however, Chinese have become one of the most common languages I speak daily. Similar to me, my parents also prefer to speak Chinese although they’ve been living in America for the past ten years. They are not exactly so called American, but they have gotten use to the life style in America that they understand nearly perfect English. But my parents still speak to me in Chinese when I call them to ask about their days. They tell me about their work, their days, their lives in Chinese and they speak to their friends to their native language. One time I got curious and I tried to have a conversation with them in English. They started alright, speaking English with their deep Chinese accent, but before I realized it, it turned into Chinese conversation. I asked them the reason behind this logic and they told me that it’s because they couldn’t seem to find the right English words. I wondered for a second what this meant and I finally realized that it’s because they are not familiar with English language like they are with Chinese. Although they have been living in America for a long time and have mastered English language, they choose to speak Chinese freely because they feel…
Although this really did not help that much because I did know zero percent of english. Dedication, talent, and motivation were the biggest clues for me to adapt to another system, which every country has their own way to educate their people, and other language that I had never spoke in my all life. Since I came to the United States, in eighth grade, I had a goal and that goal consists to dominate a second language. Obviously, while the years are passing we all learn something new and get more knowledge, I'm proving how dedication, talent, and motivation will get you farther than you…
Because when I came to the United States at a young age I faced a lot challenges and hardships but I decided to keep going and stay resilient. One of the challenges I faced was learning the English language. At the beginning when I arrived the U.S I did know any single word in English and that was upsetting and sad to me because everybody in my school knew how to speak it. English language has always been a difficult language to learn for me. But, I try to not give up and I am improving in it through my diligence. Nevertheless, I was dedicated to develop my English skills through learning and studying new vocabulary words and tried to use them in my daily life dialogues. My growth mindset was pushing me every single day to learn and face my obstacles. I also liked to read a lot of books which improved my reading skills and correspondingly gave me new words and notions. Despite, sometimes I do not understand the senses of the words while reading it I used a dictionary. I listened to music and read the lyrics of the songs because I have told that this is one of the effective methods to learn a language. On the other hand, I have taken plenty of workshops, programs on how to progress in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. I know learning a language is hard but what it is harder is to not give up and stay focused on my own work. I have failed a lot of times in the past but once I fail I…
I am Puerto Rican, or, as my family constantly reminds me, "boriqua". As a result, I grew up learning two languages; English and Spanish. However, ever since I have attended school I have lost much of my Spanish. Unlike the other kids who cried and clung to their moms, I was very enthusiastic about starting school. I think the enthusiasm came from my parent's encouragement to learn, as well as their assurance that they'd be there at the end of the day to pick me up and take me back home.…
Bradford, I really enjoyed your post as we share the same ideas and seem to have the same experiences with multiple supervisors. I liked how you stated up front that unity of command and unity of direction mean different things and not should not be confused with each other. To me, unity of command is the most important because unity of direction cannot exist without it, especially in criminal justice. Like you said, each officer should only have one direct supervisor that is ultimately responsible for him or her because confusion can arise if there are more than one. I saw this recently at my agency and it really affects the newer officers if the problem is not corrected. I also saw how unity of direction can really work when one…
I often thought about the advantages of being bilingual for one, no one else understood what you were saying unless they spoke the same language. Learning and understanding another language did make feel like a different person. In school, I was always trying to fit in with the other students and show them that I could speak the language properly. They did see the effort that I was making and even so allowed me to sit at their lunch table or play with them during recess. Today, I do not really feel any different in how I identify and my level of proficiency in the languages that I already know.…
In second grade I had a fair level of Spanish reading, but what was difficult for me was to learn English and it it took me two days to learn the ABC’s in English. I understood nothing of writing English. My teacher started giving me small lessons on it; I loathed English so much I wanted to give up. In fourth grade, I started to write essays that took me forever, and I was so deeply embarrassed, because I would get my papers basically all in red of corrections. As time passed I hated books more and more, every time I would have to read I would get pissed or thought, “oh great… more reading.” I needed to change. I am not very sure how the change occurred but I know it happened; it was about…
When my sisters and I first came to the United States I had trouble understanding American English. Though we had been taught English in our school in the camp we were not prepared to learn in a completely English environment in a completely new culture. The transition was quite a challenge for us, not to mention starting well into the second half of the school year, but we pressed through and managed to get good grades.…
We as English as second language students, frustrate at the beginning due to the lack of communication with others and for instance, most of the time, we feel the impulse to connect with other people that speaks our language. For some of us who came from countries where the Gregorian alphabet is not used, the learning process becomes even harder. Pronunciation or speaking is a challenge too because most of the time we are betrayed by our accent. However, once the English skills start improving due to the acculturating process, we assimilate that there is no going back and we look forward to master our English skills. Learning foreign languages opens our minds to new ways of thinking. While there are some people that learn a language because of interest or they want a challenge, we have to learn in this case English because of a practical need for…
I realized then, that I had a lot of work to do. I remember feeling overwhelmed with the idea of having to learn a new language. I was placed in a classroom along with other students who were in the same situation I was in, and we were taught the alphabet in English. If I remember correctly, it took me almost two years to completely learn English. But…
After teaching French for the last four years of my career, this is my first year going back to teach English to English Language Learners (ELL) at Kaleidoscope Academy. For a semester, I worked mostly with seventh and eighth graders with English Proficiency Levels ( ELP) between three and five. The ELPs tell that these students have great social English communication skills, but their academic language is not proficient yet; that is why many of them still need ELL instruction. My goal for this year was to increase my ELL students vocabulary so they can be better readers and writers. I want my students to be able to read and understand different types of texts and books and to write with a variety of vocabulary for different purposes.…