Thinking in My First Language

Belal Shalabi
6-13-13
English 1157-03
Litracy memoir draft

Thinking in My First Language When I Write in English

English is an international language that people officially use all around the world. I have graduated from Sinjil high school in Palestine in 2009. I have decided to go back to the United States to study. It was hard for me to move to a new country after living twelve years in Palestine. My brother mentioned me to enroll in the Intensive English Language Program at University of New Orleans, that’s where he used to study. I agreed him and enrolled in this program. There was a placement test in the first day of school to choose the levels for students. I did a good job in my Grammar, listening, and reading, but bad in writing. It was my first time writing a paragraph or a sentence in English that day. I had placed in level three in writing and grammar, and level four in listening and reading.
The next day was my first day of classes, I was so afraid of being in class and answering questions I didn’t understand about myself. That was the hardest day for me in the United States. I have started feeling normal after few classes in school. My teacher for writing and grammar was a wonderful teacher; she helped me a lot in my whole essays. I had an “F” in my first essay, grammar mistakes took the first place in my essay, and thinking in my first language was the second problem in the essay. When I used to write in Arabic in high school, the teacher used to focus on the general topics without caring about any details, It was like fast-writing in English. I started getting better every other essay I wrote by the help of my teacher and the practice everyday. My practices helped me a lot to be more detailed in the body paragraphs and sentences.