I was only nine years old when I moved to the US from El Salvador to live with my mom. At that time I didn’t know any English at all. It was really hard for me to communicate with friends and teachers. After six months I decided to learn English. The last nine year have been hard work, but because I’ve been dedicated to learning English I can now say that I’m bilingual. Working through this challenge has taught me that anything can be accomplish by hard work and dedication. Learning this language has been a big challenge. It’s been super hard to understand, read, write, and speak. When I was younger, I couldn't understand anyone at all. I used to get bullied by a guy because I didn’t know English and the accent I had when I spoked. He would
I am not white, but I am not Mexican either. I am, however, a first generation Mexican American with parents from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Perhaps I do not know what it is like to cross the border that refrains me from being Mexican, or the color of my skin that refrains me from being white, but my own personal experiences make me the Mexican American that I am today. Growing up I celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks, and the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe with matlachines.
For bilinguals, education normally starts off as a challenging time when little English is spoken in their home. Rodriguez, a first generation Mexican American, had a limited exposure to English because Spanish was entirely spoken together with his family. Therefore, he considered it to be his private language because he felt most comfortable and confident using it. Due to Richard’s insufficient practice with English, he suffered developing and speaking with others outside of his household. As a result, Rodriguez’s parents took awareness and encouraged him to speak in English at home.
she would
As a Cuban-born woman, my expected role in society is clearly defined; my thoughts and personality have a mold into which they must fit. However, a month before my fifth birthday my family made the decision to move to the United States and in doing so liberated me from these expectations and gave me the freedom to explore my own interests and beliefs. Ten years later, they were making preparations for my Quinciañera. Due to my Cuban heritage, my coming of age was set to be commemorated by a very long and very expensive night of food, dance, and family. For the same cost as the down payment on a relatively small house, I would be given the opportunity to put on a show in a dress that restricted my airways and provide food and drink for about
¨Dominican or Cambodian?” one of my peers asked. I did not know how to respond. This question stumped me and a lot of things were swirling in my mind. I suddenly felt offended.
Most individuals are apprehensive about changes, but there may be no reason. Changes can bring benefits to those who experience them. In the essay “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” Richard Rodriguez explores his life as a bilingual child. He discusses the many changes he experiences as he goes from being fluent in Spanish to being fluent in English. Rodriguez dissuades the reader against bilingual education which is the education of nonnative English speakers in their native language.
Flashback to my junior year. I sat quietly in my AP Lang class as my teacher, Mrs. Fisher, announced that the reading competition between the language arts classes called for the book count for September. She stood at the board, marker in hand, staring out expectantly at her large class. Hands shot up across the classroom, and my own nervous hand rose up to join them. Mrs. Fisher happily chalked up the small fortune of books that our class had read.
I practiced learning and using it from a very young age. As I got older, my parents decided to transfer me to an international school where I started to learn English as my second language. The new school environment transformed and gave me a passion to learn another language, and this was a strong foundation that helped me to make the decision of pursuing a degree in the United States 6 years
I have cheated at several points in my life, from spelling tests in first grade, to worksheets in ninth grade Physical Science. The most recent however, was on a Spanish test just this year. My uncle just died, so I haven't really been able to think of anything as being very important. One of these unimportant things on my mind was this Spanish test. I was completely unprepared and I didn't really have the will to actually make myself do it, so when I went in during second period to take my test, I had absolutely no idea what any of the answers were.
In grade school, we─Latinos─were prohibited from speaking Spanish at school as the administrators believed that it would be offensive to non-Spanish speakers. Could they not surmise how it would affect us; we were in the land of American citizens and spent most of our lives being discriminated or looked at freakishly owing to how or what we spoke. Having spent my childhood being ashamed of my heritage and refusing to speak Spanish unless I had no other way to communicate with my parents, I felt angered. My older brother once declared that Hispanics were brainless and denied being Mexican. Longing to defend these people who spent their lives discriminated against and struggling to find an honest job on account of their citizenship, I found my passion.
Surprisingly, I do not exactly recognize how or when I became bilingual. However, I formulated a theory, which states that I became bilingual unconsciously; in other words, I acquired the language. At the age of seven or eight years, I loved to play with some English books my father had. Moreover, I started listening to music in English at a shortage and I frequently repeated everything without realizing its meaning. Consequently, that could have assisted me in acquiring pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar structures without myself noticing it.
First of all, my experience of learning English was a great process which took fifteen years as a Turkish native speaker. When I was seven years old, I started to learn English and I am able to learn languages. When I was five years old, I was watching cartoons in English and in my opinion it was so helpful for me to learning a new language. I have been learning English for fifteen years including my college life. I studied American Culture and Literature in Bilkent University.