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Foreign language teaching method
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Literacy Narrative
Do you know what it is like to have English as a second language, coming from a Palestinian-American family? Learning Arabic alone was a difficult task to achieve, but with the help of my parents and the Arabic classes my parents enrolled me into, I was able to master it in a reasonable period of time. My other task was to master English as I was enrolled in English- only schools. My parents pushed me through this process by putting me into multiple programs for foreign students, and they also pushed me into reading and writing at least one book and one essay a week, whether it was a paragraph, or more than one-page long. It required much patience and concentration, but it was a very attainable goal that required a satisfying amount of dedication.
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They gave me so much homework, leaving me no time for myself. These programs involved reading and writing multiple times a week; at first the teacher made me memorize the letters, but I had to write each letter twenty times while memorizing them. After memorizing the letters, they gave me assigned spelling words that I would have to have memorized within a matter of two weeks. Then we moved into basic vocabulary words and so forth and so on. My parents also supported me by providing me number of elementary school related books, such as Dr. Seuss and Midnight Stories. They would gradually push me to read each book they purchased me, until I would actually start enjoying them and read them on my own; which made me request them for more books to buy. After each story, they would command me to write a short summary about the book, i.e what I enjoyed about the book and what the actual book was
Because America is such a diverse country, public schools are faced with the challenge of providing students from all over the world with a quality education. As Chen points out “public schools have embraced the linguistic challenge presented by immigrant students” (¶1). Then, No Child Left Behind law was approved, and it required every public school should have an English Secondary Language (ESL) program that will provide the “academic support” for English Language Learners (ELLs). ELL parents are happy that their children are getting education help from the school, but it has raised the question of how successful are the ESL programs? Do ESL programs provide enough “academic support” to all ELL students? Do ESL programs have enough tools to help students learn English? Some ELL parents complain that ESL programs do not help their child learn English. A successful ESL program is not based solely on the test scores, but also the ability to connect parents, teachers, and students together to strengthen tools that will help ELL students to learn a new language in reading, writing, and speaking.
Also most students are 1st generation Americans. Even though I speak Arabic as well and I am able to understand and help them if they ever need translation we also have to keep in mind that there are a lot of different Arabic dialects. The parents of my ELL students are born in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen or Palestine.
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
Growing up in a bilingual household, I have struggled with many things especially reading and writing. Reading and writing have never been my strongest points. The first struggle that I can recall, is when I was about six or seven years old. I was beginning my education at Edu-Prize Charter School. I was a cute little kid, in the first grade, just like everybody else. But in the middle of the school year, my mom told me that my great, great aunt, who lived in China, was getting really sick and old. So if I wanted to meet her, it had to be now. Being a little kid, I didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t just go see the doctor, take some medication, or let time heal her. Unfortunately, now I know it was my mom’s way of saying that she was dying. My parents made the decision that it was probably the best way for me to understand my Chinese culture, along with meeting my relatives on my mother’s side of the family. So for a month, I had to leave my dad, my brother, my school, and all my
It was finally time to head to gym class in the afternoon where we were instructed to take part of a physical test. This test would determine how fit or unfit we are based on a system that was implemented by those with greater authority, on which concluded that it was on such a scale society should be based on. So it was that afternoon that I preformed the tasks that were instructed on to me and my peers. I was able to completed them to my utmost potential which can be consider to be something not so distinctive. It was on this day that I was mocked by one my peers of my lack of ability to preform the instructed physical tasks, that was a no brainer to such a fit individual like himself. It
As a child, I have always been fond of reading books. My mother would read to me every single night before I went to bed and sometimes throughout the day. It was the most exciting time of the day when she would open the cabinet, with what seemed to be hundreds of feet tall, of endless books to choose from. When she read to me, I wanted nothing more than to read just like her. Together, we worked on reading every chance we had. Eventually I got better at reading alone and could not put a book down. Instead of playing outside with my brothers during the Summer, I would stay inside in complete silence and just read. I remember going to the library with my mom on Saturdays, and staying the entire day. I looked forward to it each and every week.
Throughout my childhood, the idea of having a college education was greatly stressed. As a result, it was my duty as the next generational child, to excel in my studies and achieve a life of prosperity and success. Learning became the basic foundation of my growth. Therefore, my youth was overtaken by many hours spent reading and writing what was known to be correct "Standard" English. I first found this to be a great shortcoming, but as I grew older, I began to realize the many rewards acquired by having the ability to be literate.
I was born in Mexico and came to California at age 4. I lived in many places such as San Jose and Madera but ended up living in Huron. I started at age 6 in kindergarten. Everything went well until second grade. The reading got harder and so did the spelling. The teacher wouldn't really help me, she would just continue class as usual. I started to not do my homework and not work in class. It wasn't that I didn't want to do it, I did want to but the problem was that I didn't know how to do it. I had no one at home that could help me due to everyone being Mexican and didn't know any English at all. At the end they sent me to a DSPS program.
Have you ever imagine if you can able to read and write a difference language that does not your first language? I am a Vietnamese immigrant student and I am studying in the college in U.S. When I first attended college in U.S, I had had a hard time of reading and writing English. I spent most my time during the first three years to learning English. From learning at the church, to going to every classes or courses at the college I could find out about, reading and writing were what I was doing. I have been doing many things such as work and school together since I arrived here, but studying English was the number one important things that I have to be good at and I still enjoy doing it at every opportunity I get.
My relationship with literacy began when I started elementary school and that was the first starting point of my positive relationship with literacy. I really started to grow as a reader and writer throughout my middle school and high school years. Throughout my years of going to school I had many positive experiences that shaped my view of literacy today. My literacy skills have also enhanced throughout my educational years.
We read personal narratives in order to relate to other’s experiences and place ourselves in other’s to relate to their conflicts or learn about conflicts that we have yet to face. Reading about a similar experience helps us increase our sense of connection to others. Reading about an experience we haven’t encountered will better prepare us to face new challenges or help other people face them. In order to do these things, outstanding personal narratives should place the reader in the narrator’s shoes so the reader could understand everything the narrator went through in their experience. The most powerful personal narratives effectively deliver these benefits when they use imagery that connects us to the narrator’s emotional experience, have
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
Bilingual education have been a serious issue for immigrant student. Beginners in education who move to the United States, have an issue with communication, in how to understand English, and losing their identity. For immigrants students, not knowing a second language affect seriously their life in the United States. In his article “An Education in Language,” Richard Rodriguez presents how the English language became a barrier that changed him and his family. Rodriguez explains how hard the challenge of understanding English was for him during his early years of school. Besides, Rodriguez illustrates that his parents’ lives were affected by lacking education and their opinion about it. In addition, he moved over to pursue higher education.
My parents were very strict about education. They knew their children were intelligent. So if you were not doing well in school, you were playing around. I remember every time I had to read or go to the board to answer a problem, I would always make a mistake. I believe it was due to the amount of stress and possible failure. When my teacher told my parents that I was having a problem at school they thought I was just being lazy. I was immediately punished. Reading was not a wonderful activity for me.
Language has pioneered many interracial relationships and historical milestones. Language is a necessity for basic communication and cultural diversity. Being multilingual is a skill proven influential to a successful future. Due to rapid globalization, countries all over the world are stressing the importance of learning a second, or even third, language. With the exception of time and lack of resources, adults have very few widely applicable disadvantages to learning multiple languages. However, language learning as a child presents more complications. Some of those include not having enough funding at the elementary school level to introduce a program for secondary language, academic overload for the youth, stress for both the parent and student parties, and the mixing of languages. Not all of these complications are true in any or all situations, however, and the absence of them provides multitudes of opportunity for future career and academic success. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the parents or the education legislation to decide whether they encourage the learning of a secondary language at the young age necessary for retention. “The general consensus is that it takes between five to seven years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency,” therefore the younger a child begins to learn, the more likely they are to benefit to the maximum potential (Robertson). Keeping the language learning in high school or beginning the process earlier is a greatly controversial discussion that is important to address because of the topic’s already lengthy suspension.