38 percent of all Hispanic parents only speak Spanish according to Pew Research center. In many cases this is why parents teach their children to speak Spanish for their first language. My parents learned English at a young age because they moved to the united states and were expected to know it. That was not the case for me. Growing up my family expected me to know English well. We lived in a small town called Fort Hancock, Texas with my grandparents. Everyone just spoke Spanish in that town and for that reason, I learned to just speak Spanish first. When we moved to Oklahoma City I was five. I had to transition to English, which was hard. I got made fun of, but luckily improved later on my literacy journey. Transitioning from Spanish to English was the most difficult thing ever. At age six I didn't know much. I thought Spanish was the only language since that's all I learned and heard. Being told by your parents you have to learn English before school was confusing. I didn't know why I had to learn a new language. I thought it was foolish because I already knew one. My parents first began to teach me by writing down sentences, and having me read to them what it said. I was able to understand it where, I knew what people were saying. It was difficult …show more content…
Especially with the help of my professor Ms. Piper. I was still having trouble on material on writing, but she helped me by teaching us the writing process, how to revise our drafts, and how to use outlines to help us. She has also taught us ways of breaking down paragraphs in piece of writing to help us understand what we are reading about. I feel with this new approach it opened my eyes on a way to help me excel on my writing, and reading. I am an excellent writer and reader than I was before. I am not the greatest, but I know if I just keep practicing on what I learned, and also learning I will become
I came from Mexico when I was 4 years, and like many of us I did not know English. Little by little I became fluent until I now can dominate English. Many people come to this country for a better life, but once in this country, we notice how essential English is for our everyday life. Being bilingual can be very beneficial for anyone in this country. I may be fluent in English, but I still prefer speaking in the Spanish language. This may be because at home that is all we speak. Both my parents do not really know English much. It’s better for me to talk to them in Spanish. I can try to talk to them in English but there may be a few words they won’t
disadvantaged child, I considered Spanish to be a private language. What I needed to learn in
It was difficult for me because I didn’t always understand certain words or phrases in English that I knew in Spanish, and sometimes I felt left out. In the middle of the year, my family moved me to a school with a Bilingual Program. Again, I had a hard time because now I had to learn all of the letter names and sounds in Spanish that I had been learning in English.
In conclusion, learning English was a challenge when it was first introduced to me, but now I have overcome that challenge. I am able to defend myself in the outside public world of English with no shame at all. I now understand how fortunate I am to know another language different from my own. For me, it is important to still have my first language because it is a way to retain the Mexican culture. It is just the way I was raised to believe.
...he gets them confused with the Spanish alphabet. Then we would go around the apartment getting familiar with everything and its' name. At first I was just tutoring Jesica, but then slowly members of her family where adding to the study group and soon everybody was trying to learn English. I didn't care because it was fun and I like the feeling of helping all of them learn something. Not only was I helping them, they begin to start helping me learn Spanish as well. It was sort of like I tell you and you tell me. They were always laughing at me because I spoke Spanish horribly and they thought that my accent was funny. It was funny to me that I know basically no Spanish and they knew no English but we were still able to communicate. That is an experience that I will never forget and I plan on tutoring them and they tutor me until I graduate college in May 2006.
Finally, the experienced you faced in life are the only ones who make you improve in life. These three experiences have made me more powerful, more secure of my self. Now I’m in 12th grade and I have learn more and a better English, is not perfect, but, I understand more then before, and I can write better then in 8th and 9th grade, everything thanks to the friends who help me out, the teachers and my motive to make it possible, ignoring all the ignorant people who always have to think on you. I have learned that in this country for be someone is important to learn and speak English, but you always have to be positive and make that come true. My goal now is to speak, read, write, and understand more by putting more of my part so I can defend my self from everything.
Writing Lessons by Stanley Fish was a reading I found myself dreading to start. Before actually beginning, my thoughts were that this reading would be extremely mundane. I then realized that it needed to be done and that the sooner I begun, the sooner I would finish. After finishing the first paragraph, I then found myself grasped and fully engaged in the reading - not just because I was interested in the content and story but because I actually was able to sit back and learn from it. Writing is something I feel comfortable and capable of doing, but this reading gave me a better grip on the actual structure of sentences.
In the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have survived the first semester but also what I have learned. The most important thing I have learned so far is how to become a better writer. I did not think it could really happen to me. I did not think I could handle all the work. I did not think I could actually become a better writer. Some how after all the hours of writing, and putting effort into the papers that I wrote this semester, I became a better writer. I did this because I concentrated on two very important areas, with the attitude of, if I could just become better in those then I would become a better writer. With help from an awesome teacher and a reliable tutor I have become a better writer by improving my skills in the areas of procrastination and content.
My mother thought it would be a great decision if I were to be learning a new language while learning English at the same time. With my brother she chose another path after seeing my results she decided to let him learn English first and then teach him Spanish. My history with books in school started in Kindergarten
There are 318.86 million people living in the Unites States. According to BBC news, out of the 318.86 million 54 million are Hispanics. There are 56 million Hispanics of which Mexican- Americans are the biggest group. What does it mean to be Mexican- American in modern day America? Everyone views Mexican-Americans differently. As well, everyone might describe this differently. I will give some examples. A 46 year old whose father was German and mother was Mexican. A 20- year old medical student, whose parents are Mexican Immigrants, but since he was born here he is an American citizen. An 18-year old girl who was brought here at the age of 2 but has no papers. A 1st generation cousin and a 2nd generation cousin fighting to see who is more
Growing up in a Hispanic household the first language that you learn should be Spanish, right? This was not the case for me, having two older sisters that were already in school learning English and always using English around me and my family. English was my first language, this helped with my early youth in picking up English at school faster. Learning English first was detrimental to learning Spanish, I learned informal Spanish called Spanglish. I would mix up English words with Spanish words and made it harder for me to construct vocal sentences. Being a Hispanic is difficult if you know limited Spanish, it was important for me to dedicate time to learn Spanish.
Spanish and English may both be widely spoken languages, however English is becoming more and more prevalent as a second language. For this project I interviewed an acquaintance who speaks Spanish as a first language and English as a second language. Spanish and English are similar in aspects such as grammar (in that they are both SVO—subject, verb, object—languages) and vocabulary (since both were influenced by Latin) (Shoebottom n.d.), however they are also quite different, especially in their phonology. These differences are what made learning it as a second language a little more difficult for this interviewee.
and my I’s, it was difficult to learn the different sounds. It was hard for me to grasp the concept of learning Spanish, because I was too young to keep up. It would have been easier for me if my dad had waited until I was older to understand. A better method would have been to enroll me into a head step school that would have helped him with his teaching. When I started school, I was put into ESL classes to help my development in both Spanish and English.
My family emigrated from the Dominican Republic when I was two years old. At the time, none of us spoke any fluent English. Due to their limited education,
Knowing nothing about the language and then suddenly having to learn how to read and write gave me big obstacles to overcome. During, elementary school through 6th grade I went to a bilingual school. We had a month of all English courses and then one month of all Spanish courses rotating along the school year. During, this time I learned how to read and write in English. Also how to use past, present, and future tenses while incorporating them into sentences. Not only was this difficult for me, but also having to read in front of classmates was embarrassing. Every time I would have to read out loud I could feel my face get hot and red. However, not only did I have to learn a new language and have an accent with it, but I also had to face the criticism from others who knew the language and had no struggle with