My Bilingual Narrative

527 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays on being bilingual

It was a quiet afternoon in the spring of 2005, and my grandmother had come to visit. She silently observed as I read a book out loud to my younger brother, Luc. I wasn’t reading particularly quickly or fluidly, so my grandmother assumed I just couldn’t read very well yet. However, upon closer inspection, she realized I was translating the book from English to French so Luc, who did not yet speak English, would understand. French is my first language. I never gave my bilingualism much thought until I went to elementary school and made friends. When I went over to my friends’ houses, I noticed their monolingualism: none of them spoke French or any other language at home. Additionally, when they came over to my house, they noticed how alienated …show more content…

They simply thought it was strange. However, it was enough to make my young mind self-aware and self-conscious. I became deeply embarrassed of my French culture and my family. We were “different,” and that was not something I wanted to be. I desired nothing more than to be the same as everybody else. Try as I might, I could never quite fit in with everyone else. I grew up with a different culture and lifestyle, and it was impossible to hide. My family didn’t go to church, we ate different food, and we spoke a different language. While my friends were out eating dinner at the snack bar, I was at home, eating my mom’s homemade vegetable soup. While my friends were reading The Cat in the Hat, I was reading Le Gruffalo. And while they were going to the movies, I was going on walks with my family.
It wasn’t until eighth grade, when I befriended a boy named Josh, that I realized I had nothing to be ashamed of. He took French in school, and dreamed of making a career out of it. When I admitted to Josh that I was bilingual, he reacted in a way that made me rethink my perspective: he was ecstatic. He kept repeating how amazing he thought it was and was happy he now had someone to help him with his French homework. Speaking another language was one of his lifelong dreams, as his dad spoke French, but never taught

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Bien Pretty By Sandra Cisneros

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Bilingualism In Martin Espada's The New Bathroom

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    Learning new languages and cultures enhance the brain, but getting rid of them erases the soul. Bilingualism is an abstracted, virtually undefined word that seems to be stirring up complex discussions amongst various people. One example of the debating participants is Martin Espada with his essay, The New Bathroom Policy at English High School. He believes that the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking societies should coexist in harmony. Another example is Richard Rodriguez with his story, Hunger of Memory. He sees Spanish and English as two divergent worlds that shouldn’t interact. I believe that people should learn multiple views on bilingualism so we, as a whole, can figure out our difference and embrace, not erase, them.

    Read More

  • In Richard Rodriguez's Mother Tongue And A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    Coping with two different sides of you can be challenging especially in American society. By being bilingual you always have a small character inside of you telling you what to do and how to react. As being an immigrant myself, I agree on the importance of public language. Human beings have a natural instinct to be happy in socially involved activities. To communicate with your peers and have a mutual understanding is a great blessing. However, that doesn’t mean you disregard the importance of your own mother tongue that made you who you are and gave you a unique identity. Using myself as an example, I speak a tribal language that is full of rich culture and identity, signifying the story and history of our people. My father prefers my siblings and I do not speak any English at home and only speak Pashto. I try to go by his sayings because I believe that by living in a western society and going to English speaking schools, I will gradually assimilate into their community and will be able to communicate without difficulty. Contrary, by not speaking Pashto at home and with family, I will not only lose my language, but my intimacy to my unique culture and heritage. Therefore, I believe that you can use your mother language and public language together to only enhance your confidence in both

    Read More

  • Why I Am Proud To Be Bilingual

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    I can communicate with my family and friends that only speak one language. I can enjoy the marvelous stories that my grandparents and uncles tell me. I can also play with my cousins that live in El Salvador and Mexico. I am very proud of being bilingual because I represent the most important minorities in this great country, and I also represent other

    Read More

  • Bilingualism And Bilingual Values, By Maria De La Luz Reyes

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    The technique relies on a holistic approach that adopts instructions that allow students to actively participate in the learning process. This is easier for children that feel that the society appreciates their diversity through bilingualism and biliteracy. The society and parents need to encourage children to take up bilingual classes because they offer a lot of benefit to the society through favoring critical thinking, rationality, and sensitivity to other cultures, empathy, and detached or balanced awareness. However, Sonia Nieto mirrors a society that is made to fake being American and become ashamed of their family. It helps appreciate that it is not by choice that anyone speaks any other language as the first language and that the society and community influence the language of choice. Therefore, bilingualism cannot be detached from any community that freely promotes and accommodate the language spoken by the other community. Children and community members learn each other’s language without disregarding each other favoring effective learning that influences bilingualism and biliteracy in the long

    Read More

  • Competency Statement C-11

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    In my class, I have children who speak other languages at home, my goal is to include them and their language into our daily routine and this help teaches the other children to be open to the difference. I incorporate this into our classroom by hanging both language’s around our room, and go over the basic’s words during our group time for example, numbers, colors, shapes, basic sight words. The children’s whose first language maybe different will be excited to share with their friends what they know. I also find stories that are bilingual to use during our story time.

    Read More

  • Mother Tongue By Amy Tan And Richard Rodriguez

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    The writings of Amy Tan and Richard Rodriguez’s depicts a bilingual story based on two differing culture. On Mother Tongue, “Tan explores the effect of her mother’s “broken” English on her life and writing” (506). On the other hand, Richard Rodriguez “recounts the origin of his complex views of bilingual education through Public and Private Language” (512). From a child’s eyes, Tan and Rodriguez describe each joys and pain growing up in a non-English speaking family. Hence, may be viewed that cultural differences plays a major role on how one handles adversities.

    Read More

  • 'Private Or Public?' By Richard Rodriguez

    337 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, the author Richard Rodriguez argues that since there is a lack of bilingual education taught in American schools, many students face a loss of intimacy to their native language, leaving them identifiable-less. He makes this claim by expressing that although native language can cause divisions in communication, it is the basis structure to a person.

    Read More

  • “Richard Rodriguez: A Bilingual Childhood”

    1376 Words  | 3 Pages

    For more than 300 years, immigrants from every corner of the globe have settled in America, creating the most diverse and heterogeneous nation on Earth. Though immigrants have given much to the country, their process of changing from their homeland to the new land has never been easy. To immigrate does not only mean to come and live in a country after leaving your own country, but it also means to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations, social backgrounds, cultures, and mainly with the acquisition and master of a new language. This often causes mixed emotions, frustration, awkward feelings, and other conflicts. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author describes the social, cultural and linguistic difficulties encountered in America as he attempts to assimilate to the American culture. Richard Rodriguez by committing himself to speaking English, he lost his cultural ties, family background and ethnic heritage.

    Read More

  • Espada's Criticism: The Definitions Of Bilingualism

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    As I have read multiple articles about what bilingualism means, I have come to understand that it’s more complex than just speaking two or more languages. The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides three definitions of bilingualism: (1) the ability to speak two languages, (2) the frequent use (as by a community) of two languages, and (3) the political or institutional recognition of two languages. Espada’s view of bilingualism seems more in line with the third definition, and Rodriguez’s view identifies with the second one. I have developed my personal view as a mix of the second and third definitions. Although Merriam-Webster provides concrete definitions for bilingualism, people like Espada, Rodriguez, and myself have developed their own interpretation of bilingualism based on our cultural backgrounds and community environments.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: My Journey to Literacy

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    The second stage of being literate posed as a real challenge. In elementary school, I started to gain knowledge of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, punctuations and the different tenses. It was difficult because my first language was Creole, but I was forced back to the basics with my reading and writing skills when it came to learning French. I was int...

    Read More

  • A Language Barrier

    1256 Words  | 3 Pages

    From my experience, bilingual education was a disadvantage during my childhood. At the age of twelve, I was introduced into a bilingual classroom for the first time. The crowded classroom was a combination of seventh and eighth grade Spanish-speaking students, who ranged from the ages of twelve to fifteen. The idea of bilingual education was to help students who weren’t fluent in the English language. The main focus of bilingual education was to teach English and, at the same time, teach a very basic knowledge of the core curriculum subjects: Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. Unfortunately, bilingual education had academic, psychological, and social disadvantages for me.

    Read More

  • Bilingual Education Essay

    1431 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...thousands of years. Generally, bilingual education can mean any use of two languages in school, by teachers, students, or both – for a variety of social and pedagogical purposes. It also refers to the different approaches in the classroom that use the native languages of English language learners (ELLs) for instruction. These approaches include teaching English, fostering academic achievement, acculturating immigrants to a new society, and preserving a minority group’s linguistic and cultural heritage. Building on, rather than just discarding the students’ native-language skills, create a stronger foundation for success in English and academics. Also, if students learn languages at a younger age, it will be easier to remember and learn them, rather than if they were older. It helps to learn another language for students, and can later be useful in the future.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Validation

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent

    Read More

  • Negative Effects Of Bilingualism

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    BILINGUALISM have both Positive and Negative effects on the Child’s linguistic, Cognitive and Educational Development.

    Read More

More about My Bilingual Narrative

Open Document