As I have been living in Canada for most of my life and studying in an English-based school since grade one, I am a perfect student for Yonsei Underwood International School. When I first arrived in Canada, I did not know how to speak english. However, over the past twelve years I have been living there, I not only adapted quickly to the new environment of the school and its all-english classrooms, but also became a fluent English speaker. In addition, due to my sufficient and quickly improved english capabilities, after only three years of living in Canada, I was able to take regular classes than classes that are offered to students who lack the abilities to comprehend english. In fact, this is extraordinary because most students take five
Canada has officially been bilingual since the Constitution Act in 1867 (Santrock et al., 284). Since this act researchers have found many advantages of bilingualism on cognitive development. Bilingualism enhances mental flexibility such as divergent thinking, task-switching efficiency, and promotes advanced vocabulary. Bilingual children have superior meta-linguistic awareness; consequently, they are more aware of the structure of language and its nature. Bilinguals are more efficient at attention control; they focus on important tasks and information with ease. French courses should be mandatory for all Canadian students since bilingualism benefits meta-linguistic awareness, mental flexibility, and control of attention.
Before I was able to enter main high school program at Fairmont, they placed me into an ESL program due to my frog-like English. The program was placed in a special campus; it was like an isolated facility. But it was not too negative, since I would have feel even more embarrassed to face other native speakers with my English then. There, the teachers tried their best to babysit their students with tons of essay and journal topics to crawl out the students’ hidden potentials in English. Additionally, they also added some simply high courses so that students would not fall too far behind with their education programs as well as giving a sense of American education system.
Through the process of acquiring knowledge in this course, I have learned countless aspects about my own self. Amidst the very challenges I faced, the act of communication, management, and leadership, are among them. Being bilingual, my communication skills are on par yet at times hinder me from articulating my intention precisely as I have meant them. With every socialization I have made, I have striven to do better and to be better. I have learned that although you may consider yourself “fluent” in a foreign language, there are phrases or intonations to which come across as something entirely different from what you intended to say causing the message to be lost between the barrier of the two communicators.
I once heard someone say, “I can hear your Washingtonian accent.” “Me?” I questioned him in disbelief. “Yeah,” he replied. Then with a little more cheek than I should of, I responded with, “no ya don’t!” and walked away. I remember thinking to myself he was the one that was dropping letters out of words when he spoke. Later on, I realized why I had responded the way I did. I had a perception about accents and dialects that I had subconsciously acquired as I grew up.
My Michigan is an old teacher of mine his name is Mr. Stem, he was my science and math teacher for 5th grade,, I had trouble mostly in math and he knew i was good at it so if he knew I needed help he would help me understand what we were doing in class same with science, if i ever needed help with either of the subjects i knew he would be there to help me just like any teacher would, he was a really approachable teacher even outside of school you could walk up to him and he would help you if you needed it, last year he retired and I am happy he was one of the teacher that I had to help me through Math and Science in 5th grade which made 5th grade so much easier because he was so approachable and easy going. If you ever needed him he was there
racie Allen of the comedy team of Burns and Allen was once asked how one should speak French. She replied, “Well, you speak it the same way you speak English; you just use different words.” When trying to assist in instructing English language learners, they usually have many concepts and language abilities that they need to master, as do the teachers that are trying to teach them. With the incorporation of the concepts and approaches to identify and assess the issues and concerns that we have learned in our classroom instruction, such as lesson preparation, building background, and comprehensible input, we can indeed teach our future English language learners all the right moves with all the right words.
An immersion school in Charlotte, North Carolina surrounds their students with French, German, and Japanese and do not teach English vocabulary, spelling or grammar until the third grade. It showed that “In 2001, 94% of the third graders and 100% of the fifth graders in that immersion school scored at or above grade level in reading in English. (Stewart)”, their percentages actually proving to be greater than the elementary schools that do not focus on foreign languages. Besides English, students who study foreign languages have been proven to excel more at other fields of education such as math, science, and social studies. Canadian researchers Turnbull, Lapkin, and Hart made a study of studying over 5,000 children’s tests scores who were in an immersion program throughout the province of Ontario, Canada. Concluding that the “test scores of immersion students were comparable to scores of students in the regular program. However, by Grade 6, test scores of immersion students in mathematics and writing surpassed those of students in the regular
To be an American means to go about life being yourself, doing what makes you happy, and knowing what you want to do and doing it. My past built me into who I am today, and because I chose to do what I wanted and lived my life the way I wanted it helped me become the strong person I believe I am.
This course has provided me with the insight and knowledge to know that English Language Learners are really valuable to our classrooms and that they may become discouraged because they feel discriminated or unaccepted. Through the stories of our classmates I have learned that my role as teacher is very important for these students and that I must work hard to make them part of my classroom and set them up with the tools to succeed in their education. As my classmates mentioned during our discussions, it can be very frustrating and often times discouraging.
To relate to my personal experience, my cousin who recently came to Canada, he is going through difficult time as an immigrant (newcomer) student. He’s parents do not think he receives adequate support to help him adjust to the new country and to learn English as a Second Language (ESL) learner. Even though the ESL program attempts to eliminate language barriers, I think that an hour a day is insufficient and is not differentiated
Learning a new language isn’t always easy. It has it’s up and down moments but once I learned that new language I felt accomplished and a lot of new opportunities open for me. My point is that learning English for me wasn’t easy, but once I learned English, I was able to help out my parents more and a bunch of new doors opened for me. You can say by knowing English I had a little more power now at home because they depended a lot on me now but it also felt great just to help them out with their English.
This can help grow the opportunities that are out in the world for the Canadian students. And according to Pearson, in 2014 Canada was ranked 4th in education out of 40 countries, with the U.S. included ranking at 14th (“Index”); which bilingualism may have contributed to their achievement. And in addition to Canada, there have also been countries with only one official language, yet they encourage their school systems to teach another language: countries such as Great Britain (Ginsburg). These countries aren’t just teaching other languages, but are also in fact teaching the linguistics’ culture that comes with
1. What is the difference between a. and a. I encountered the most significant challenge when I moved to Canada in January, 2012. Before I came to Canada, my English grade was very good in China, thus, I thought living and studying in Canada would not be too difficult. However, I did not do well in the ESL evaluation at all, and I was placed in ESL 1 at my high school. Most of my classmates there spoke very little English, and they did not spend much time and effort on studying English.
I was born and raised in Al-Ahsa in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. I lived there until I became twenty-three then I moved to Abha in the Southern Province. My family is originally from Al-baha which is also in the Southern Province. I acquired the Arabic Eastern dialect when I was a child to talk to my peers and teachers in Al-Ahsa, however at home I spoke my parents' dialect that (which) is very different from the Eastern Province and from other Southern Province’s dialects. When I was at school I had different social relationships with people from different places in Saudi Arabia that lasts until I graduate from high school. They all speak different dialects and accents; therefore I acquired different pronunciations, different words and different expressions. After my marriage, I moved to Abha. I used to be a teacher and I communicated with wide range of people who have different backgrounds and therefore different cultures. My Eastern dialect did not help to survive in such an environment. So I tried to create a dialect that is more understood by people in Abha. Therefore, living in different regional dialects makes me end up with having a mixture of dialects and accents that makes it hard for the Saudi listener to predict where I am originally from.
The promotion of foreign language education in America’s primary schools is vital to a child’s learning process, cultural awareness, and future in the workforce. Although they are scarce, there are some elementary schools across the United States that incorporate foreign language courses in the curriculum. This is most common in areas bordering other countries and relative to the language spoken, as French is taught most often along the border of Canada and Spanish along the border of Mexico. The process of learning another language is beneficial the learning process of all subjects because the methods used combine teaching procedures present in every class. The broad learning capacity gained from learning a foreign language and the ability to converse with other peoples helps people in careers as well, making them apt for any profession. Special schools have been created to promote a mixed-culture learning environment, such as charter schools and bilingual schools. The students who attend these specialized schools are exposed to different ways of life at the early age that is best for absorbing new information and living in two opposite cultures successfully. Foreign language education in primary school is necessary because during the years a child is in elementary school is the time in which children are most susceptible to taking in new information.