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. It all began in the year of 1989. I was born to Debra Taylor, a woman who wanted out of the military more than you could ever imagine. She was a woman who, at the age of twenty, would go to the extreme of getting pregnant to get out of the military. This meant that I was born to a single …show more content…
School was an overwhelming place for me as a child. The teacher told my mother many times that I was great at socializing, although, I took too much time cleaning my desk and thus never finish the assignments. The teacher would send me home with simple books to practice reading to my mom. I would bring them home to read to my mom, but my mom never wanted to listen to me read and so I never practiced reading. She later told me that she felt they were “stupid.” To this day, I wonder if she knew the effect she had on my reading development. Under those circumstances, the school and my mom decided it was better to retain me in first grade. Fortunately, the retention made my grandma realize that I needed her guidance in academics at a young age. By the age of eight, my grandma gave me the best gift she could have ever given me. It was a huge red dictionary. On the inside cover she scribed, “….” I would follow her directions every night for a long time. Today, I wonder if it helped me or not. Many times, I would know the word and the definition, but not know how to use the word in a sentence. I was learning the words and definitions out of
This chapter focused mainly on misconceptions and attempting to clarify those misconceptions about accents. In the opinion of linguists, accent is a difficult word to define. This is due to the fact that language has variation therefore when it comes to a person having an accent or not, there is no true technical distinction because every person has different phonological aspects to their way of speaking. However, when forced to define this word, it is described as “a way of speaking” (Lippi-Green, 2012, p.44). Although Lippi- Green identified the difficulty linguists have in distinguishing between accent, dialect, and another language entirely, they were able to construct a loose way of distinguishing. Lippi- Green states that an accent can be determined by difference in phonological features alone, dialect can be determined by difference in syntax, lexicon, and semantics alone, and when all of these aspects are different from the original language it is considered another language entirely (Lippi-Green, 2012).
Chicago’s accent situation is almost identical to those in other cities, you cannot expect everybody from New York to have a thick Brooklyn accent, and this lies true within the Windy City. As shown through the script experiment, a large percentage of people do have three of the characteristic vowel changes that distinguish the accent, but only a small minority speaks with all the vowel changes that make up the quintessential accent.
From the Glass Castle, Jeannette’s mother read picture books with Jeannette and her siblings in their early childhood. This activity established good reading habits for Jeannette and her siblings. When she was older, after dinner, her father read the dictionary with the kids, looked up the words they did not know, and discussed the definitions (Walls 56). Because of the reading habits her parents gave her, every time Jeannette did not understand a word, she looked up the word in the dictionary. The routine of reading dictionary after dinner and the habit of looking up an unknown word in the dictionary helped Jeannette build up her vocabulary. With abundant vocabulary and excellent reading skills, Jeannette did not have problem with her college admission test. Studies show that having good reading habits not only increase the volume of children’s vocabulary but also help them perform well on their exams. In the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Policy Information Center 's report, The Family: America 's Smallest School, the author points out the importance of reading to children:
Although, I have been a good student at school, I always have struggles doing my homework like any other student. Sometimes, it is difficult to me to understand my assignments; however, I always try to obtain a knowledge from my courses. In this case English 111, like any other course left a mark on my academic and personal life.
Even if a parent reads to his or her child often, the child’s cognitive development is likely to be affected by his or her teacher. If the teacher does not succeed in inspiring the child, then it is likely that the rate of cognitive development will be lower than a child with a successfully inspiring teacher, regardless of parent to child reading rate.
It was back when I was 14 years old in the 8th grade, when I got an opportunity to take a trip to Washington D.C. to learn, explore, and meet new people in a different state. There was a long way to go, for me to be able to be chosen to go on the trip. This trip was competitive because only 10 students would get to go. I had to do some paperwork to let the assistant principal at my middle school know I’d be participating in competing with other kids at school to go to Washington D.C. I wrote an essay explaining who I was, how would this trip benefit my future, and why did I want to go to Washington D.C. I’d also be in charge of raising $500 on my own and also in the essay I had to explain how would I raise $500 on my own. I was settle to be
In kindergarten we had a teacher, her name was Mrs. Vanstraten. She would spend a half hour with each kid helping them with letters, writing, and reading small base words. In first grade we were sent home with level A reading books, if we could read level a we would graduate to level B, this continued all the way thru fifth grade. I learned to read with the help of my mom. My mom was always helping me point to our words sounding out words, and even reading the book multiple times a night for practice. My mom was the one who inspired me to try harder because she believed in me, which made me believe in
Early literacy for me was challenging. I started to learn reading and writing at age six. I still remember students from school would make fun by not knowing how to read, but they never knew I was struggling with both English and Spanish reading and writing. My parents are both from Guatemala; they came to the U.S at a very young age. My father was the only one to go to school. My mother did not attend school because it was difficult by her immigration status. When I was little, Spanish was not my mother's first language, so when she wanted to help me with reading and to write in English, she had a difficult time. My mother taught me reading and writing in the Mayan language. My father only taught me reading and writing one hour per week. Whenever my father was through showing me an hour of writing and reading, I had to explain the same lesson to my younger
Throughout my childhood I was never very good at reading. It was something I always struggled with and I grew to not like reading because of this. As a child my mom and dad would read books to me before I went to bed and I always enjoyed looking at the pictures and listening. Then, as I got older my mom would have me begin to read with her out loud. I did not like this because I was not a good reader and I would get so frustrated. During this time I would struggle greatly with reading the pages fluently, I also would mix up some of the letters at times. I also struggled with comprehension, as I got older. My mom would make me read the Junie B. Jones books by myself and then I would have to tell her what happened. Most
During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing elementary phrases which were commonly taught in the second and third grade. With the motto, "Improve your child's reading and writing skills in just four weeks!" I was bound to become the next Mark Twain. The method of this course specialized in the improvements of word acquisition rates as well as reading speed; however, it lacked in the area of teaching comprehension. At a young age, I was instilled with the dire need to be highly educated and although I was unable to experience a fun and adventurous childhood like many other children, I am grateful for being raised with a greater knowledge and wisdom than that ingrained in many.
It felt she did not care to teach the subject to me, because a lot of the other classmates were getting it, and I was not, I was getting a personal misdirection, and my reason was because she had such a disliking for me. If I could get in trouble for something she was going to get me in trouble for it. The teacher would e-mail and call my mother, because she could not make parent teacher conferences, and I would hear only negative attributes of myself, “being a bad student,” “very disruptive,” “no interest in class,” at one point I was even called leader of a “dark gang,” in the school; I wish my mother would have kept this to herself, because I did not take the criticism lightly. Hearing all this, and already having negative feelings toward this teacher and english, I was in no mood for reading and writing, i was ready for war. It really was not until the end of middle school and started realizing how much of an impact reading and writing was starting to take. I was going to be entering high school soon, and they did not have accelerated reader, so it was not going to be as easy to pass. It was not until the end of 8th grade that I realized I should probably work on my english abilities.
When interacting with fellow members of their culture, individuals use speech patterns like dialects and vernacular, communicating a sort of inclusion to the group. Dialects vary among different regions depending on the distinct uses of the language, such as accents and pronunciation, of those who inhabit the area. Vernacular also varies among different cultures as the use of language structure differs in ways such as grammar. When one interacts with others of another region that use a different vernacular or dialect, they can become more aware of their own identity as these differences accentuate the distinctness across cultures.
Allan Bell’s theory of audience design argues that your speaking style varies according to the audience you are speaking to. Bell studied New Zealand newsreaders on various radio stations and discovered that more formal pronunciation was used on stations where the audience was known to consist of professional, educated people. Interestingly, some of the newsreaders worked on several stations and their pronunciation would change to suit the style of the station (p.301 course book). Bell examined the pronunciation of the letter /t/
Throughout my life, reading and writing were a positive thing because of the support from the people around. I was never really the confident or extroverted type of person back in the day. This then caused me to be anxious when I read or be doubtful of what I wrote. I can still remember breaking balls of sweats and tensing up whenever I had to read something aloud in elementary. It was a pretty big social problem for me but I can also recall many times where I was laughing and having fun while doing something with reading or writing with my mother. Although there have been many things that affected me so far in my literary journey, my mother has been the most supportive and impactful person to me by reading short stories, going to the library, and giving me writing prompts. One of the activities I liked to do before I fell asleep was to read.
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.