When your parents immigrate to the United States in search for a better life there is many new things that you have to adapt to. My efforts to learn, read, write and speak English have been a significant challenge in my life. I always heard that practice improved the body, that it made it stronger and it changed the brain, but I never believed it. Now as I grow older I have noticed that learning something new doesn’t always take much time, and that my body is capable of doing many things.
Growing up in Detroit, in a Latino household I entered school knowing little to no English. It all started when I was eight back in elementary school. Having to go to school without speaking English was not easy. Not being able to understand what was going
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When learning a new language, you don’t use your body physically, but mentally. Sometimes when we look at sports we only view the health related side and how they will impact the body physically. We never tend to think about the mental learning that is involved with the sport. You don’t go through the same pain when learning a new language as to when playing a sport, but you still have some obstacles to overcome. If you think about it learning how to play a sport and learning a new language both teach you things about your body. There have been many times that players make mistakes during a game, and that connects to all of the times that I made mistakes when I couldn’t pronounce words as a kid. It’s okay to make mistakes because you have a body with a brain, and not a computer. Ever since I was a kid I noticed that I wasn’t like all the other kids. My friends often learned school material faster than I did, and I always felt like I was let behind since my English wasn’t good. It was until I started to realize that everyone had different strengths and weaknesses and that it was okay to be slow. Everyone also has different learning styles and everyone’s body works
Many people have gone through what I went through, which is not knowing English when arriving to the United States. Tan wrote a story about her mother called “Mother Tongue” in which she describes her experience with her mother and
The migrant population, from different backgrounds, is increasing the numbers of children learning English in the United States. The children whose first language (L1) is other than English inability to communicate is the main issue they are facing during ...
When I first came to this country, I wasn’t thinking about the language, how to learn it, use it, write, how I’m going to speak with people who are next to you and you want to talk to them. My first experience was in Veterans School, it was my first year in school here in United States, and I was in eight grades. The first day of school you were suppose to go with your parent, especially if you were new in the school, like me. What happened was that I didn’t bring my dad whit me, a woman was asking me a lot of questions and I was completely loss, I didn’t have any idea of what she was telling me and I was scare. One funny thing, I started cry because I fell like frustrate, I didn’t know no one from there. Someone seat next to me, and ask me in Spanish what was wrong and I just say in my mind thanks God for send me this person, then I answered her that I didn’t know Engl...
In your company, a position that pays a higher salary and has more regular work hours opens up so you decide to apply for the job. Your supervisor tells you that you cannot be considered for the position because although you are fully fluent in English, you have a Vietnamese accent. Instead, another employee who speaks with a British accent is interviewed for the position. In Myriam Marquez’s article “Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public” and Amy Tan’s article “Mother Tongue” we get a taste of what it feels like to be linguistically impaired and discriminated against. Through exploring Tan’s and Marquez’s articles, one can see the importance of learning a certain amount of English so one can get far in life and not be taken advantage of,
In Miami, an eight year old girl from Barcelona, Spain, started school not knowing a single word of English. For half the day, she received half of her classes in Spanish and the other half in English. In five months, she learned English, and in seven months, she was the most active participating student in her class. Because she was placed in an English Language Learners (ELL) program, learning English was easy for her (HPL, 2013). There are many benefits of bilingual education in public schools for children of all ages, and many schools in the United States are fighting to keep ELL programs in the school systems.
I have been in the United States for almost seven years and the greatest obstacle that I have faced until now is learning English. It has been a journey for me to adapt to American society: a society that I knew nothing about and my language barrier restricted my ability to communicate. Starting my freshman year in high school, I borrowed kids’ books from my seven-year-old nephew and started reading with a dictionary alongside. I also practiced talking and writing in English with people around me, so that I could improve my English skill. My English gradually got better over time, but there were still moments when I struggle to express myself in English fluently. It was hard for me to apply for a job, and due to my lack of English, I shied away from educational opportunities because I was not confident with my second language. By the time I got into college, I had realized that my improvement in English was not up to par with the college level. Since my major was Business, I knew that it would require a lot of understanding and communication. I had a tough time in my English courses, but that struggle was worth it because I came out learning a lot. Even though I know that I still have a lot to improve on, I’m glad about how my English development and what I have learned this far.
Out of all the American institutions that exist today, the educational system has one of the greatest impacts on the lives of people, especially for immigrants and their children who do not know how to speak English. The English language is a whole new, different perspective for people who come to America for the first time; their whole environment changes as well. The majority of the people who come to the United States are Hispanics, who are usually at the poverty level. Like everyone who come to America, they want to pursue a better quality of life, and in order to do that, you have to know how to speak the universal language, the English language. The myth of education here is that everyone can learn the same way through the English language—but that is not the case.
Growing up in a household that didn’t speak fluent English hindered my ability to start learning at home before heading into elementary school. It later obstructed my ability to communicate with teachers and students whenever I needed help or when being anti-social for such a long time made me dread school every day just because
The process of learning a second language has many difficulties, but my process of learning another language reminds me to when I was a child trying to learn the alphabet and accomplishment the skills of speech to be able to communicate with others. Today, after the process I already did when I was a child, I have to start again in order to learn another language. First, I start to learn the alphabet that was not difficult at all; however, as I was learning more advance terms, learning English began to become more complex, but “The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell” (Douglass 101). In my English class the professor made me to learn ten simple words every single week although the problem was that every single word I had to know the correct spelling, pronunciation, and the use of the word. The process of learning new vocabulary was not as tough as being able to make coherent sentences. I remember, I joined into a conversation club with others students who want to learn English too, but some students had a higher or lower knowledge of English ; as a result, we exchanged our knowledge with the other students; learning from each other like Douglass when he learned from the other white boys; in contrast, he exchanged bread
I had to personally sit next to my teacher and learn English from the very bottom. While the other kids went outside for recess I had to stay in the class and get extra help with my activities. I remember my teacher getting frustrated with me because I didn’t understand anything. It got to that point that I had to have another classmate, who knew English and Spanish translate for me. After days went by I eventually became as good as anyone in the classroom.
As other organs and muscles, the brain ought to be trained in order to increase the function, such as memory. According to Hernandez, shows that while languages are translated, the activities in subcortical areas involved in motor control, which is associated with various memory functions, increases, and brings about the maturation of other areas such as the anterior insula, cerebellum, and the anterior cingulate gyrus.(p.131) Those areas are considered relative to higher cognitive functions, such as learning, decision making, abstract thinking, and emotion. Hence, studying in other languages helps promote brain development. In consequence, study a foreign language for a period may advance the memory, strengthen students ' learning ability, and make their perform better.
Throughout my childhood, I was raised in a Spanish household, which ultimately led to Spanish being my primary language. However, learning the language was not an easy task, rather it was a matter of trial and error. Being frequently exposed to the language, in both the colloquial and formal manner, assisted me in understanding how to communicate with my relatives. On top of that, I was frequently taught how to read and spell in Spanish in order to deliver mail to my grandparents. Essentially, this frequent practice of the language ultimately led to a better understanding and fluency of the language. In a similar manner, I learned English through trial and error.
Recent studies, as described by Lyster in the Handbook have put forth the theory that the most effective means to teach a language is a counterbalanced approach that includes some form-focused instruction in content-based classrooms and, at the same time, putting “more emphasis on experiential strategies in traditional programs where the target language is taught as a subject” (615). It seems this method of instruction would obviously be the most effective method of language instruction. Providing both useful context for language demonstration and explanation of the framework of the language covers all types of learners and all of the functions of language. However, the implementation of such curricula would be quite difficult in any mainstream
English is, almost certainly, the most important subject that a child can learn in school. Without knowing proper English, a child will not be able to communicate effectively with the English speaking nation. They would be shut off from education and other people in this country. A person who does not poses proper English limits his or her ability to achieve their highest potential. Knowledge of the English language is important to learn to be able to communicate with others, in the teaching of immigrant students, and in finding and maintaining a job.
In the last century, there has been major shifts in attitudes towards language teaching and learning. Language was previously viewed as a system that can be acquired through focusing on grammar, that view influenced some teaching methods such as Grammar Translation Method, Audiolingual Method and Situational Language Teaching (Nunan 2001). Scholars started to question the validity of such methods, because they have noticed that although students had a good knowledge of the language rules, they were unable to use the language to communicate (Larsen-Freeman 2001). In other words, students should learn linguistics skills as well as communicative skills (Richards and Rodgers 2001). Littlewood (2002:1) commented, "the structural view