I had only heard Chinese before I was adopted at 18 months. When I first arrived in the United States, it was hard adjusting and understanding everything. I had to learn a whole new language and it caused me to be a slower reader. I had a harder time in elementary school. I was always behind in reading skills, and I had multiple tutors. My biggest academic struggles were standardized testing. It has made me doubt myself and my intelligence. I felt the need to double check my work and the of a second opinion. My struggle with reading has improved, but it has followed me into high school. I don’t do as well on my semester exams, and I struggled with the ACT. When I got my April ACT score came back, my parents and I were very concerned, because my reading was a fifth-teen. My boss at work told me about a tutor she hired who was really good. I started studying for the ACT with the tutor at the end of May. My tutor was nice, funny, and supportive. We laughed and played …show more content…
My anxiety overwhelmed me. For the first few months, every day I met with my tutor was a hard day. I would go home feeling anxious, upset, and exhausted. I gradually became less exhausted and less anxious. It helped that I got more comfortable with my tutor. He could tell when I had enough and would help me relax. We would discuss how our days went and why I was upset. I began to deflect my anxiety into humor, and it helped me work harder. And with each practice test I took, I became less stressed and anxious. I reviewed my practice test and tried new techniques for reading. My tutor helped me learn that the best reading technique for me was reading the passage once, then answer questions without looking at the passage. Then, I would review the questions again but with the passage. My practice test scores got better. By my last practice test, it was a part of my Saturday routine, like washing my face and eating
One of my studying techniques is to have one of my family members verbally assess me on the topic of examination based on information in my textbook for the given subject. This compares to what I have just learned because I sometimes alter the location of study during these sessions, such as one time in the dining room and one time in another room of the house. However, I would always stay on one subject for a long time, which may not have been a very good idea. Another studying technique that I used to have was studying the night before or the morning of the exam because I thought (with the influence of a girl from my fifth grade class) that the information would be easy to retain since it was so recently reviewed. This compares to the article since all of the material comes back to me, but is mostly forgotten long after I take the examination. This goes along with the scientific study mentioned in the article that students who had two studying sessions did exceptionally well on a test given right after the sessions, but gradually forgot the material (Carey, 2010). An additional studying condition I have is to do practice problems and tests on the material I will be tested on. This connects to the reading for the reason that I am being exposed to a variety of problems, which, according to the text, is a brilliant way to review. My studying habits will be adjusted to
If we talk about undocumented immigrants in United States, we usually focus on the benefits and jobs they take from our country, but have we ever stood in their shoes and imagine what life is like for an illegal immigrant? To live as an undocumented immigrant is a bad situation, but I believe to be a child of an undocumented immigrant is even worse, because their choices are limited and they are unaware of their rights to attend colleges. In this research, I will focus on undocumented immigrant students, who are unable to afford for higher education, and the fear of their unknown future which is mainly cause by their undocumented status. The largest invisible group in America, to explore “what are the struggles and unsolved problems of undocumented students?”
America is often known as the land of opportunity, a place where you can be free. Many Immigrants came to America so that they could have a greater possibility at succeeding in life. Immigrants took a leap of faith when coming to America, for some it worked out well but for others they had a difficult time here. Despite the struggles that the immigrants encountered such as; standing out from others, being separated from their families, and breaking their culture, the immigrants are still grateful to be in America because they were in better conditions than they were in their home land. When viewing interviews or looking at an immigrant’s perspective you get many responses to being in America, some major things that stood out were the amount of freedom the immigrant had, and the age of the immigrant. These two things had a huge impact on the opinion of America from an Immigrants point of view.
Immigration has a great impact on first generation immigrants. Studies show that acculturation and assimilation have wide-ranging effects on the groups involved, but mostly on the immigrants' lives. There are positive and negative attributes. Attributes that are due to the issues associated with integrating cultures, and broadly related to the greater issue of immigration. The issues and discrimination towards first generation immigrants cause them to have limitations throughout their lifetime, in the country that they have moved to. Furthermore, the Hispanic and Latino community have lived through this problem for so long. They are always the group to be affected by it because they lose a sense of self and are never really accepted by the dominant or other group involved. This is a big issue that requires more attention and efforts to come up with a solution.
When I was in elementary school, I fell behind in many of my classes. This inefficiency was further expanded when my family moved to New Jersey from Massachusetts, and my parents could see that I was having issues. So they took me to therapists and tutors to see what could be done, and they came to the conclusion that I had ADHD. My parents chose not to medicate me, and instead sent to me to various tutoring programs, some of which I stayed in until high school. My grades were average, so there were no complaints. But college is a different
What academic struggles will happen to immigrant students? What kind of thoughts will be brought up? In The Happiness Hypothesis, Johnathan Haidt talks about negative bias in “Changing Your Mind”. This chapter is the best to describe the situation of the immigrant students. According to Kim and Diaz in "Immigrant Students And Community Colleges”, they state that “immigrant students who attend community colleges tend to have lower socioeconomic status and limited English knowledge compared to those who attend four-year institutions.”
I find it easier expressing myself through words and understanding other individual 's thoughts and actions through speech and writing. By studying a piece of text I am able to retrieve a lot of relevant information from it, I find this an easy way to learn because I reflect back by making notes so I am able to look back on notes for situations such as assignments and revision for exams. This is why I find reading techniques such as skim and scan reading difficult because I need to read a piece of text, highlight the important information and make notes to ensure that I have gained a good understanding. I could possibly improve an approach for my reading by looking at step by step guides to skim and scan reading online. This could help for large amounts of reading which I have to read quickly in seminars and lectures and to draw only the important information
The United States has been a host to a wide diaspora of people. Immigrants have had to transition from their familiar land to a new-fashioned foreign land that they must consider home. They bring with them the essence of their initial homeland such as customs, traditions and beliefs that inadvertently change the dynamics of culture within the United States. As a result the United States is an extremely culturally diverse nation. The continual changes or accretions that Americans encounter have always been a controversial topic depending on the experiences of individuals and communities that have immigrant populations. This essay will critically explore the impact that American culture has on immigrants within the United States through an in-depth look at cultural transition, homeland relocation stresses and modes of adjustment.
For as long as I can remember learning how to read and write was a real challenge for me. When I first arrived in the United States I was enrolled at the nearby elementary school. Being from another country I was scared and embarrassed because I was different then the other children in my class. Talking and communicating with others was something that wasn't in the interest of what I wanted to do. I sat far away from others depriving myself of what they were doing or learning. Coming from Mexico and going to a school where no other children would speak the same language that I would or even play the way I did made me believe that I was some sort of thing that didn't belong. All these contributed to a low esteemed child that was unable to communicate. The world I was in suddenly became a place that I didn't know. To the kids and others in my class I was an illiterate person.
...occupying their minds with irrelevant things that do not pertain to the task at hand (Vassilaki, 2006). Thus, their energy is wasted when it could be used for task elaboration or to help improve their overall academic performance. Students with academic anxiety are self engrossed and lead to their own academic demise. Test anxiety does not only affect a students performance on a test, but Huberty (2009) asserts that test anxiety overtime tends to contribute to more common underachievement. He describes the consequences of constant test anxiety including lowered self-esteem, reduced effort, and loss of desire to complete school tasks. Students who have academic anxiety also have a higher risk of developing depression, and often feel deprived of confidence (Cunningham, 2008). Thus, academic anxiety can become extreme, and have negative effects of students’ well being.
There are three types of learning styles. They are: auditory, visual and kinesthetic. An auditory learner processes information by hearing and discussing the information. Visual learners process information through visuals such as charts, pictures, and other types of printed information. Kinesthetic learners process information by muscle movements and experiences that are hands-on. Through the assessment I have discovered that my strongest learning style is a visual style with a score of 13, followed by kinesthetic, 8, and lastly auditory with a score of 4. Based upon this, my strength is using a visual learning style. The things I do now in studying that are within the guidelines include: read the book chapters and highlight while reading, pay special attention to charts and diagrams shown in the book or in class. By reading and highlighting I have found I can quickly go back through the information and reread the important facts, helping me remember them better. The more times I go over the information, the more effective I am come test day. I have found it very easy to read charts and diagrams in textbooks. Generally, by being able to read certain charts, it is much easier and faster to comprehend the information than if I was to read the paragraphs about it. A new study strategy that I will implement will include: writing what I highlight down into my own handwriting, adding ...
Everyone has challenges in their life and mine were speech and depression. From preschool to second grade I had to take “special” classes because my English was far more behind than everyone else’s. At the time I didn’t notice anything different, though now I realize that without those classes school would of been twice as hard. I overcame this challenge by simply going to school and learning. I found out that school can help with anything, for this reason I love learning to this day. I began noticing a negative change with myself throughout middle school, which now I classify as my second challenge, depression. I’m still not exactly certain if it is just depression, seasonal depr...
I was sometimes slower at completing a written paper or an assignment. In open discussions about material we had just read, things weren’t sticking with me after reading to feel confident to raise my hand and be active with discussions. I would have to search for answers in my memory for some time. Sometimes answers just weren’t retrieved at all. I became frustrated in school often, and eventually developed a negative attitude toward school. I struggled a lot with this because I knew I could do better. Every day I prepared myself for failure because I lacked the tools and strategies that I needed to succeed in school. Granted, I got by, but I could have been a much better student. I earned low B’s and C’s, but should have been A’s.
As a teenager I was an avid reader and excelled academically until I was in the ninth grade when I conceded to peer pressure and took a turn for the worse. I became lackadaisical and nonchalant, and little by grades fell. When I took my mid-term examinations in the ninth grade my report card was so poor that my mother had to be called in to collect it and have a parent-teacher session to discuss
The elementary school I went to, including all first grades to fifth grades, there were only less than twenty Chinese children. The school did not have ESL (English Second Language) programs, as a result, I had a hard time absorbing class materials, and getting along with my classmates. Especially during the cold icy winter, the cold breeze running through my face during recess, I felt so lonely, luckily my two cousins who went to the same school with me played with me for the first few months. When class started, no matter how warm the classroom is, all I felt was the chill of nervousness of trying to make friends within the class, and ask for help from the teacher. I learned how to write and read when I was in Hong Kong, but only knowing the language does not mean I will have friends.