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English language learning teaching strategies
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Scooby Doo and I Born and raised in a small rural town in Taiwan, I never expected to be given the opportunity to be writing this essay today. All the more so, at one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions in California, UC Davis. Being able to communicate in English fluently--speaking and writing--was something I never thought would happen, nor did I really care about. What would a local Taiwanese boy need to learn English for, in a country with less than 10% of an English speaking population? Being able to form your own sentences, or even write a few comprehensible words in English was already an extraordinary accomplishment for any native Taiwanese children. However, I was inspired to change my views as a language user and taught to be appreciative of the learning process. This change has brought me up from low expectations in learning English to becoming an American college student working my way towards a Bachelor 's degree.
My perspective and expectation of being a writer
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Luckily this time, I already had the resources to further increase my English ability. Instead of attending a local Taiwanese school, my parents thought it would be best for me to attend an American school, where I could continue improving my English. Being one of the few well-established American schools in Taiwan, the school had a good reputation and great facilities, so naturally, it attracted many foreign teachers. These teachers, coming over teach boosted the school’s quality of education and further increasing the reputation as well. I continued working on my English, learning all the rules of grammar and punctuation, writing different types of papers, ranging from research to persuasive essays. Eventually, I would be writing my own personal statement and filling out college applications. Again, something I never thought would happen when I was four years
I became an English major my first year in college, after being enrolled as pre-med.” (Tan 3). Much like in her academic life, Tan believes in disproving critics and those who pigeon-hole people with pre-determined ideas. Her purpose is reflected by her “enjoying the challenge”. In this essay, she also enjoys the challenge of sharing her story and clearing up the negative stigma of broken English. Another example of her purpose is indicated when she explains other people’s ideas of her mom. People use degrading language when describing her mother and other “broken” English speakers. Tan shares her thoughts: “I’ve heard other terms used, ‘limited English,’ for example. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people’s perceptions of the limited English speaker.” (Tan 2). Tan’s purpose becomes clear here when she describes people’s negative perception of “broken” English speakers. The last part of that quote is extra powerful, when she describes the English speaker as limited. It is
...far from traditional as he couldn’t have any evidence of learning so he wrote with chalk or coal on board fences, brick walls, and pavement. When his mistress would leave Douglas to tend to the house in her absence he would take the discarded notebooks his master Thomas would bring home from school and continue to practice in the empty spaces left behind. Soon he Fredrick was about to write similar to Thomas and after years of tedious effort he finally learned how to write. With little outside help it is a great accomplishment to self-learn the English language. Even though It is my first language, been thought it my whole educational career, and not forbidden to learn I can still find it our language difficult. Although with practice and continue efforts and encouragement from teachers I am finding it easier as time progresses to express myself through literature.
Chang Rae-Lee, author of "Mute in an English-Only World," moved to America from Korea when he was only six or seven years old. He adopted the English language quickly, as most children do, but his mother continued to struggle. "For her, the English language…usually meant trouble and a good dose of shame and sometimes real hurt" (Lee 586). It is obvious, though, that his mother was persistent in her attempt to learn English and deal with her limited culture experience, as Lee accounts of her using English flash cards, phrase books and a pocket workbook illustrated with stick-people figures. Lee sympathetically connects with the audience through his mother, and forces them to make a personal conclusion when he ends the article with a lingering question in the reader’s mind; what if they had seen her struggling? Would they have sat back and watched or stepped up to help?
The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful information in every aspect. This gave the reader a full understanding of the disadvantages Amy and her mother had with reading and writing. The Essay 'Mother Tongue' truly represents Amy Tan's love and passion for her mother as well as her writing. Finally getting the respect of her critics and lucratively connecting with the reaction her mother had to her book, 'So easy to read' (39). Was writing a book the best way to bond with your own mother? Is it a struggle to always have the urge to fit in? Was it healthy for her to take care of family situations all her life because her mother is unable to speak clear English?
Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong suit of someone who grew up learning English in an immigrant family. Attempting to prove her mastery of the English language, Tan discovered her writing did not show who she truly was. She was an Asian-American, not just Asian, not just American, but that she belonged in both demographics. Disregarding the idea that her mother’s English could be something of a social deficit, a learning limitation, Tan expanded and cultivated her writing style to incorporate both the language she learned in school, as well as the variation of it spoken by her mother. Tan learned that in order to satisfy herself, she needed to acknowledge both of her “Englishes” (Tan 128).
The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it can be if an individual is raised by a parent who speaks “limited English” (36) as Tan’s mother does, partially because it can result in people being judged poorly by others. As Tan’s primary care giver, her mother was a significant part of her childhood, and she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. Being raised by her mother taught her that one’s perception of the world is heavily based upon the language spoken at home. Alternately, people’s perceptions of one another are based largely on the language used.
The first and second year after moving from China to the United States, I was afraid to talk to strangers because my English was not very well. I had to depend on my husband for dealing with my personal business, such as making a doctor’s appointment, calling to the bank, or questioning to DMV officers. Douglass says, “being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart” (62). For myself, being a dependent and helpless adult is a shame. Moreover, I lacked of extra money to go to school to improve my English. Thus, I stayed home all the time to avoid embarrassment of talking to strangers. After a while, I realized that improving English speaking skills are the essential to gain my self-confidence. So, I spent time to read various articles on the internet and watched English dialogues’ videos on YouTube. As a non-English speaking immigrant living in the U.S., I inevitably encountered a series of difficulties to integrate myself into a new
Johnson and Newport used 46 native Chinese or Korean second language learners of English who were students and faculty members at an American university. The subjects were presented together because of their native languages dissimilarity to English and lack of difference in the results of two groups. The subjects' ages differentiate between 3 and 39, when they first arrived in the US and they had lived in the target language culture for between the age of 3 and 26. According to their age of arrival in the US, t...
The purpose of this assignment is to explain the impact of English language learners in the classroom. As a foreign student, English language learner in the United States faces multiple challenges for achieving academic success. To successfully complete a task, they need to master both English as a language and how it is used in core content classes especially when they are an adult. 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,
...l survival in our society. I work as a counselor each summer at a sports camp in Philadelphia, and each summer I encounter very intelligent students who are placed in lower tracks or labeled as ìlearning deficientî because of their language. This disturbs me because as a speaker of both Black Vernacular speech and Standard English, I know that students can learn to use Standard English just as I have. Unfortunately, many students are not privileged enough to have the same educational opportunities that I was given by my parents, therefore, it is my responsibility to teach these students Standard English the way that I have been taught. But I must learn more about teaching students and dealing with the issues that plague the educational system, and I am looking forward to receiving more of this knowledge during my pre-student teaching and student teaching experiences.
My parents come from China, my mom grew up in Taisan and my dad grew up in Guangdong. Around age twenty, they migrated to San Francisco, California where they met and later got married. A few years later they had my older brother and then me with a seven year age gap. I lived there for about 9 years, then we had moved to Bottineau, North Dakota for a year and after that we moved and have been living in Ohio since then. We’ve prevailed a huge transition from moving to the suburbs from a big city. With my first language being Chinese, because my parents only spoke Chinese, I had to learn English through school. Also the large population of Asians in the area of San Francisco that we lived in spoke little to no English,
Simon emphases the significance of knowing, and using proper English, as well as keeping it alive. He proposes ways to sharpen the brain, which will result in a greater sense of discipline and memory. Simon also notes that everything we do is done with words, therefore, English is viewed as an essential to everyday life. The accurate use of rhetorical devices in this article are just one of many examples on how good English can help a person on a day to day basis. Despite Simon’s knowledge of proper English, the remainder of Americans must train themselves so that they may also achieve correct usage of the English
O’Neill,S., Gish, A. (2008). Teaching English as a second language. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.
1. 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. It was very difficult for me to study if I wanted to be their friends and at that time, they were the only friends I had in Canada. However, I expected much more effort from myself. I studied very hard and became the 2nd fastest ESL students ever to complete ESL 1 to 4 in my high school. Today, when I recall what I have accomplished, I think I learnt to trust myself and at the same, success in anything only comes from hard work.
...fer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006, October). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners. In Presentation at LEP Partnership Meeting, Washington, DC. Available for download from http://www. centeroninstruction. org.