When I was a kid, I used to sing nonsense words of Sesame Street lyrics as an attempt to speak English. I remember mispronouncing the word “everything” as “eberthing,” and since then English was everything to me! Sesame Street was a good source of the language, but was not enough for a perfectionist like me since English is not my mother tongue. My concern was not to be able to understand the language, yet I always had the urge to speak in it! When I was a kid, I played a game that was basically my younger sister trying to interviewing in what I called that time English which is basically speaking gibberish. My oldest sister who spoke English said “We don’t use wa to connect sentences, we use and”. This urge to speak was getting bigger and …show more content…
bigger until finally I took English classes in intermediate school. Nothing can describe my excitement back then, and the language became an obsession to me.
I was determined to learn the language by myself, and I remember Oliver Twist was my first real friend in junior school years. I kept reading a lot of English books trying to satisfy a gluttonous appetite to learn new vocabulary. As Prudie said in the movie The Jane Austen Book Club 2007 “High school's never over”, it was not over for me as well. Despite the hard time, I worked harder to be able to master the American accent using movies and imitating my teacher’s accent who happened to be half a Saudi and a half American. Furthermore, when I was accepted at Taif University (the western side of Saudi Arabia) in the English Undergraduate Program, I knew that the journey to success had just begun. I worked hard, and all I had was natural ability as Mickey Mantle said (yes, I'm quoting the famous baseball player) and the English language was my game. I finally found the stage that I could stand and speak English with confidence. However, my first challenge that I encountered was when I decided to put my knowledge to the test, and made a phone call to a live TV show in the English national TV of Saudi Arabia. I was extremely nervous, I muttered, and I did not know what to
say. It was the first time that I felt embarrassed, yet it was a momental embarrassment that never stopped me from pursuing the dream. Although teaching English language was good in Saudi Arabia, I just felt that my home was not the stadium that every player dreams of. So, I got a full scholarship from Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, and I moved to the United States on Wednesday 9 January 2013. I joined the English language program at Temple University for 6 months, and I got an overall IELTS score 7 out of 9. Then, I transferred to Kaplan School to get my proficiency certificate. I was so proud of myself, and of my conventional, yet an effective approach of self-education. Furthermore, I taught English for both Elementary and beginner levels for two months because I graduated in 2012, and I was fortunately qualified to get the scholarship immediately after graduation. Teaching was an honor, and I was happily overwhelmed by it. I stood in front of the class every day realizing that I was in someone's chapter of life, and my duty was to teach students the English language with a passion that exceeds my passion back when I was in junior school. My experience of teaching helped me to be a good reader who has a sense of thoughtfulness and devotion, and a writer who writes literary works that are universally understood. Furthermore, it helped me to develop a sense of logical and factual criticism to see the world from different angles. Also, I’m very committed to applying my knowledge and skills in my field of study, and I’m open to embrace new ideas and notions. Therefore, I chose to do my Masters in English. Literature for me is the record of human intellectual and emotional productions, and I feel obligated to cherish people's achievements, and contemplate their misery through writing and literary critical analysis. Besides doing my Masters, learning French will help me to fulfill a lifelong wish: doing my PHD in France. Every day I work harder because I know that France has a place for me! I would love to experience teaching English to French students and get inspiration to do my PHD in TESOL. My ability to adapt and adjust myself in new environments, especially in the academic field is going to help me to pursue my linguistic enthusiasm. Furthermore, my ultimate dream job is to be a teacher of languages and a literature who doesn’t only teach based on objects and syllabi, but also teaches life lessons and wisdom on a personal level. I want to be the candle that enlightens the students’ path. I also wish that the word “teacher” to be a synonym for “life coach.” Further, I want to be a great contributor and a participant in the educational prosperity of the new generations of women in Saudi Arabia. As a learner, it is difficult to narrow down the number of people who inspired me to be a committed, persistent, and assiduous student: my mother, my father, my siblings, my teachers, and so on. However, what inspired the most is a story that I read in an article that titled “The Iliterate Professor”. The author Turki Aldukhail tells the story of Munahi Alshareef who gives away his education in order to take care of his father. At the age of eighteen, Munahi couldn’t read and write because he dedicated his life to his father. After his siblings grew up and were able to share the responsibility of their father together. He decided to follow his passion of education, and he went to school. In 2008 and at the age forty-three, Munahi celebrated his success with a PHD certificate in sociology, and a prestigious title attached to his name. He was eighteen years late compared to his peers, but he eventually was able to finish the race first. He inspired me that age is only a number that should not limit my ability or my passion to be able to learn.
Amy Tan, first, describes different Englishes she speaks under two scenarios. She talks with standard-form English in her speech to a large number of people, but uses language like her mom unconsciously during family conversations. The author thinks that her mom’s “broken” English limits both their daily life and her own potentials. During her childhood, Tan has to help or represent mom to communicate with
Language is like a blooming flower in adversity – they are the most rare and beautiful of them all as it struggles to express itself. It blooms and flourishes in strength, awe, and passion as the riches of thought is imbibed from the seed and into a finished beauty. For others, a non-native person speaking in a language that they are not familiar with sprouts out like a weed – the way its thorns can puncture sympathy and comprehensibility. Amy Tan, however, addresses the nature of talk as being unique under its own conditions. In Tan's “Mother Tongue”, she discusses how her mother's incoherent language is “broken” and “limited” as compared to other native English speakers. When focusing on Amy Tan, she grows noticeably embarrassed with her mother's lack of acuteness in the language, which then influences Tan to “prove her mastery over the English language.” However, she soon learns from herself and -- most importantly -- her mother that a language's purpose is to capture a person's “intent, passion, imagery, and rhythm of speech and nature of thought.” With such an enticing elegance...
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.
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
Sesame Street has an effect on children's development. Their academics become strongly improved through the different sequences of learning activities that Sesame Street provides within the television program. Sesame Street shows a variety of learning programs that deal with numbers,shapes,colours,letters,etc. The cognition part of Sesame Street teaches children how to be interactive, how to compromise and introduce them to new material. Emotional development can be shown in Sesame Street's online gaming and through their songs and also part of their television showing. With these 3 aspects of Sesame Street, children can get just about the same education as a child would in preschool. The television show for children called “Sesame Street” has an effect on children through their academics, their cognition development and their emotional development.
Textual representations position readers to respond to ideas in the novel, the Catcher in the Rye written by JD Salinger. Some textual representations that emphasise the ideas of the novel include, repetition, symbolism and hyperbole. By using these language techniques, it allows the readers to understand the ideas in the novel in a way of how JD Salinger gets his ideas and thoughts across through Holden Caulfield the protagonist.
In American society, learning to speak English properly is a crucial factor in assimilation. People who have decided to come to America have found it rather difficult to assimilate into American society for several reasons. One reason being that learning a new language is or can be considerably difficult depending on your age. This is so because the act of learning a new language such as English, is much more difficult for an elderly person than for one who has not reached adolescence. According to Grognet, for elderly people there are several factors that affect their willingness to learn. Among those factors are, physical health, mental health, cultural expectations, attitude, motivation and finally the ability to acquire the correct diction, and to suitable articulation (Grognet 296-297). For a person who has not reached the prepubescent age, it is...
The first time Kingston had to speak English in kindergarten was the moment silence infiltrated her world. Simple dialogue such as “hello” or asking for directions was hell for her because people usually couldn’t hear her the first time she asked, and her voice became weaker every time she tried to repeat the question (422). No matter what, speaking English just shattered her self-esteem.
“I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with,” Amy Tan says in her essay “Mother Tongue” (268). Tan is referring to the fact that she varies her type of language based on her audience. Once Tan realized this, she began to write books with her different types of English, instead of just using one kind of English for writing books. Tan was born in America to parents who were a Chinese immigrants. English was Tan’s mother’s second language, so as a result, Tan grows up in a house where English isn’t perfect. Tan learns to speak different types of English with different groups of people. Tan’s personal life examples of different Englishes shows the idea that all people have several different types of English.
Do you know what it is like to have English as a second language, coming from a Palestinian-American family? Learning Arabic alone was a difficult task to achieve, but with the help of my parents and the Arabic classes my parents enrolled me into, I was able to master it in a reasonable period of time. My other task was to master English as I was enrolled in English- only schools. My parents pushed me through this process by putting me into multiple programs for foreign students, and they also pushed me into reading and writing at least one book and one essay a week, whether it was a paragraph, or more than one-page long. It required much patience and concentration, but it was a very attainable goal that required a satisfying amount of dedication.
New languages are always overwhelming.English is difficult language to learn, especially if it isn’t practiced often. The english language includes rules that can be frustrating to get a grip of. Many International students face the fear of not being understood or not pronouncing something correct...
The next morning, while I was having breakfast with my homestay family, I was not able to communicate with my homestay. When my homestay was talking to me, I understood what they were telling to me, but I could not reply back to them. I struggled a lot with my English, yet after a few months I was able to speak to English speakers and to reply back to them.
Children’s acquisition of language has long been considered one of the uniquely defining characteristics of human behaviour.
Language is the basis of human communication. It is a cultural and social interaction, and the way language is used is influenced by the circumstances in which it takes place (Emmitt, 2010, p. 49; Green, 2006, p. 2). Children become aware that there are different types of language, including languages used at home, at childcare and at school, as they observe and participate in various language situations (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014, p. 39). Some of these languages may be unfamiliar, and children will need to learn the different roles and uses of language. The different roles of language in a child’s life are, therefore, part of their growing understanding of how to behave in society and in a particular context. As they experience different types and uses of language, children develop an understanding of how to use language appropriately for any given situation.
English was not my first language, Mandarin Chinese was. I started to learn English when I was three years old. I was able to learn English through my older sister, watching TV and being exposed to the English language from my peers. I was lucky to be able to learn a second language so young because not everyone is able to do this. My older sister had to go to ESL classes and with her being exposed having to learn English as part of her curriculum, I was then able to pick up some of the English language from her. Throughout my life, the idea of the English language has always been related to education and success, the reason for this is that my parents came over to America to earn more money. They pushed for my sisters and my education because