Adapting To American Culture: A Conceptual Analysis

There are many ways for people from other countries to adjust to living in the United States. There are also things that immigrants think they have to do to fit in. In this essay I will include the best ways for immigrants to adjust to American culture. I will also include challenges immigrants face to fit in in America. Finally, I will include what immigrants do to adapt to America.

The growth of English language has increased tremendously over the years and has become the most widely spoken languages in the United States. This observation aims to explore why when moving to the United States, many non-English speakers feel the social pressure to learn English and what difficulties they encounter. After my observation, I found that many feel the need to learn English in order to assimilate into a community, and though straddling two languages is difficult, it opens more opportunities, and language privilege.

“What it takes for English Learners to Succeed?” is an article written by Jana Echevarria, Nancy Frey, and Doug Fisher that illustrate concepts that will allow English Learners to become fluent in English. The purpose of this article is to discuss four accessible teaching practices that will allow English Learners in U.S. classroom to become academically successful and attain fluency in English. To clarify, the authors use access, climate, expectations, and language instruction as the practices that will eliminate education inequality and enable students to be able to fully participate in rigorous course work without excluding English Learners. Ultimately this provides an approachable school reform, creates additive integration of multicultural perspective and approach and lastly brings a way for language diversity to be seen in the classroom.

General education classroom teachers are responsible for providing the primary instruction for English Language Learners (ELLs) development in English literacy skills (Thompson, 2004). Supplying ample resources to accommodate ELLs inside and outside of the classroom are essential as the number of ELL students has grown steadily. According to research, “one out of four of all children in the United States are from immigrant families, and in most cases these children speak a language other than English at home” (Samson & Collins, 2012 p. 4). Further research suggests, “students from a non-English speaking home and background account for the fastest growing population of children in the kindergarten through twelfth grade setting (Short &

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 quite well. I had to depend on my husband to deal with my personal business, such as making a doctor’s appointment, calling to the bank, or questioning the DMV officers. Douglass says, “being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart” (62). Being a dependent and helpless adult is a shame for me. In addition, I did not have extra money to go to school to improve my English skills. Thus, I stayed home all the time to avoid the embarrassment that happened when I did not understand strangers’ conversation. Meanwhile, being silent at home leaded worries to my future. I realized that I had to improve my oral English to gain self-confidence. I spent time reading various articles on the internet, and I watched English dialogues’ videos on YouTube. As a non-English speaking immigrant living in the U.S., I challenged myself to overcome difficulties to integrate myself into a new

Education serves as the greatest gateway to advancement and progress in our society. However, not all students are provided a fair opportunity to reach their full potential. To address this problem, I founded the Herndon STEM and ESOL Academy in 2014 with the hope of meeting the unaddressed needs of unaccompanied young immigrants from the 2014 American immigration crisis to the Washington DC metropolitan area. The program seeks to aid non-English speaking students in their quest to master English and to connect them to resources that can help them transition to life in the U.S. while still celebrating their culture. Our ultimate goal is for students to reach far beyond their original dreams, onto a greater future.

There are many different words that make America stand out, but the ones that really stand out to me are adaptability and grit. The word grit represents the events and values that occurred during the age of reason. Also the word adaptability represents present day America.

How do you know beyond what you already know without expanding our knowledge, making discoveries? People know what they know based off of experience or receiving information from a knowledgeable person. People with raised in a concentrated society with one culture don't really adapt to new cultures and ideas easily. For example, my parents were raised in Haiti where there's one culture, one race, one society. Adapting to America's diverse culture and races was weird for them. The mentally they were raised with, what's right and wrong, stayed with them. They became aware of other's ideas and beliefs, but it didn't mean they'd pick it up and apply it to their lives... which they didn't.

Coming from a foreign country where english is a second language, I didn’t know how to communicate. How was I going understand the information in school? How will I create new friendships without speaking? All these questions plagued me. As I sat quietly everyday trying to avoid making a sound, hoping not to get called on to answer a question or speak out loud in the class, I was trying to make clear of what these people were saying. I realized that just sitting there and listening wouldn't help me better speak English; I had begun trying to speak english with my father so I can become more fluent. After months of dedication, I was understanding and speaking a language completely different to mine. That was by far the most difficult

The culture and American society is a new experience, but I have to learn to adapt. There is a lot of culture shock when trying to match American society. As an American we must learn to understand jokes and sarcasticism. It is a system of social sharing, learned the values ​​and norms; this is the design of the society to live. It affects the way we view the fl at, habits, preferences and our way we relate to other people. Value is a summary of the ideas that are on the good things, right and desirable. The target is the social rules and guidelines.

Arriving in a new country was exciting and discomforting. America is a wonderful place to live, which is full of adventure and challenges. I was attracted by the Western culture. Meanwhile, different languages also troubled me. Although I began to learn English in elementary school from ABC, my listening and oral abilities tend not to be adequate. I have to study hard to improve my English, so that I can understand what the people said.

. For centuries, America has continued to grow into a culturally diverse nation. Everyday immigrants come into the country with the goal to become successful, and for many this success comes through education. In many cases, children and adults have to learn the English language or improve on their English speaking skills in the first years of being in the country. The process of being successful in a language is a process that happens in more areas than school. People are able to pick up languages from television, shopping, listening to the language and practicing speaking and reading the language. According to Cummins’ dimensions of language proficiency, this process can take over 5 years of penetrating second language exposure.

In this paper, I want to focus on Immigrant Students in Secondary Schools. As a previous high school immigrant when I first arrived in United States, I have experience numerous difficulties in school that I would never forget. In addition, I believe immigrant students of secondary school can face major difficulties in learning English and succeeding in school. Since these students do not have a lot of time than elementary students to learn English, and they have to pass several test that require English skill such as the ACT and SAT. Above all, most secondary school texts and materials require a sufficient English reading ability to understand, which will even make learning experience becoming even tougher for high school immigrant.

People always feel like the need to assimilate into particular group. It is a social pheromone. From my personal experience, there were three times when I wanted to assimilate into particular groups: the first time was in middle school, when I was trying to learn the local language. The second time was in freshman year of college, when I wanted to be part of the fashion trend. The third time was the last six months, when I was more involved in American culture.

Even moving to a new house can be a little nerve racking. Will there be enough space? How will the community be? These are all questions that can go through a person's mind when moving.