Lebanon Memoir

How will increased language and cultural knowledge help you achieve your future academic and/or professional goals?

By expanding ourselves past the comfort of the native tongue, we are able to create connections with other people. When learning another language, we may start to understand not only the language itself, but also comprehend new cultures, ways of thinking, and other people. From the very beginning of deciding to become a teacher, I knew I wanted to expand my ways of thinking so I positively benefit students of all cultures and language. I believe language learning allows people to view the world in different ways by becoming positively influenced by other cultures, people, and different ways of thinking. However, after deciding to become an ESL teacher, I truly believe that bilingual education is needed to help students develop and maintain high levels of proficiency and literacy in both their L1 and L2, while learning in the content areas. This is why I personally believe it is better for children to be raised bilingual instead of learning a second language later in life. One reason for this is that even though I was born in America, my parents wanted me to learn their language, which was Polish. Now, I am fully appreciative of the fact that my parents taught me Polish and placed me in a Saturday school where I was being taught both English and Polish. If I was taught Polish later in life, I think I would not use it to this day because I would not have made personal connections with the languages, as I was able to by being raised bilingual. There are many benefits of being raised bilingual instead of learning a second language later in life. It is important to understand that it takes on average 4-7 years to become academically fluent in a language; by raising a child bilingually, the children are able to use both languages more efficiently earlier than those students who learn a second language later in life. Since the child has been bilingual for a longer time, there are educational benefits commonly found. Bilingual children tend to have a higher concentration and are better at working through distractions while doing their schoolwork. Bilingual children also perform higher on average on tests that involve multi-tasking, creative thinking, or problem solving (Marian & Shook, 2012).

It is also good to strengthen the knowledge of a student to help them become a better member of the society. “One reason everyone should have the opportunity to go to college is that a college education gives people an opportunity to discover what they are good at” (Sanchez, 124) Some people finds College as a place for great advantages because it helps them enhance their talents and discover themselves. “Without college, most people have limited options and never realize their true potential” (Sanchez, 124) Based from my own experience, education helped me gain knowledge and more understanding in enhancing my communication skills. Learning a new language was one of the biggest challenges that I have experienced. During my stay in the Philippines, I have learned a lot of things. English was taught in our school, but we never really practice how to speak it outside. Because of wanting to improve my skills in learning English, I went to join my school’s Newspaper Club. Fortunately, I got in. Joining the club was a really good experience. It can help increase the ability of a student, especially in communicating with other people. If a person is lacking on personal connections, their communication skills might deteriorate. As an immigrant from another country, learning a new language is not easy. It takes time to learn

In my opinion bilingualism plays a major role in the educational development of children. This is because research has shown that children who are fluent in their home language are more successful in learning a second language. Furthermore, being bilingual offers greater sensitivity to language, more flexibility in thinking and better ear for listening. It also improves a child’s understanding for the native language. Moreover, knowledge of other languages increases a career of opportunities offering several job options.

After so many incidents, I was determined to learn this foreign language and prove to people that I wasn’t not lost in this country. Every day afterschool I would ask my family to help me with my English. One year later, I was able to understand what people around me were saying, and I could do basic communications with people. School came to me as an enjoying part of my day, something I looked forward to when going to bed, and an opportunity, a gift for me to learn the language of this new country.

I am very fluent in Spanish now and I my young children are as well. So even speaking another language is helping us grow. Diversity in society helps us grow as individuals and opens our minds to different ways of life.

Growing up in a 3rd world country gives me a different perspective on life then the average, “Westerner”. Westerners believe that school is a thing that they have to do. In my mind I view school as something that I get to do. School helps me achieve educationally and socially. Setting me on the path that I want to go in life, both academically and athletically.

When we teach different cultural backgrounds, students from other backgrounds can be more informed about their classmate’ s culture. “Although about 80% of Latinos in Utah originated from Mexico, many other nationalities are represented here. Many individuals raised in the U.S. speak only English and have assimilated to European American culture.” There are a distinct few of people who have different ethnic backgrounds can not speak their home language. This is why schools should help students embrace different cultures, so they can learn different languages and help their brains develop. Learning about classmates languages and cultures, can help people have a bond with each other. Students learning about how other cultures affected America, other than white European, can give student another point of

I wandered across the street, the gravel crunched under my feet. I hear my dad yell my name “Amira.” I run toward my house. My dad tells me to lock the door as soon as I am in. Click, goes the lock. But, something’s not right, my dad is still outside. I look through the peephole in my door. I see 5 men in camo uniform with guns charging at my dad. They stop one meter away from him. The soliders raise thier guns. Aim. Fire. Bang, Crash. I can’t see anything except bright red blood. I scream. I hear the soldier’s feet crumble on gravel and the sound becomes more and more faint. I open my door and there in front of my eyes, my dad covered in thick blood. I roll up into a ball and start shaking. My throat starts closing up. Suddenly I hear a soft,

I learn that the culture is very important topic to share with my children. Reading multicultural books would help children to learn about each other cultures. Introducing different cultures would help children to interact with other children from different cultures. They would respect other customs, traditions etc.

Second benefit is improvement of social skills. Knowing a different language helps children to adapt easily to a new environment, increasing his/her self-esteem and self-confidence. How would you feel if someone asks you a question and you don’t understand? I know that feeling. Children feel more confident and secure and will never feel humiliated by not being able to communicate.

To begin, I am going to summarize the video of “Does learning languages make kids smarter?” of the program “Your voice” which you can find it in the following page multilingualliving.com.

In this day and age, we find ourselves at odds with our “identity” as we find that not only are we representing ourselves, but we also have ties to religion, sect, tribe, and family (Angrist). This shows that despite the cohesiveness and threads that attach us, it has the power to pull people, families, and in some cases countries apart. This conflict comes to a head when religion and ethnicity are interwoven. Hence when divisions occur, this can lead to violent wars that destroy trust between individuals. This can ingrain a sense of uneasiness and distrust that plagues people’s ideas and leaves a country divided. This is particularly evident in Lebanon. Ethnic and religious division led to the festering of feelings of marginalization and discrimination, which boiled over into the Lebanese civil war, a war that claimed the lives of 150,000 people (Szekely). The anger and frustration birthed from this to chaos, and conflict has in turn increased the division between ethnic and religious factions and led to the crumbling of Lebanese nationalism. This essay is specifically aimed at assessing the relationships between ethnic and religious divisions in Lebanon and explores how it contributed to the civil war. This is done by identifying and analyzing the main actors and makes an explanation of the historical divisions stemming from the National Pact, branching out to include the consequences of the civil war on the political structures and the identities of the

and trade for thousands of years. It has also been on the route of numerous

Lebanon is a Middle Eastern country that is delimitated to the west by the Mediterranean and to the east by the Syro-African Depression. Lebanon borders Syria to the north and to the east, and Israel in the south.