May Kattaya. Prof. Shannon-Bowers. English 110. February

Moving to America, was a difficult transition for me. I had come to the realization that I wasn’t going to see my friends any time soon back in Iran and that was hard to overcome at a young age. I was alone as a child because my siblings are a lot older than me, and my parents’ had the challenge of starting over because they had left everything behind in Iran. However, that wasn’t going to get in the way of me succeeding in school. I have always been a fast learner, by the age of eight I had already learned four languages. Also, I was voted most improved by my classmate every year I was in Elementary School. This might not seem like a big achievement, but as a young student in a new country it was a huge motivation boost for me to improve every

Coming from a new country I had to face many challenges. All these challenges made who I am today. When I came to the United States in 7th grade, I barely knew how to speak English. The language barrier posed a serious problem for me. I found it difficult to interact with people. Adjusting to a new country was no easy task. When my family and I came to this country, we knew only one other family. It was even more difficult for my parents who knew virtually no English. They had to learn how to work and provide for me and my siblings in this entirely new country with a completely different culture. Despite having a better background in English, it still took me over two years to become fluent in English. Although coming to America and having

Again I was struggling not to let myself down and to learn the concepts of the new country. At first everything was hard; I had a lot of difficulties on all my classes due to the lack of reading and understanding the language. I remember when my 7th grade English teacher handed me the book “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer; I was stuck in the first page “I’d never realized so many words existed!”(Malcolm X 432).I kept solving my problems by myself, using the dictionary, searching words on the internet, and comparing some Spanish words with English ones. For some reason I didn’t like when people tried to translate and when the school tried to assign me Spanish tutors. I felt that getting help in Spanish wasn’t any good and it just disrupted my learning. Even though school was hard “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.” (Alexie 447).I accomplished my goal of passing 7th grade. During the summer I used to go to the library and read books, because I didn’t understand most of them, and I found reading in English innocuous for the first month. After I got the handle of reading and writing once again, I felt confident of myself, and my life came back to normal.

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.

Coming to the U.S. has changed my life. Since I arrived at the Newark Airport few year ago. This coming to the U.S. has changed my life forever. Going to school in the U.S. was an important change in my life. Learning English and communicating with people made me know many interesting parts of American way of life. For example, I like to watch a history movie with friends or visit a museum with friends. These can helping me improve my knowledge of the American culture and understanding more English. To having something to interesting is made my life to have fun.

My entire family was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. After three and a half years of living there my family decided to seek a better future in The United States. My father would go to the United States back and forth to work and earn money to send to us in Mexico. Eventually my mother was able to get a visa and my brother along with my little sister had an alternate way into the United States. We lived in Dallas Texas and Atlanta Georgia before settling in Howard county Maryland in a very small apartment. Luckily we were doing pretty well with my dad being the only one knowing English at the time. My father was working two jobs and I was getting ready to start kindergarten. I was very excited because the education we would have received in Mexico was nothing compared to the education in Howard County. I was excited for what was to come, but there were disadvantages of knowing only Spanish. Being bullied because of my poor English had an impact on me. I was in completely separate classes learning things that were simple compared to the regular course. I was excluded from certain activities, field trips and assemblies. I was clueless at first though as I slowly learned the language I understood things a lot more.

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

When I first started school, I remember how difficult it was for me to make the transition from Spanish to English. My Mom left me at the door of the school in the morning, but since I was placed in an English-only classroom, the next time I opened my mouth to speak to anyone was when she picked me up again that afternoon. I didn't know what anyone was saying around me, and to make matters worse, my teacher didn't speak a single word of Spanish. That day, like every other day, I came home crying because I felt like an outsider. That year was very difficult for me because I ended up in the back corner of the classroom not participating. As a result, I had to take several years of summer school in order to catch up, something that

When I arrived to the United States I faced a challenging situation in my life, I didn’t know English. This challenging as I didn’t know how to communicate with any of my teachers or classmates, and I wasn’t able to do any of my work. Not being able to participate in class upsetted me because in Mexico I was use to doing all my classwork and homework. Therefore, I decided that I was going to do everything in my power to learn English quickly. So, when the my ESL teacher announced to my parents that they were going to have to take to school during the summer, I didn’t mind at all. When I was in summer school I learned a lot of English due to my determination and my hard work. Looking back I wouldn’t do things differently because I know that

I moved to America from Albania when I was little. English was not my first language so, I had to learn it by practicing my fellow classmates' example. I was a part of HILT, High-Intensity Language Training, in elementary school to help my language barriers. Before middle school began, teachers thought I no longer needed HILT. It was because I had worked hard to get be in the same place most other students were in. In high school, I found things I was passionate about. In my sophomore year, I joined Future Business Leaders of America and became joined the mentor

My mom brought me to America in 2002. This move was difficult as I had to leave my family behind. Up until then, I grew up in the midst of a large, extended family. I had cousins to play with and multiple adults to spoil me. Furthermore, moving to an entirely different continent where the culture and environment was different from what I was used to, did not help. I experienced quite a bit of culture shock and language became a problem. Those first few months when I could not communicate with my new classmates were lonely. On top of that, seeing my parents work so hard to build a new life in a country where we had no family to rely on, made me hate our situation. However, being an immigrant taught me some valuable lessons and shaped who I am today. At an early age, I learned to become more independent, more responsible. I had to learn to do certain tasks, such as making my lunchbox, doing my homework, by myself. I had to learn to adapt and to appreciate what we had. Each new place we moved to, I experienced something new. In Ohio, I learned what chicken tenders were. In New Jersey, I experienced my first snowfall. In Texas, I bought my first pair of cowboy boots. As I grew up, I learned to treasure what the United States had to

I when I first came to America I felt like It wasn’t home, I wanted to go back to Kenya. I felt dumb, because I couldn’t speak the language. I also felt frustrated because I didn’t know the language. People constantly teased me, and made stereotypical comments because I came from Kenya. Because of that, I was very quiet and shy in middle

Many people travel on a plane each year, but have never wondered what the people flying the plane have done to get to this level. Becoming a pilot requires difficult work, and takes time, mostly in the early stages of flight school. A pilot must go to school for many years, on top of the two years of college (”Education”), and must go through many different airlines. A pilot also must stay away from their family whenever they are flying, as they may only fly 3 days a week, and not consecutively. Piloting is an honored and respected profession that is used to take people around the world, it requires patience, and good math skills (Hopke).

As I commenced to explore the English language, I started liking it, but most importantly realizing that if I wanted to be successful in the future; I certainly needed to speak the official language of the country. I was only in middle school when I immigrated from El Salvador, and adapting to the language, besides the new culture, was really challenging. I had to attend school not knowing much English; therefore I had to put extra effort and time into my classes, and school activities. In the very beginning, I was on my own because my mother did not speak the language, so she could not help me with any of my assignments. Even though I started getting frustrating since I could not get help from my parents, and I could barely comprehend the material in my classes, I stayed positive, and I would look for help from teachers in every class.

I never thought I was going to be in Florida. It impacted my life tremendously. I knew I had to learn a different language. My English level was steady. I knew I had to improve my English. I worked on it twice as hard as when I was in Mexico. In school when people talked to me and asked questions, I was afraid to answer back, because I was unsure if I said it wrong or not. I had to overcome it and pronto. Making friends in school was easy, because I guess they are curious where I’m from or wanted to know my name in Spanish.