Personal Narrative: My First Spanish Class

I was born in Mexico where I lived for 10 years and at that age I moved to the US. I didn’t speak English at all and also, didn’t know anyone in this foreign country. I was constantly bullied at middle school because I didn’t know the language very well and had an accent when I spoke. At that moment I vowed to myself to work hard everyday and never let anyone bring me down. I started reading out loud in my room, learning how to pronounce words and finding the definitions to everything I was reading. I was also, placed in a class for English as a Second Language and was enrolled in this course for my first two years during middle school. In 8th grade I was able to transfer out of this class into a regular English class. I got an award for English

One summer afternoon before my freshman year, I heard someone knocking on my door. When I opened the door, a woman started talking to me. I had no clue what she was saying since she wasn’t speaking English. I heard her use words like “no me gusta”, and “¿por qué?” After going on an online expedition to decipher those words, I discovered they were Spanish. In order to reduce the language barrier between me and my community, I decided that I would learn Spanish.

Every year, a few days before Christmas break, my Spanish teacher hosts a Christmas party for all of the faculty. The students in his Spanish four class are responsible for preparing Hispanic influenced cuisine. However, the whole fiesta is coordinated by those brave enough to venture into AP Spanish. Although I’m in the level four course, my teacher assigned me as the chief organizer and décor extraordinaire. We only had four weeks to pull everything together so time was of the essence. By infusing a lot of positive energy and publicity about the occasion, we managed to spread the news and excitement among the faculty. Despite a few challenges with communication and organization, we managed to pull it off with great success. The teachers

Looking back to when I typed my first AP Language and Composition paper, I can honestly say that my writing skills have drastically improved. I started off not knowing any writing strategies and thought that typing three pages was a lot for just one paper. After completing the course, I can now write a full eight paged paper using one of the three writing strategies that we learned. Before this class, I was never a skilled writer and the thought of taking APLAC intimidated me because I did not think I was capable of completing the course. I never imagined myself taking this class because In my mind I simply was not smart enough to take it. However, due to all the positive comments I received about the class and how it improved my friends writing, I

I don’t exactly remember learning how to speak English, it’s like one day I can only speak Spanish and next thing I know I am speaking both English and Spanish. Not only am I speaking English, I am reading and writing it almost fluently. I don’t remember if it was difficult for me when I first started school, I assume it was, based on what my mom told me. I was a shy little girl who didn’t participate in class, so the teacher assistant was kind enough to come after class to tutor me at home. Pre-Kindergarten is the very first level of school where you learn the basics to expand your knowledge into reading or writing. I have no idea if the teacher assistant tutored me to learn the English language or if I just caught on. In a mexican

When I was in eighth grade and my class was choosing our schedules for our first year of high school, I was told that for the diploma I wanted, I would have to take a foreign language. I chose Spanish, because I thought it would be easy. Little did I know that that decision would change my life forever.

My project went fairly well as I hoped and I did get some good reactions when I spoke Spanish around some people. I did take notes during the entire process so I have some notes that I would be able to look back at and recall what happened during the process of this project. I tried to focus where I spoke Spanish specifically around people that didn’t look like they spoke Spanish just so I could see the type of reaction. I spoke Spanish in variety of different places to ensure that I would get a good amount of results and reactions from people that were different. I spoke Spanish at restaurants, gas stations, at school, at the mall, wherever I went. We made a pit stop for gas at a station in Coachella and as expected the clerk did speak Spanish

It is a very complex world to live in without language. One’s ideas, thoughts, and emotions can all be present, however, unable to be expressed. This is the world I imagined for my grandfather when he first immigrated to the United States with my grandmother and their four children. He raised his own children to know Spanish in hopes that his future grandchildren would also be involved in their Dominican ancestry. Although, when I am speaking the same words and sentences that my mother, father, sister and cousins do, they come out misarranged and sloppy. This was because I never truly learned how to speak Spanish.

As I began school in pre-school I was taught that reading, writing and language would forever be a useful skill. Being a Spanish speaker I was lucky enough to live in small community where the majority of my class where all Spanish speaking. I remember my preschool teacher sending my home with small Spanish books to read with our parents that was our homework for the day. After that we would test on how fluent we read both the English and the Spanish version.

The two subjects I have had trouble with in school have been Spanish and English. It comes to a surprise to many people that I struggle in Spanish given the fact that I'm Hispanic. But people don't realize how difficult it is to learn two languages at once. During my freshman year in high school when I first started taking Spanish my grammar was really bad.. One factor that contributed to my difficulty in Spanish was the fact that I never had to write in Spanish until I got to high school . I could speak Spanish efficiently because I was raised in a Spanish speaking family. But I never knew how to spell most words because I never had to spell them. So when I took Spanish I made many errors like not putting an accent in the right place, or misspelling

Never did I expect to want to leave the comfort of my small Jewish summer camp in Utica, Mississippi, where I have spent the past seven summers. However, last March while flipping through pamphlets describing opportunities to experience Spanish culture, I changed.

I have taken both Spanish and French since the 7th grade and quickly found that I was good at and enjoyed learning foreign languages. I continued taking both throughout high school and they soon became my favorite subjects in school; sometimes they were the only classes I genuinely looked forward to going to. I knew that I wanted to continue taking foreign languages in college, become fluent, and travel abroad. The problem, however, was that I also knew I wanted to be premed. I knew it would be impossible for me to double major in Spanish and French along with staying on the premed track. I struggled with the thought that I would ultimately have to choose between Spanish and French, which I loved both equally.

In conclusion, my high school year taught me less than I expected. Both my freshman and sophomore year sucked because I was taught nothing. But all four years did help me one way or another. My freshman year, although I wasn't taught very much, it helped me create a self-taught process for me to get through. Researching all my worksheets given to me helped me in a great way, and made me teach myself what my teachers couldn't. My sophomore, I took my self-taught process to a better level, I began making it easier for me to understand and learn. Because my teachers didn't put a lot of effort in, it taught me hard work and to strive to create an easier

Imagine being five years old and learning a new language. Having to learn how to properly speak and write in that language by six years old. Imagine going home and not being able to get any help from anyone because they don't know the language you're learning. Going home day after day staring at a page with letters and words you don't know how to make sense of. Then imagine slowly you're starting to understand that language and you can finally communicate with humans who speak that language. Soon you conquer their language and their writing. After that you feel that you can conquer any obstacle that is thrown your way. But can you?

At the beginning of the fall semester, I was beyond excited when I found out that this Spanish class was about improving one’s speaking. I was also very nervous because I knew that my Spanish speaking skills were not nearly as good as some of my other classmates’ speaking skills. Nevertheless, I decided to try my very best every single time I was required to give a speech, and I tried very hard to not think about how well other people were speaking, and just focus on improving my speaking skills. With that being said, I have become quite a bit better at speaking in Spanish, and I have even been able to significantly improve my pronunciation.