Reflective Essay On Self Analysis

I had no knowledge of the English language or American culture. I never knew any other culture past my hometown’s. A fish out of water, I struggled as a first grader to learn the language, assimilate into the different culture filled with people with different physical features. I felt

The areas of productiveness in this session for me included the paraphrasing and minimal encouragers. Throughout this session I felt that my paraphrasing was clear and concise. It allowed the client to think about what he had said, while being able to provide me with feedback and allowed for the conversation to flow naturally.

There was a time she didn’t know how to describe a “white board marker” in Chinese, so she asked her class how to say it. “One girl, who went by the name of Tracy, eagerly told [Stephanie the word], and had a huge smile on her face” (Lam). Even though the language barrier was difficult, she and her students overcame it together with pointing and various other universal gestures and facial expressions. This way, the students were encouraged to understand English better to communicate with their teacher, and my cousin refined her own oral Chinese skills. The students “were kind and willing to help despite [her] poor Chinese, and didn’t judge [her] either” (Lam). The students were happy enough that she came all the way to Taiwan to teach them English. They respected this, and were eager to help her discover a new culture and improve on her Chinese abilities. The barrier was still tough for Stephanie, but thanks to the kindness of her students, it was much easier to bear through and succeed. It was a new and unknown world for my cousin, but she still made the most of her experience and discovered so much more about East Asian culture.

On the other hand, Nguyen talks of the language difficulties that she experienced being a Vietnamese in the United States. At first, she is enrolled to a school far from home as it offers bilingual education to help her integrate with the system of learning. She works hard to raise her academic performance with hopes of falling in favor with the teacher. However, as the teacher knows her Vietnamese origin, she manifests her stereotype on Nguyen’s comprehension in literature readings. For instance, while it was her turn to read, the teacher would interrupt her making sentiments such as “you are reading too fast….things she did not do to other students” (Nguyen, 35). She also faces a “school-constructed identity” together with her sister with all sorts of jibes thrown against them. As Vollmer puts it, “such assumptions affect the interpretations made of student behavior and school

I chose to base my studies on J because we shared a lot in common; we are both Christians living in a predominantly Muslim country. He is eleven years old. His parents are Jordan nationals who have lived in Bahrain for at least two years. J goes to school at Naseem International School where I work. The school offers PYP programs. Lessons are conducted in English; however, Arabic lessons are also offered per week. Majority of kids in this school are Muslims most of whom are Bahrainis. Other nationalities making the student population are Saudis, Lebanese, Jordanians, few South Africans, and other Arabian Gulf countries. Teachers are a mixture of nationalities. Some of them are Arabs, others South Africans, while some are Europeans.

I am currently a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio for almost a whole semester now. I came to this school straight out of high school, not knowing what I was getting myself into. During my high school years, I was good at every subject except my writing class. Coming to UTSA, I knew I was going to struggle in my writing class, but that didn’t discourage me from not trying my best in the course. Going through the English program, I realized that I have some strengths and weaknesses in the class, and it encouraged me to do better. The essays I have written for this class demonstrate that I have developed a strong thesis, organization skills, and detail; however, I still need to improve on grammar, keeping the POV, and citing.

Moving from Los Angeles to Chicago for my dad’s work left me marred with a longing for year-round sunshine, palm trees, and mountainous horizons – things that most Midwesterners can’t even imagine. As a Korean and Caucasian, I leave people confused with which racial slurs to throw at me (“white rice” is the most clever one yet). In first grade, my parents pulled me from school to teach me how to think for myself through homeschooling. Ironically, it was with this same sentiment that I applied eight years later to Chicago Hope Academy, another place where I’d be different. As a sophomore transfer, I was unfamiliar with rappers like Drake, Eminem, or Tupac everyone around me praised. I wasn’t used to words like “finna,” let alone the Spanish spoken by my soccer teammates as I was the only Asian-Caucasian in the student body. But at this time in my life, I realized that you learn the most about yourself when you're surrounded by those who are different from you. Several years later, my closest friends include an avid atheist (and former Buddhist), the sixth best soccer player in Illinois, and a survivor of fatal heart surgery who shouldn’t be alive – I couldn’t find a more diverse community of

My teachers and fellow peers gazed at me as I ran back to my mother, leaving behind all my fears of being in a school where no one could understand me.

The first year living in America, I went to fourth grade at a local public school. I was ostracized from my peer groups and bullied because of my Asian features and my limited vocabulary. It was a new beginning, they said, a second chance, a better opportunity. Yet I felt trapped, betrayed, and lost.

This section reveals a child that is originally from China but now has relocated to the United States. He began schooling, but has now been completely silent for a year. So he is brought to a new teacher to see if she is able to have an effect, but he quickly becomes angry and refuses to work with her (Igoa, 1995).

Elizabeth Wong is a Chinese-American playwright who wrote “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl”. In her essay, she describes her resentment of her Chinese roots and her protest against her parents who want her to learn and appreciate her heritage and culture. Her essay exposes the pressure that society places on immigrant children to fit into the dominant culture. The proposed solutions to fixing this problem is thinking and implementing long term plans. I make the argument that his ethical problem of society placing such a heavy burden on immigrant children to fit into the dominate culture can be solved with the implementation of multicultural classes, language classes, additional counselors and child psychologists in public schools.

In the book American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang gives us an entertaining story of a common simple goal to fit in. The book being intended for a middle school audience; it does an outstanding job of relating to adults as well in many ways. Reading the book has taught and reminded me of many things. Such as; accepting yourself, being who you are, and not changing for others. These goals are helpful when you’re getting situated in a new environment. Not only does Yang relate to middle school students, but to a variety of readers in many age levels and not just one in particular.

At the age of 5, I returned to the U.S from China. Like many Chinese-American children, I was a kid sent by my parents to another country to live with my grandparents in the countryside of China. By the time I came back to the U.S, I already had a difficult time catching up with my peers due to my language barrier. Those days were the harshest. Not being able to communicate with other kids, I became extremely outcasted as an individual. Eventually, this lead to countless hours of doodling flowers and sunsets on my own. As Ive gotten older, I realized that art was my outlet. It became a way for me to express a language without having to understand the rules and reasons behind a language. Although I struggled with this language barrier for a

Before taking this course my writing styles and habits were very different. I was the typical procrastinator because I would wait until the night before a paper was due to start it. This did not allow me enough time to properly proofread everything, which resulted in getting points deducted for simple grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I would have had the time to proofread. My writing styles have many strengths and weaknesses and I have been able to improve my writing because of them. I have learned from my strengths and weaknesses how to become a better writer.

I have always enjoyed writing, and I believed writing was a subject I was naturally good at. I turned in papers that were still rough drafts, I did not evaluate my sources, nor did I ever take the time to fully understand the prompt. It was not until my first semester of college, in my writing composition course, I realized that I had a lot of work ahead of me to be as good a writer as I thought I was. In the writing course, the students were required to compose several essays using different methods to help progress on the course objectives. The work in this portfolio demonstrates that I have used the methods of synthesis and evaluation of sources to advance my critical thinking skills and develop personal responsibility. Though I have