When I was eight years old, I left behind all that I knew and all whom I loved: the country where I was born, the language which I spoke, and the grandparents who had raised me for all of my life. In hindsight, the emotions didn’t hit me until later. My goodbyes were rushed through a whirlwind of rolling suitcases and disconcerting lights and airport announcements. I was guided by the iron grip of the woman known as my mother away from the smiling faces bearing deep wrinkles and teary eyes. It was only the morning after, when I woke up in an uncomfortably large bed without the soothing presence of my grandmother’s drowsy breaths that I realized—I was terrified. In this country of opportunities and freedom and the liberty, I was confined by …show more content…
I was in a school of unfamiliar hallways and unfamiliar classrooms, located in a city with unfamiliar streets and unfamiliar people, placed in a country of unfamiliar words and unfamiliar customs. My everyday life depended on one classmate who happened to also speak Mandarin Chinese. I’d ask him for the homework, the in-class assignment, to talk to the teacher for me, to guide me to the next class. As his responses became shorter I realized the faults of depending so heavily on a stranger. I didn’t have much of an option, really. I could hear but, in that classroom, I might as well as have been …show more content…
“Write down every word you don’t know,” she said as she handed me a simple picture book. At night, she read the English words out loud and wrote down the definition in Chinese. It became a daily occurence as my life started to revolve around obtaining fluency. It didn’t come easily. It came with lessons with a kind ESOL teacher, explanations from patient friends, lists of grammar rules, and pages covered with letters scribbled by a shaky hand getting used to the curvature of the alphabet. Yet eventually, as my pink notebook was filled to the brim with English vocabulary and Chinese definitions, fluency came. Conversations with my classmates morphed from hesitant phrases to long-winded rants about anything and everything. Story time in school changed from a dull hour of picking at the carpet into a fascinating bonding experience with the class. Tests became less of a trial of whether or not I could understand the problem and more of whether or not I could actually answer the problem. I remember when my teacher told me that I could move on from reading books marked with the lowest reading level. The books she deemed suitable for me were longer and filled with many more unknown words, but that didn’t matter. For the first time in a long while, I was proud of
John sat quietly thinking about the events from the day before. A lot had happened in the last couple hours. He wasn’t sure whether to stare at the wall in shock or go out celebrating. John had just been naturalized. He was a citizen of the United States of America. He never has to go back home. He had rights. He could out and say anything! He could practice his religion! He was American.
I could not imagine how it was horrible to walk into a classroom without any experience of English. The first day of my fifth grade, I stood in front of the classroom door, looked around the room and saw the alphabet and numbers all around the board. Other students looked at me like I was an alien. I did not really remember my teacher names; however, I remember that we liked to called her, "Mrs. B". Mrs. B liked to read books out loud, after she read, we needed to write a summary and turn it in to her. After every reading, I sat there and saw
I came to US during my 8th grade and that was a life changing moment in my life. It was first time traveling aboard and that also not for a trip but for to permanent settlement. I was nervous my whole time been in the plane that how I will cope up with new environment and with bunch of English speakers. I got more. When it came pilot call for, that it's time to land on the Detroit Airport, tighten your seatbelts and be relax. As soon as the plane landed on American soil, I knew that this was the place where I’d to start a new life. Even though I knew America is the “Land of Opportunity”, everything here seemed so strange to me, the streets, the language and the people that was my first time traveling abroad.
Coming to America about six years ago and adapting to the new world proved to be a real challenge for me. Aside from the cultural shock, I had to adapt to the usage of a foreign language in almost everything, which in turn forced me to work harder in my studies than in the previous years. My parents sacrificed a lot for their family. They left their country, their own business, and their family behind so that my sisters and I could have a better future. I came to America when I was in the eighth grade. I did not speak English fluently or understood it very well. When I got the admission in middle school my counselor gave the course selection sheet. I did not even know what courses to pick because the courses were almost alien in nature, or
The year of 2014 late summer I came to America with dreams and hopes, expecting the better for me and my family. I have family that had came before me; however they weren't that respectful for someone that had been living in Mexico their whole life. I used to get put down by the way I looked, talked or how I acted. I recall that they would talk in english about me , and make fun of me , so I wouldn’t understand what they were saying. I have cousins that don't even appreciate all the sacrifices that one as a parent has to make , so they are able to give a better life for their kids. On the good side of the story I would always keep in mind how I came here? thanks to who?and why?. So I realize that I fitted in the Hispanic community by attending to Hispanic events, playing soccer, and cooking hispanic food.
Coming to AmericaThe year was 1948, and my grandmothers aunt and uncle came for a visit from Chicago to Germany to see their family. They had no children and had come to ask my grandmother if she would be interested in coming to Chicago to possibly live there w ith them. The idea of going appealed to her very much since her home city, Saarbrcken, was still partially destroyed from the WWII bombings. She always had the wanderlust in her blood coming from both sides of her family, so thinking about the towering skyscrapers, the bustling city streets, and the glamorous movies from America was quite enticing to my grandmother. With all off these wondrous thoughts swimming through her head, she enthusiastically agreed to go.Now, it was time to prepare
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
Most students don’t spend tons of time trying to memorize vocabularies, but I do, and i have been doing that for many years now. I have a normal family with parents that love me a lot, we go on to vacations if we have spare time. My new life started when my mom and dad decided to move to America in order for me to get a better education, and mostly did not want me to experience those harsh studying in China. I came to America when I was in fourth grade, and everything was really different from the world I used to be in, the environment, school, and people around me. I felt really uncomfortable at first but I quickly adapted the situation.
The first time I’ve met my parents was when I was five. When they approached me at the airport, I did not know who they were. When I found out that they were my parents, I did not know how to react — I was excited, but also scared. Standing in front of me were two people whom I listened to the voices of for the past five years and spoke casually with on the phone, but meeting them in person was a whole different story.
It was challenging having to adapt a new place and at a new school going into my fifth-grade year. At this point, my teacher would assign chapters in a textbook to read, but I found some words to be difficult, so I would just skip over them. The teacher would have some students in the class read each paragraph in the textbook aloud. I realize the teacher would call on a girl named Chelsea a lot due to her being such a good reader. She knew every word in the textbook which I resented. Finally, it was my turn to read aloud, I felt that each word in every sentence was in some other language instead of English. As Malcolm X felt when he said, “but every book I picked up had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese. When I just skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said.” For the next assigned chapter in the textbook for homework, I would try to measure up to Chelsea’s knowledge with words. While reading the new chapter, if I came across unusual words I would look it up in a dictionary and discover compatible words that made sense to me. Then, starting the paragraph over in the chapter assigned, I replaced the unusual words with familiar words I understood to help me get an understanding of what I was reading. Still, the dictionary opened my mind to other words that could
I remember when I first moved to America. I remember how scared I was to move to a whole new country and didn’t know a soul within 400 miles of me. Everything was brand new and I was basically a newborn child in this world at the age of 4. I remember how we met, we bonded over the sport of soccer. I remember how we became the best of friends, and how we would carpool to Pre-K together. Then, she had a game for her church. I remember it was freezing because it was early January. She scored a goal right before half time, and then was taken off for the rest of the game. I remember seeing her panting on the bench, then I saw her lie down the bench. I figured she was tired, but then I saw her convulsing on the bench. I didn’t even realize what
I wake up really fast, jumping out of bed, getting to shower, showering faster than I could, dressing up immediately, I start to eat breakfast and finishing really fast.
Heads or Tails In the short story “Me Talk Pretty” Sedaris tells its readers about the difficult time he had while in Paris. It’s no secret that everyone at one point has had to experience this difficulty while in a foreign country. You take a language class to have some knowledge before your arrival to the country but even that isn’t enough, it’s never enough. Sedaris “…took a month-long French class before leaving New York…”
It is our first day here on the new land. It is like nothing we have ever seen and we will set out in group to explore the new world in the morning, for now we must set up camp. I hope to find gold and possibly native people these so called savages and convert them to Christianity.
up the phone and rang my Tom’s father to thank him, and for me and Tom