There Is An Ancient Chinese Proverb, That Goes By “Give

Currently, I’m teaching a group of high intermediate Academic English students from China and Saudi Arabia. They are all on a path to enter an American university and complete their bachelor's or master's degree in a variety of majors. My class size is 14 students and I teach them in the classroom 6 hours per week.

Cindy and the teacher had a trusted relationship. Having no friends that didn’t speak Chinese motivated Cindy to learn English; it her one year to learn to speak and understand English. However, it wasn’t until 6th grade that Cindy felt that she has mastered the English language. Cindy felt the difference between the two school systems. For example: Hong Kong teachers were a lot stricter then the teachers in the United States. Just like every other kid in a new place Cindy experienced fear and exhaustion. She shared how she felt through her film-strips. The filmstrips helped Cindy overcome her shyness. Just like the others; Cindy felt that the was caught in the middle of the two cultures. Cindy experienced some difficulty with cultural identity because of her dual cultural experience and language (p. 89).

Recently, as the schools in the United States become more diverse in cultures, the needs for new English learners to learn the basic of English and grow in fluency has expanded. Nevertheless, a major of English learners receive insufficient education and have low achievement at school. Therefore, the approach of the schools for English learners might not be sufficient for them to unchain themselves from the boundary of differences in language and culture. As a result, the article “What It Takes for English Learners to Succeed” from Jana Echevarria, Nancy Frey, and Doug Fisher provides a guideline for teachers to help their English learners by using the four practices of “Access, Climate, Expectation, and Language Instruction.” The four practices can be divided into two categories. Access, climate, and expectations focus on educational settings, while language instruction focuses on teaching contents.

Their mentality constantly fueled them to escape the hole of poverty that relentlessly sucked us in. They imparted the persistence of Chinese ethos to me and encouraged me to apply it to my academic endeavors. I began to ask for help from teachers after school and toiled each evening to master the language. By the end of the year, I was deemed advanced. I had tasted the rewards of hard work. I finally understood why my parents had clutched the persistent beacon of hope in the darkness of poverty and

Then she came to the U.S to study english education at the university of oregon. She wants to teach english in China. Shiqi Wu said that she loves being outside in the U.S better than in china, because the U.S has a better environment, and there are trees and grass all over. She also likes how there are less people here, and how she can greet everyone she walks past, “In china, If you tried to do that, you would break your neck!” Before she came to the U.S, she thought that people would be so easy to get along with, because Americans are so open minded and there are so many different kinds of people. However, she found that it's hard to tell when people are being genuine or just being polite. She also said that americans communicate much more directly the they do in china. If an american wants something they say, ‘I want that’, whereas in china people tend to go about it differently and don't directly say what they want. Shiqi Wu has not found it hard to adjust how she communicates, she likes direct communication better because it's easier! It was great fun, and a great honor for me to interview

First of all, I am a Taiwanese American from Dallas, but I’ve also been raised in several different places than where I come from, including China, Spain and the UK. Having lived in these places made me both culturally and socially diverse. On one hand, I’ve experienced different educational systems, food, languages and knowledge about different ways of living; on the other hand, I’ve learned how to quickly adjust into new environments and thus interact with people from all over the world.

When I came to America from China at age 16, everyone around me appeared to be different. However, I didn’t just talk to my Chinese friends. I pushed myself outside of my bubble; I tried my best to make friends with American students, while I still maintained good relationships with my Chinese friends. America is very different from what I expected, everyone speaks so fast and unclear; it almost made English a completely different language from what I had already learned. As I was trying to make friends, I realized that Chinese culture had made me different from Americans; things that I was curious about as a Chinese person were very private to American students. For example, in America, people won’t mention what their parents’ jobs are when they meet someone for the first time.

At ECEC, I use bilingual teaching methods to guide Chinese students in their language development. Three months later, the children who were exposed to this method became more comfortable in class. They began to establish a relationship with their peers and achieved significant improvement in their literacy development. My experience with ESL students not only limits to children, but also in varied age groups. In my earlier studies at Saddleback College, I was a peer mentor in the office for international students. I shared my academic and life experiences in the United States with my mentees, and helped them to achieve their academic goals. Before I transferred to UC Irvine, I went back to China and had the opportunity to volunteer at the Education Bureau of Zhengzhou, where I helped a team from the government to write in English on the topic of volunteering and social work. Working with the education policy makers in China, I realized the power and influence of a policy maker, and I learned how to come up with a proposal based on inductive research. I believe such work experiences I had with immigrants’ children and policy makers are useful for my future study on literacy of immigrants’

In order to make life in America a reality, we had to sell most of our stuff and send the remaining to America. Making the move was not easy, and there was a lot of pressure on my parents, but we finally settled down in Syosset, Ny, America. Of course, getting used to the western lifestyle was not easy and the language was a barrier. Renting a house, Buying a car, enrolling in school, and purchasing new furnitures were the first things that we had to do in America, just as we had to do in China. I taught English would be difficult to handle, but since I had already mastered a language besides my native language, I was not scared of taking the initiatives. Thus, I enrolled in the ESL program in Syosset High School. My ESL teacher was very strict and a harsh grader, and I did not enjoy being in her class. However, by the end of the year, when I took the ESL exit test, and passes it with excellent results, I saw the influence that my ESL teacher had on me. To this day, I’m thankful to her for not only helping me with my English, but also for making me a better student. When I finished ninth grade and started tenth grade, I tried to challenge myself a bit more with the academics; however my counselor did not recommend me to take Advance Placement classes, nor did she recommend me to exit ESL history (Even though I was enrolled in regular English). At the time I had a few japanese friends who introduced me to Japanese culture and food, thus to speak Japanese I took one year of Japanese. My japanese class taught me the japanese alphabet, basic conversations, and above all Japanese culture. Since Syosset High School did not have any Chinese language or Chinese club, I joined Japanese club in order to be with my other Chinese

My summer abroad in Guatemala, showed me the challenges and implications that come with teaching English as a Foreign Language. A specific challenge was to teach students who were Kaqchikel dominant instead of Spanish dominant. The challenge to reach students culturally and linguistically was a new experience I overcame by getting to know my students on a personal level. After

As a teacher who is working with English Language Learners, I will be interacting with students from all sorts of backgrounds. In order to support these students as people first and students second, I need to be aware of some of the concerns they might be facing at home. I also want to learn what I can do as a teacher to help students. Jose Antonio Vargas talked about how his principal and superintendent became a part of his support system in his adult life. While it may not be possible to support all of my students for the rest of their lives like Vargas’s example, it is important to build relationships with the

Being a Taiwanese-American has always been my heritage, and nothing in this world could ever change that. During the first few years of my early childhood, I did not speak a word of English. Speaking in Mandarin was the natural thing to do, since my parents have spoken Mandarin to me ever since childbirth. Naturally, the first words that I had ever spoken were in Mandarin, and I did not realize how big a problem this would be until preschool…

As an ESL instructor, I teach a diverse classroom full of migrants with a variety of backgrounds. It’s as multicultural as a classroom can be! I try to incorporate my students’ cultures into our lessons. After all, everything we know and understand comes from the lens of our culture. Take for example our own education. Think about how much influence our point of view had on our education. Now, how much is our point of view affected by culture? I try to be as culturally responsive as possible. However, I know that there is always room for improvement.

I was born in Hong Kong and moved alone to Taiwan to live with my grandmother when I was 12. I struggled to learn the language, Mandarin, and to live and learn alongside children from a very different culture. I was like some alien from outer space in Taiwan – generating stares but not acceptance. However, by being open minded about both my potential and the potential of this little island, I succeeded in adapting. I spoke back to the television set to practice Mandarin; I read books and watched videos to learn Taiwan's culture, history, and literature; and I helped my fellow classmates in our

(2010). When the international students talk with the native speaker, they will gain the information from the conversation which is the cultural exchange. For language learners, they can learn and summarize cultural elements from the dialogue. Moreover, if they use the cultures in the next conversation, they will become more confident. They will feel the distance between them and native speaker become closer, and can they become more confident than before. Thus, you can get more confident while you use the cultural exchange to learn the language. One major issue in early diversity class research concerned in a single cultural class, student acceptance will decline, because of their level thinking is unity and did not let those students feel self-confidence from learning something. (Sleeter, 2001)