and write proficiently in English before they take the FCAT or by the end of the year…
At first it was very difficult to adapt and everything was so strange for the “rich teen girl” as she had never lived before in such an ugly and poor district. Moreover, her big problem was with language. Because of that problem, children who lived in her new district — including Korean children (English-speaking Korean-American kids) who are settled in USA before her — excluded her from their activities. However all of them had emigrated and lived in nearly the in same condition, and it was not easy to ignore the class divisions of the previous country.…
Kim Thuy’s novel Ru follows the life of a Vietnamese family escaping the war-torn country. The story is told through the eyes of a girl named Nguyen An Tinh and she takes us through the journey of being a Vietnamese refugee. From her childhood life in Vietnam and Malaysia to Canada we witness her transformation from a young girl to a woman. She takes us through her story of finding her identity amidst all the chaos and eventually returning to Vietnam. Throughout her life Nguyen realized that she has become estranged from her roots. In other words An Tinh is now considered an outsider because she successfully achieved the “American dream.”…
In The Struggle To Be An All-American Girl, Elizabeth Wong writes about her personal accounts of going to Chinese school to learn the language of her heritage and wanting to become All-American. Wong's purpose for writing this essay was to inform others of how she grew up and now she regrets her discussion. The genre of the essay is a personal essay because narrative and descriptive passages are used as well as first person. This essay's audience is other Chinese-American youth that want to become all-American or other that just want insight of her life. The social context of the essay is that there are others that are required to go to Chinese school and the cultural was the enlightenment regarding that not continuing to learn the language of her heritage. Wong's essay is a simple little passage telling about her life to others in the same situation.…
"Identity is the essential core of who we are as individuals, the conscious experience of the self inside" - Kaufman (Anzuldύa 62). Coming to America and speaking more than one language, I often face similar situations as Gloria Anzaldύa and Amy Tan. Going to high school where personal image is a big part of a student 's life is very nerve racking. American Values are often forced upon students and a certain way of life is expected of them. Many times, in America, people look down on people who do not accept the American Way of Life. The struggle of "fitting in" and accepting the cultural background is a major point in both essays, _Mother Tongue_ by Amy Tan and _How to Tame a Wild Tongue_ by Gloria Anzaldύa, which the authors argue similarly about. Both essays can be related to my life as I experience them in my life at home and at school.…
Introduction: My treatise is written with a solution-problem dynamic. I will briefly discuss how the government set out to provide what it saw as the solution to a shocking social problem, and then I will comment on some of what has been said about the barriers many immigrants have to overcome in order to feel socially included, to empower themselves and achieve good integration, and what part ESOL has to play in that.…
In this paper I will discuss the acculturation of Hmong people in United States and how this process takes place based on the previous research and investigations. Acculturation is a process of adjusting to and adopting the culture different from your own (Matsumoto, 2007). Usually, immigrants and ethnic minorities are facing this process since they are changing either the environment they live in or the life style they were having in the culture they were enculturated in. Example of many Hmong (elderly) people not speaking English after many years spent in United States clearly represents that acculturation does not…
Youth, rebellion, recklessness – three words that describe the teenage years of an angst-ridden American-Born-Chinese. Growing up, I had some sense of what was supposed to be important in life: politics, news, history, religion, family, math… it all sounded good—kind of like how communism sounded good—and that was exactly how I treated those subjects, with the utmost disobedience. Being born into a Discourse, as John Paul Gee puts, “…involve a set of values and viewpoints in terms of which one must speak and act” (Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics, 538). Being born into an Asian-American household, I was pressured heavily to achieve academic success. However, I didn’t care much to squeeze myself into this supposed Discourse of a perfect Asian. Nobody seemed to offer me a solid reason why I should apply myself in school, and so, I began to distrust the normal notions that good grades equal a good life. It would take me years to begin to realize just how stubborn I had been. I acquired, through being part of many discourses that, eventually, everything connects.…
Recently, in my College Writing II class, I had the opportunity to read, “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. I enjoyed reading the essay so much that I decided to write my own analysis. “Mother Tongue” is an essay based on the power of language and the will to communicate. However, the essay is not just about language itself, but also about the relationship between a mother, Mrs. Tan, and her daughter, Amy Tan, who moved to America for the possibility of getting a better life and living the American dream. Mrs. Tan encountered difficulties fitting in society because of her spoken “broken” English. “Mother Tongue” is also about changing but at the same time keeping your culture, heritage, and roots. In the essay, Amy talks about her experiences and feelings about the use of the English language. Without the use of Standard English, a person is known to be a foreigner and sometimes misjudged.…
What impact would you say No Child Left Behind has had on ESL learners and their education, either based on your actual experience/observations or your best guess after reading the text of the law?…
When thinking about immigration, most individuals imagine all different types of ethnic groups traveling to a separate land away from their own. Most imagine America. Immigration, throughout history, has occurred within all types of ethnicities. When taking a closer look at the individuals living in America, it is apparent that everyone is not exactly like one another. Assimilation becomes a popular word used when discussing migration, and both positives and negatives come along with it. Two theorists that discuss the meaning of assimilation in their writings are Stephen Steinberg in his book, Ethnic Myth, and Milton Gordon in his book Assimilation in American Life. They discuss issues regarding assimilation and how they affect the nation as a whole. A novel written by Chang-Rae Lee titled, Native Speaker, gives specific examples as to how the assimilation process affects others and the migrants themselves, as also described in both Steinberg and Gordon’s books.…
For the once isolated immigrant from the hot deserts of the Middle East, never have I expected the open doors of opportunity at my grasp and the growth that soon followed within the freshman year of high school in the US. Before my immigration, I never truly experienced the challenge of a demanding curriculum. As such, I experienced an immense culture shock within my mind. Despite the difficulty of the transition, I knew it was worth it because I discovered an aspect of myself that remained dormant till I entered the gates of my new school.…
My person that I interviewed is very unique besides being a very good teacher. She had received the honor of being selected ‘Teacher of the Year” a few years back here at Perkins County Schools (Grant, NE), so I knew her methods and strategies were tried and true. She has several different hats in our school system with English Language Learner (ELL) being just one part. She was asked to work with/for me in this program with our high school ELL students while I concentrated on Elementary and Middle School. She is in charge of the district’s Speech department which has also had great success. Finally, she is the school’s Spanish teacher, and a very good one. I have had the privilege of sitting in on her classes, collaborating with her and also this interview which gave me some tremendous insight into the Foreign Language (FL)/ELL world. I always jump at the chance to gain more knowledge and insight from her experiences.…
To begin with, through all the writing assignments that I have written so far, I have showed to have the capacity to come out with good ideas. Thinking about possible reasons of the problem, consequences or even solutions to the topic, are all very important as the first step to begin. For instance, while writing assignment number two, I started with questions to make us think how armed guards may not be prepared to work with children, and I listed detailed examples on how its consequences can affect the kids’ welfare. In doing so, it can make the readers think profoundly, and realize that there is more to worry about over its negative consequences. In other words, deeply comprehending the topic helps to increase my and the readers’ critical thinking and develop better viewpoints and conclusions. Having good concepts, motivated me to write well-developed writings.…
Born to local Chinese parents in Hong Kong, I immigrated to the United States when I was 19. I decided to leave my hometown despite having an admission offer from its best university because I wanted the experience of living a new life in an entirely different culture. The transition into American culture was both fascinating and painfully difficult. The language…