Abstract

I never thought that I would be that far from home. It’s not easy away from the place you were raised. Memories, growing up with families, that never leaves your soul no matter where you go, home calls you back. It’s all about Change, how was life back home and how it altered here in the US.

All About Change!

Have you ever wondered how life can change in the blink of an eye? Sometimes changes in life can be a good thing, however, it might be a nightmare for some. I didn’t know that I’d be that far from home. Life was moving like the white clouds in the sky. I didn’t have much complaints about life.  I can think of the memories that my friends and I shared. I vividly remember sitting together watching birds flying over our heads, boat rides, and us playing until the sun finally set. As night began to cover the world, we would feel the gentle breeze that touched our hearts while the evaporation of the water always made our face wet. Time flies when you are enjoying it, but little did a know things were about to change in life.

I was fourteen when I stepped my foot into a Disney world where I couldn’t even speak a word in English. I remember the day when I got lost on the same block of my apartment because I felt like every apartment looked alike. I was asking people around my neighborhood how to get to the house where I lived. They would say things like “repeat the address again.” They wouldn’t get it no matter how many times I’d repeat myself and then they would walk away by saying nothing. I then realized that my English was the reason for their ignorance. A few days later, I was enrolled in a school where I saw a lot of kids speaking English to each other. I would put my ear to their conversation, but I couldn’t comprehend anything at all. There were days when some students would be calling my name in a mocking way, but I couldn’t say anything back to them or defend myself. I felt like crying. I was heartbroken those days. I would go up to the mirror and speak to myself about how I should’ve responded and what I was going to say the next day. It was like I would psych myself up. I was raised in Bangladesh where I grew up speaking a language called Bengali. Never thought about learning English and why would I? I didn’t need that for communication purposes. In school, I had only one English class where we would meet once a week. The other subjects were written in Bangla. The teachers wouldn’t focus on English as much as they would on other subjects. I learned how to read English a little bit, but when it comes to speaking, I basically acquired nothing. Therefore, the struggle became real in the US.

Coming to the US and not speaking the English language affected me socially because when you don’t speak a certain language in a specific country, you will have a hard time adapting and things might not go on your way. Also, as immigrants, we struggled a lot to get along with the environment. Since I came here late, I was having issues with social interactions. Some of my friends who came to the US later in their life are in the same boat as me. Therefore, they don’t judge my speech. They know how it feels to speak with an accent since they have their own accent, however, friends who were raised here, mock my accent and English most of the time.

I remember one day accompanying my parents to the clinic to interpret for them, but it turned out to be that I’m the one who needed an interpreter. It was really humiliating. Not knowing English became a barrier in life. Furthermore, I have never had issues picking up the phone but here in the US, it’s ridiculous that I stay at least 5ft away from the phone. This new nation literally blocked my mouth, increased blood flowing through my veins, took away confidence and made me someone I’m not.

As days passed by, I started to speak a little bit but wasn’t proficient enough for some to understand me. I had a bad “Asian Accent”. As a matter of fact, I still have that freaky accent and I still confuse a lot of people. They still make me repeat most of the time which eventually became the reason behind why I’m quiet all the time. have an issue explaining things as well. Not that I know less, but I feel like the words get stuck in my mouth. I also had problems expressing myself in writing, however, I was able to improve it by getting someone’s help.

It was my English teacher in ninth grade. When the students and other teachers were unpleasant to me, he was the only one who gave me helping hands. Some of the teachers told me that they couldn’t comprehend my speech and my writing was bad. No one would understand my feelings about the language but him. He would often ask me in class if I’m understanding the topics that he was covering. He would sit next to me and explain by using some general words so that I could understand. However, I was falling behind on homework and essays in class. One day, he called me to his office and I didn’t have any idea why. I went there and saw him sitting in a moving chair with my transcript on his hand. He told me “You have to make a change, I know what you are going through but you can do it. Perhaps the speaking skills may not come along with you right away, however, we can work together and improve your writing” I remember replying to him with one word “How?” Then he advised me to stay after school with him in hopes that he could help me to improve my writing skills. The teacher is from Puerto Rico, growing up he had trouble with the English language, which is the reason behind him feeling my pain with the language. Therefore, he tried to help me as much as he could.

From that day, I would stay after school almost every day. He started to teach me how to use grammar, punctuation marks, figurative language etc. He also taught me some great tricks to master the writing part easily. In a few months, I was able to write about a half a page with comprehensive words. I would write every single day and I’d show it to him the next morning. Little by little, I started to improve, and my grades began to go up. I don’t really know how to describe or recognize the teacher. All I can say is that he was the best and I could make a little difference in life only because of him. I feel like that if it wasn’t for him, I would still be on level one in writing and wouldn’t able to write in a comprehensive way.

In addition, changes are something that became part of my life and it makes me the person I’m today. Just to improve the way of life, I’m working hard to climb up the ladder to see the rainbow behind the cloudy skies.

 

Self Reflection

I have gained a lot of things out of my literacy narrative. I have learned how to put my thoughts together and express my experience to my audience. I was able to let others know of the things that I had been through. By writing the narrative I could connect with some of my audience who has pretty much the same experience as I had with the language. Also, there are so many factors that impacted my learning and writing. Rhetoric is one of them that I’ve never learned back in high school, however, I’ve got to know what rhetorical situations through this assignment. This helped me to share my feelings with the audience in a way to make them comprehend what I was going through. Throughout my narrative, I used a conversational tone to appeal to my audience. At the beginning, I explained how life was back home and suddenly it changed which made my life difficult. I also explained how I would get bullied in school by students and teacher who would criticize my writing and I became a victim of people’s ignorance because of the language barrier.

I also improved my writing practices because I wrote a tremendous amount of research papers and historical essay back days, but I have never written a personal narrative before. I used to think that the real writers are the only ones who know how to write personal narrative but after this assignment, my perspective of this changed because now that I realized that I can write stories too, I will continue to expand on it. Though this assignment I’ve learned to share my purpose which is the central idea or what I’m trying to say to my audience. My purpose was to let my audience step into my shoes and feel the way I felt. I used context in such a way to enable readers to understand my narrative essay. I’ve provided details about struggles that I faced. Evidence and argument helped me to explore more about where I’m from and how life was back then and how it changed. A genre is something that would help the readers to know what type of narrative the author wrote and tone that was used. I used a conversational tone in a way to get my audience emotional.  All of these gave me more confidence to move forward with my writing practices and share more of what I have to say.

This phase’s assignment helped me to achieve the course learning goals on the syllabus in many ways. For instance, the rhetorical situation worksheet helped me learn about the authors, the way they tried to pursue their audience by using rhetorical situations, context, genre and the purpose of their story. If I didn’t learn any of these I wouldn’t able to write my own narrative today. Also, by doing the charting a text worksheet, I’ve learned what was the authors saying and doing. For instance, they would say something in a figurative way which covers a large idea. It made me comprehend how authors abstract their ideas and let their audience figure out the rest.

Moreover, by reading the language and narrative booklet I’ve learned that social differences are something that plays a major role in life. I found a lot of authors words that are related to my personal life. Sometimes, it becomes super hard to get along with a different culture, however, we learn things that we’ve never learned before such as learning a new language. We go through a lot of struggles in life, but we learn from them and overtime we use the resources we have around us just to improve the way of life.