My ESL Experience

Mark Twain, one of America’s most famous authors who wrote several well-known books such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, once said, “If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” This quote is straightforward and means the only way someone can learn is by going through struggles and challenges. As a proud daughter of immigrant parents, I grew up in a household where I only spoke Spanish because that was the only language my parents understood and could easily communicate in. The only English I would speak was when my older brothers would teach me after they finally started school. I’m three and five years younger than them, so I could only learn through them until I got the chance to start my education. Honestly, it took me a while to speak English. I was still learning before I started kindergarten, and I frequently mispronounced words due to both having difficulty speaking and having trouble pronouncing new words, such as  words and worlds. I finally started school, and by the time I got to third grade, that’s when I started remembering more of my experience with ESL.

Back then, I had no clue why I was being pulled out of class, I just knew that I loved it. I thought I was getting special treatment because of that and thought I was one of the lucky ones. At first, it was a one on one session with this nice lady who spoke to me in Spanish. I believe her name was Ms. Chavez. She would take me out of class and bring me to her office, where she would ask me questions and have me read and answer passages from previous state reading tests. Third grade was when I started remembering more about my experience with ESL. Instead of being pulled out during class, I would go on the class computer once every

week during silent reading. I would go to this website, I can never recall the name of it but I would play games and interact with the videos that had different scenarios. That was either to improve my English or just because I didn’t know how to read, probably a bit of both. But I didn’t care about feeling ashamed or pitied because I enjoyed my time there and missing out on reading.

In fourth grade, I met Mr. Son. He was a tall man with glasses and a large, friendly smile. Everyone loved him and always joked about his name, comparing him to the actual sun. He would always go along with the joke, even adding on to it. It was always during silent reading that he would come to my classroom and have me and the other students in my class, who were also in the ESL program, sit at a table. Instead of having us read the same book that he picked out, he would allow us to pick any book we wanted from the classroom library. We would be able to read whatever book caught our interest. We would read until a certain page or until the timer ran out, then we would go around and give each other summaries of our books. I truly loved being there because I didn’t feel out of place, but I honestly didn’t understand the reason why I was in the group to begin with. But I felt comfortable with the way he taught us. I enjoyed writing when it came to something I found interesting because then I didn’t feel forced to think of something to write, it all just came naturally. Mr. Son would have us write about our book, giving us basic questions to answer. However, after a certain point, I stopped looking forward to this. I started feeling forced to learn a specific language due to the repeating cycle. Sometimes, I just wanted to be in class and learn, but I had to leave and read books.

In fifth and sixth grade, I had a different teacher because Mr. Son was only for a certain grade level. My new teacher was the opposite of him. Her name was Ms. Raven, and she was known to be more strict and scary for us students. We always tried to stay away from her, but unfortunately, I was stuck with her for the rest of the year. I would be pulled out of either science or social studies. Whenever I saw her walk through the doors, I dreaded getting up and having my peers look at me, because they knew why I was leaving. Sometimes I would be so happy to leave because I would miss my least favorite class, and I would look at my classmates with a prideful expression, or other times I wouldn’t even look at them because I was ashamed of the reason I was getting pulled out. Unlike Mr. Son, her face was always neutral. She never had a smile on her face, her lips were always in a straight line, and her hair was always down with her bob straight. Her room felt dark, even though the office was a bright orange color, maybe it was the color of her aura making it feel that way. The group of five would read the same book, and we would take turns reading and explaining what we read. She would give us a writing assignment that was due right at the end of class, or else we weren’t able to leave. We were always scared of her because she didn’t take things lightly, she always wanted things to go her way and would scold you if you did it any other way. Once again, I started dreading writing and saw it as a thing that was forced on me. I never saw the point in learning the right way to write in English if none of my middle school teachers told me what to improve on. They would always leave comments and marks on my work, but never tell me how I can improve my skills.

When I got to high school, I thought it would be the same routine of my English teacher teaching a lesson and assigning us work that we didn’t really need, and me not having an outcome of improvement. However, my English teachers all throughout high school, even teachers from other subjects, would talk one on one with every student and make time for them, in class, during lunch, after school, or whenever the student 

was able to, making their schedule flexible for us. They went above and beyond to make the students understand what was going on during class and improve their skills. Specifically in eleventh grade, when I had this English teacher, Ms. Miller, who was just new to the school, so no one knew her teaching style or her as a teacher. At first, no one liked her class and saw her as a strict teacher who would assign class and homework assignments every day. As the year went on, we all suddenly snapped out of that trance because we realized her intentions weren’t bad, she just had her own way of getting things done, so it was easier to understand and keep in mind for our future. We started admiring her, seeking her help for things that had nothing to do with her class, even when we became seniors. We would go to her every day to talk about our classes and catch up. I realized that improving my English skills not only taught me new things but also built new relationships with others because it was a way for me to express and talk with someone who understands and gives out new ideas and strategies. Every time we had a writing assignment, she would let us have free inspiration while still following the directions, which made us feel comfortable knowing there wasn’t a right way to answer the question. For example, for certain assignments, she would let us use our native language if we wanted, to bring out our culture, she never stopped us from expressing ourselves.

In conclusion, my story is an example of why you shouldn’t follow trends or feel pressured to change who you are, worrying that you’re being seen as an ‘outcast’. I’m a proud Mexican daughter of immigrant parents, and most of my family members never finished high school and always spoke Spanish, even now. When they moved to the United States, they had to learn English and send their children to school to learn things they weren’t able to. Many first-generation children want to make

their parents proud and learn all they can just for them, even if it means struggling and wanting to quit many times. Being fluent in English isn’t something everyone needs. It’s better to accept who you are and where you came from rather than trying to be someone you’re not and falling into the social norms that English is the only language that can be spoken in the U.S. Nowadays, many races and cultures are spread throughout the country, which makes the U.S what it is, a diverse nation that is built off them, with their traditions, food, music, clothing, etc.