Cover Letter
The audience I was writing for was my professor(you) and the people in my class since I knew that we would be doing peer review. I choose my language based on what I felt would inform, persuade, and entertain the readers the most. I wanted to write in a way that was able to get the readers to relate to my essay even if their experience is not exactly the same. I wanted to show that in a way, we all have similar experiences when it comes to hardships of the English language. Through the assignment, I really had to do some reflection on everything in my life that has happened to get me to where I am today in my languages and literacy. I reflected on moments that had a greater impact on me than I realized.
When I had the chance to read others’ experiences and listen to their spoken narrative, it was really eye-opening to me. I really enjoyed this assignment because not only was this assignment not about us, but also how our experiences are universal and showing the problems in society making it harder for non-native English speakers to thrive. This assignment allowed me in a way to indirectly connect with my peers. Although I did not really talk to anyone in the class prior, I feel like I know them more. Language really is a way of connecting people. The assignment helped me achieve the first course learning outcome, “Examine how attitudes towards linguistic standards empower and oppress lanager users.” In a lot of the narratives, people talked about how hard it was for them to settle in America or how their identity felt hidden because they were not encouraged to speak their native language. I related with the fact that there was a time period that I was too American to be Chinese, but too Chinese to be American. Growing up, I did not see a lot of people like me being represented in the media. It took me a long time to realize that knowing multiple languages was powerful and I had to embrace all my languages.
When I was writing this essay, I really had to think about the “So What?” part. Why was I writing the essay, what was my purpose, and what did I want my readers to get out of this essay. I wanted to just write about my experience as an English Language learner in a non-English speaking family while having to juggle multiple responsibilities, at such a young age. I wanted to also write out my thoughts and also create a writing for myself. My so-what element was talking about my experience and then showing how it was a societal problem. Not just with me. I wouldn’t really call it a problem though, I think it’s more like a widely shared experience that is harder than it should be. I also realize through reading articles that even though I do not go through those struggles today, many other children are. It is like a generational thing and it keeps getting passed down to each new generation and no attention is being brought to the disadvantages of not being a native-English speaker living in America.
In the middle of writing, I also realized that talking about my personal experience and switching between that and the overall “problem” in society helps my essay be more unique and engaging. I feel like if you gave me an essay about non-native English speakers being neglected, I would not be as interested to read it because it is something I already knew and did not feel the need to read about it. However, if you gave me a reading about someone’s experiences as an English language learner, I would be more inclined to read it because I might want to see my experiences in someone else and be able to relate and connect with the writer. With this mindset, I had to think of a way that would be unique enough for readers to actually read the whole thing through without getting confused or distracted.
Essay
Learning Violin
“Do you not understand English??,” my violin teacher yelled at the six year old Susan during my first week in the class.
To give some context, this was the time when I was learning English and not confident in my speaking. It had been about a year since I came back from China after about 4 years of learning how to read, write, and speak Mandarin and Fujianese. So coming back to New York and having to learn English alone in a non-English speaking family was a struggle. With my native languages, I had the support of my family and teachers to help me learn, but with English, I was pretty much alone. I spent so much time programmed to function in Chinese, but not in English because my parents just assumed that I would eventually learn when they put me in American schools. My parents brought me a book. that translated everyday objects into English names. It’s funny now, because it is the opposite of what my parents bought it for. I use it to translate English to Chinese. (the picture on the left is a page of the book)
However, my parents couldn’t be more wrong about school teaching us English. A big problem in the American education system is that it is tailored to students who are able to speak English fluently. Usually being able to speak multiple languages would be a positive trait, but in American schools it’s designed to make it harder for students with a native language other than English to succeed. Looking at the students in schools in the U.S., we can see that children of immigrants make up most of the student population and half of them are not fluent in English (Calderón, Slavin, & Sánchez, 2011). I was one of those children. Some schools have special programs like ASL or ESL, but they have the opposite effect by alienating these students. Sure, we have those required language classes like Spanish or French, but do we really learn anything from them? Or are we just placed in them to check off another box from our graduation requirements.
When the violin teacher yelled in my face, for not perfecting the first note of the violin, I was absolutely horrified. I just quietly sat there, trying to hold back tears. Of course though, I did understand every word he said but I could not muster enough courage to respond. Talking to my parents, they just told me it was nothing and to just talk. But English was still such a weird concept for me. The way that helped me learn the most was just listening and observing. I think the reason why I chose to do ballet and violin was because every noise or movement was the same everywhere. I found comfort in the repetition. Learning English was a lot like learning an instrument or new dance routine. Watch it. Remember it. And then copy it.
I was a very quiet kid, even with the people I considered as my friends, I did not talk much. I just listened and picked up all the silly sounds. I realize that even today in school, I forget that I’m not that little kid anymore and that I can talk and not be afraid I will speak in the wrong language, in the wrong sounds, and in the wrong pronunciations. Sometimes I just forget I have a voice in class and just listen to everyone talk. However, not talking in class allows me to notice and observe everything around me including the people. Many details of the class or a person to help me remember them, I am able to notice a lot quicker than most people. I was actually voted “most likely to be an undercover FBI agent” in high school because I just somehow knew everything. When I don’t use my voice, I feel that other skills or senses improve or become “better.” Whether it’s a part of the class that needs repairing or a weird feature of the room, sometimes I genuinely just forget to participate because I am just observing the surroundings. It could also be a trauma response to when I was little and mixed up so many words, juggling three languages and feared that I would be mocked by my classmates. It didn’t help that I was the only student in my elementary and middle school who spoke Chinese. In elementary school, I was put in a special-education class because they didn’t know how to “teach” me.
Was putting me in a special-education class really the best solution they were able to find? I don’t blame my teachers or even the school, it was the education system as a whole that failed students like me. If teachers were trained for a more effective teaching practice or a specifically crafted system for how to teach non-English speaking students, it would help reduce the achievement gap between native and non-native English students (Altherr 14). It is expected for native English speaking students to succeed in the long run so teachers rather focus on them instead of helping those who actually need the help.
Why is language a barrier when it comes to education? Just because there are students who did not share a language did not mean they were incapable of learning. Subjects like math still had the same rules and concepts no matter what language you spoke. But rather than trying to help these students, the educational system chooses to neglect them. According to the New York Department of Education, in the school year 2020-2021, 42% of the students that attended public schools did not speak English as their primary language at home. 42% is a large number of students going through language barriers and identities showing that the education system failed them. Even though there are so many students going through what I did, they choose to ignore it and focus on the 58% of students who speak English as their native language because they are “more likely to succeed”. This causes that 42% to grow a dislike towards the English language because it is not just a language, but a barrier and reminder of their struggles.
As one of those victims of the struggle to grasp English, literature subjects such as English and History are my least favorite subjects. I prefer any STEM subject over them. If I had the choice to take two math classes over one history class, I would take the two math classes without a doubt. When looking at the demographics of people pursuing the STEM field compared to the humanities field, we will see that the majority of the people in STEM are Asian while the majority of the people in humanities are white. If you look at the chart below, you can see that the percent of Asians that have a bachelor’s degree in STEM is 33%. It is almost double that amount compared to all the other races.
This may be due to the fear of not succeeding in non-STEM areas because English was not their first language. However, math and science will always stay the same no matter what language they are using. There is always a right and wrong, never a “oh you’re close, but not quite yet!” The feeling of not being able to know if you are doing the right thing is scary for non-English speakers because not doing it right would mean failure. To me, I prefer math and science because there will always be an answer that you can find with logic while there is too much freedom and independence in writing.
For decades, the education system has never favored non-native English speakers. Everything was always focused on the kids who already were ahead in their literature skills. Is it because they are expected to more likely succeed than us? No real solution has ever been looked into. However, I was able to change the experience for my brother. I didn’t know much when my brother was learning English, but I just knew that he could not go through what me and the other 42% of students went through. I made sure to give him the help he needed to excel in school. He now enjoys literature, the opposite of me. If more people helped non-native English speakers, like I did with my brother, maybe the STEM and liberal arts fields will have a more balanced demographic of people in each field.
Works Cited
“2020-2021 Ell Demographics: At-a-Glance – Infohub.Nyced.Org.” ELL Demographics At-a-Glance, New York DOE, Dec. 2021, infohub.nyced.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/sy-2020-21-ell-demographics-at-a-glance.pdf.
Barrow, L, and L Markman-Pithers. Supporting Young English Learners in the United States – JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43940586. Accessed 29 Sept. 2023.
Calderón, Margarita, et al. “Effective Instruction for English Learners.” The Future of Children, vol. 21, no. 1, 2011, pp. 103–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41229013. Accessed 18 Sep. 2023.
Lee, Seng. My First Picture Dictionary (Chinese-English Edition). 4 Mar. 2005. Learners Publishing Pte Ltd, Learners Publishing. Accessed 6 Dec. 2010.
