Kimberly Geraldino Literacy narrative February 26, 2020
English 21001
Ms.Weyn
Beauty in learning two language
I found myself somehow arguing with Memely and Othan, my siblings, over a yet old but very love space-consuming heavy computer to see who gets to use it first. They were both way more proficient English speaker than I could ever imagine myself to be, they never made me feel left out but instead, they talked to me in my language, Spanish, which they were both not at all proficient in since they had been living in the united state since they were two years of age and sometimes they would even talk to me in Spanglish. Other got yo used the computer first since he won the argument, he used the “I am older” card on us and began to search about his new school. While I wasn’t as excited as they were to go to a new school, I still felt pretty secure knowing that me and my sister Emely would be going to the same school since Othan would be going onto his freshman year of high school.
On my first day of class my stepmom woke all of us to the smell of our pretty much everyday breakfast that we didn’t really ever complain about, plantain, egg, and salami. We all rush and fought to know who took a shower first, I got to take a shower first not because I actually won the fight but because my stepmom knew I took too long to get ready and if I was the last one to get ready we would all be late. I got ready really fast since my clothes were already picked out from the night before and while sitting in the dining table waiting for everyone to come to eat I realize that I was pretty excited, I had a new backpack and pencil as well as a new outfit since my suitcase got lost in the airport and we had grabbed the wrong bag. When we finished eating we all headed out the household and entered my stepmom car to a drive of literally two minutes since it was two blocks away. My stepmom left me and my sister in front of the school and my sister held my hands and walked me to my classroom. The first time I felt like I had an actual big sister and even though we are only nine months apart.
When I entered the classroom, I quickly felt very comfortable with my surround and very much surprise to see so many students who look and spoke just like me, It was surprising to know that I was not the only one who didn’t know English and that a big part of my classmate had just like me arrive at the United stated recently and were in the same process to learning English as me. I was in what you call bilingual class which basically meant that all students no matter what their first language was were going to be attending that class since it was a slower paste class that gave a new English speaker a chance to learn how to read and write English. All students who didn’t pass or hadn’t ever taken the ELA test would be attending that class. After a week of attending to my new school, my parents got a call from my teacher which basically explained how far behind I was not only on learning English but in all other aspects like math. This didn’t at all had to do with the barrier that I didn’t know English since a lot of the classes were learned in Spanish anyways, It had to do with my educational level prior to coming to the united state.
My educational level in Santo Domingo was pretty low, Republica Dominicana is known to have one of the worst educational systems and while it’s been improving it is still pretty bad for does who can’t afford to pay to go to a private school. So my father would come after work and work with me on my homework and anything that was related to English I would ask my sibling or used the computer to go on ABC.com which was a very basic for kids app to help you learn the alphabet and number as well as help you pronounce simple words like colors and fruits. Most of my word association and learning I owe it to the singer Taylor swift since I would spend a large amount listening to her song over and over reading the lyric and watching the music videos to have some sore of an idea of what I actually was singing. My pronunciation of the song lyrics was probably way off and I had no clue what I actually was singing but little by little my pronunciation became better and I began to understand more and more words.
My First time reading the class I wasn’t nervous at all. I have never been that afraid of pronouncing words wrong or asking how you say something. However, I can be a little competitive and wanted to show that I actually knew how to read and wasn’t as far from my classmates. It was a summer hot day and we were reading a storybook from a very huge book that stayed in school because it was too heavy to actually have in our bookbag. My classmate had just finished reading a page of the book and my teacher asked who wanted to read next and while I did not at all raise my hand to actually read my teacher said “Kimberly, go ahead and read the next section for us”, I asked her if I had to because all eyes turn on me and she, of course, said “yes” so I began reading, you could tell in my voice I was nervous but what many people didn’t know is that I wasn’t nervous because I didn’t want to mess up but instead because I had never actually read to a crow. While reading I came across a few words that I didn’t know to pronounce one of them been “navigation” but I said it how I thought it would be pronounced and I actually said it right and my teacher didn’t correct me however she did correct me with the pronunciation of a few other words and by did end of the few minutes I was reading that to me felt like hour I was very proud and so was my teacher. Throughout the reading, I must say that I was very excited to see words I had previously learn lyric from Taylor swift song for example “again” I know that when reading that word out loud you could tell I felt very confident compare to other words I had to try to be able to pronounce.
Overall I felt pretty accomplished with myself, especially because It was my first time reading in front of a crow, and this feeling didn’t come because I didn’t mess up but because I finished and I surprise myself with what I had learned. I will not tell you that I started reading book after that because I didn’t, I didn’t like the book much because I was still reading at a lower grade level however I did read when I had to but I would always prefer to read song lyric on the big love computer we had at home. I will say that because of that experience reading in front of a crow is less intimidating for me and it made me realize that messing up a few time it’s not a bad thing, someone will correct you and you will learn and the next time you read you will probably mess up again but not on the word you previously did. It’s a learning process and every time I read in front of a crow I become more and more comfortable while doing it.
