The Perception of a Human Language
I never stopped once and thought how English language and literacy had an impact on me. Back when I was just a small child, I didn’t know how to speak or write English. I was just 4 years old, walking and holding my mom’s hand, about to experience a whole new environment — school. During my year in pre-k, I learned how to write my name, learn to spell and write some words, and hearing stories. I enjoyed listening to my teachers reading the book out loud. But I never stopped once and thought how English language and literacy had an impact on me.
2 years later, I’m in first grade now. I faintly remember a time in 1st grade, my teacher would pull a group of students to do reading and practice vocab while other students would do independent reading. One time, my teacher wrote a word on the paper, “scientists”, and told my group, how would you pronounce this word since the “s” in the end of “scientists” is a difficult sound to pronounce? No one knew how, including me but I decided to try. I tried to say “scientists” but it came out as “scientistist”. Everyone laughed including me but this moment was a interesting learning experiences to me. If I see a word I have never seen before or said, I would still go ahead and try to pronounce it, even when I mispronounced it. But I never stopped once and thought how English language and literacy had an impact on me.
Fast forward to when I was in 3rd grade. We would have a writer workshop where we create our own story or write our favorite topic. We would write drafts and revise our work. I didn’t mind them at all as I expressed my thoughts and feelings on the paper. But I never stopped once and thought how English language and literacy had an impact on me. I remembered how I enjoy reading books so much. I like the story’s plot development and characters. I would go to the library each week and borrow many books. And so it quickly became my hobby. I would be in-the-zone and go on a book reading spree. Reading helps develop my language as I learn new words and ideas. But I never stopped once and thought how English language and literacy had an impact on me.
Then once I reached 5th grade, I would lose interest in books. I would go outside and hangout with my friends or play video games on the computer in the library. Only a few times would I read or borrow books from the library. Let’s not even talk about middle school. I was not reading books at all. I only read books when I was assigned with book reports which I hated to do. Sometimes, I would even forget to do the assignment. During my time in middle school, we learned new reading and writing techniques. We also learn literary elements and techniques to use for essays. I hated writing essays like many others at the time. Essay was time consuming and sometimes, I had no idea what to write. But I never stopped once and thought how English language and literacy had an impact on me.
Writing essays wasn’t even close to how horrible it was for me compared to a project in my freshman year of high school. An annoying time back during freshman year of high school where in the class of linguistics, there was a project assignment which required us to create our own language with dialects. Even though I don’t like this project, I would come up for lunch to work on it and receive help from my teacher. By creating my own language and dialect, it helps me dive deeper in the understanding of language and study each aspect of contexts such as phonetics, phonology, syntax, etc. Only then did I start thinking about the English language and literacy on how it would impact me.
Not too long ago, during last year’s summer, I applied to a Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). It’s where young people between the ages of 14 and 24 gets to have career exploration opportunities and paid experience each summer. During SYEP, I decided to work as a teacher assistant for a child daycare center. There was this Asian middle school kid, who needs help in improving his English speaking and vocab. The teacher assigned me and another teacher assistant to do some e-book reading with him and do the reading questions at the end. So while I am helping this kid, I realized that it’s important being able to speak English fluently in order to communicate and work with others. I can somewhat feel how he feels because my first language was Chinese as well except I was able to learn English earlier.
English is a common spoken language in America. Now that I piece everything together, we receive the opportunity to experience rich reading, writing, and language experiences. Pronouncing a word is like a step to improve my own English, and spelling/writing as well. Learning new words and writing skills is another step for me. The importance of language and literacy helps develop everyone’s future in society. Being able to be literate is important as we use it everyday in our life. Only then did I once stop and think about how English language and literacy had an impact on me.
Postscript:
My peers read my narrative and one concluded that I want to show the importance of language. That, in general, is correct. And then he continues with how I want to show how English literacy is important in society which is also correct. Not only I want to show how English literacy is important in society, I also wanted to show how language is important in society. That was my goal but my purpose is to have the audience realize why we should come to our realization of the importance of language and literacy. He also asked me a question, “My question for you is if you think structured writing should be a must for all educated people to know?” My reply is that I don’t think so. Anyone can write however they want and what they want. My other peer sees my perspective in language and the importance of its concept and agrees with what I said. He also asked a question, “My question is did figuring this out help improve your language?” My answer to this question is, it doesn’t improve my language directly but it helps me better understand and realize the concept behind language and literacy.
