Keano Visperas

ENG 11000 Sec. B

2/18/15

My Journey Towards the English Language

Everyone has their own story of learning a language for the first time be it learning a language to be able to communicate to others or having an extra language in their arsenal in case it is necessary. My very first experience with speaking English was during my elementary school years when a rule was enforced in our school to help us become more fluent in English. My second literacy experience with the English language was when I first came to America and continued school.

For as long as I can remember, what pushed me to learn English was an event that happened during 5th grade in elementary school back in the Philippines. One day during our english class, our teacher told us that the school is implementing a new rule which was that you had to speak english during school hours in order to better our english speaking skills. To make sure that this was enforced, teachers assigned a couple of students from each class that had the highest average in English to be patrols and take note of those who weren’t following the rules. Those who were put down in their list would be held back for a couple of minutes after Friday dismissal. There were talks amongst everyone in the school of rebelling by not talking at all when the monitors and teachers were around and passing notes or talking privately in Tagalog. However being the competitive person that I am, I saw this as a challenge to get the highest grade in English in our class which made me work harder in that class and start speaking English more. This was the starting point of my English speaking skills and I feel that without this event happening, I wouldn’t have been able to speak English as well or maybe even not at all today.

My next push towards improving my English speaking skills was when I came to New York to study here. When I started my school year in Immaculate Conception, it was very hard for me to fit in as it was a completely new environment for me. I would sit down by myself in the morning when waiting for the morning assembly and during recess when everyone was just talking with their friends. I remember groups of kids would always try to talk to me and get me to play with them until they heard me speak and realize that it was very hard to understand me through my thick accent. I said pronounced words differently from the way they would pronounce them and I would leave words out in my sentences which confused them. This along with the fact that I was still struggling with English words hindered me from socializing with my fellow classmates. For most of my 6th grade, I sat alone like this until a kid started talking to me and befriending me. He invited me to hang out with his group of friends and I was able to speak to them in my broken English and practice without feeling like I was being judged. As time passed my English along with my accent started improving until it was hardly noticeable and I was actually forming sentences that made a lot more sense. Even though my accent would sometimes come out randomly, I just laugh about it now and I can safely say that I sound like anyone who was born and raised here. Without the friends that I made during that time of my life, it would have been much more difficult to overcome the language barrier that I was faced against.

My elementary school helped begin my journey to speaking in English by teaching me the 

language itself and enforcing it to everyone to better their skills. The friends that I made in my first 

school year in New York helped me overcome the obstacle of speaking proper English and 

pronouncing words in an understandable way.