People nowadays should study at least one foreign language to increase their abilities. English is an international language which is used officially all around of the world. Even though these people might not have the same accent as others, the language still can be comprehended. For me, I had the background of learning English over ten years ago until my parents encouraged me to study aboard and train myself.
For this reason, I have much more experiences in learning English than others, and also have built an inseparable relationship with English. I have learned not only from reading but also writing in my learning process, and even realized how language is important to our life. Besides, from reading short articles, I found out the authors’ study experiences are related to the one that I had.
Reading and writing are important processes of learning English, and they are intimately connected with each other. In his article “The Joys of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie describes his life as an Indian boy, and how reading and writing helped him to become a successful writer. According to Alexie, “I refuse to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky” (47). He knows that it is not effortless to become a writer, so he does not lose his enthusiasm to achieve his goal.
I think his attitude of “refuse to fail” is worthwhile to be learned. It is also related to my writing experience of learning English. I clearly understand how hard it is for non-Americans to write a perfect essay. Consequently, I established my self-confidence and challenged myself to write different kinds of essays. Even if my writing skills are not excellent now, I write persistently and will not give up.
In addition, Alexie was born in the family of scholars and his father loved books, so he decided to love books as well. Hence, he started to keep reading books as much as he could. As Alexie became a writer, he believed that he should use his knowledge to give back to the community, so he teaches Indians children how to read and write in order to discover their talents.
From his story, I expect that I can also do something useful for the society. Reading is the type of habit that people should keep working on to improve their abilities. For the present stage of my unskillful reading experience, I can only give my own suggestion of my reading methods to children who just started in reading. As I gain much more experience from reading, I would like to teach children what I have learned to give back to the community.
When reading and writing became parts of my life, English inseparably connected me my family. Amy Tan’s article “Mother Tongue” talks about how her mother’s “broken” English affected her everyday life and how she changed her attitude to regard the language her mother spoke. Since she is a Chinese-American and she can speak flawlessly with an American accent, she was ashamed of her mother’s limited English. However, it has become their language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to her family conversation. From Tan, “It’s my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery” (35). She viewed “broken English” as her mother tongue and used it with her mother, even changed her attitude into acceptance.
From her story, I remembered some similarities between author and me. As an international student, I have been away from home for about two years, so my parents usually come to visit me. Initially I felt shameful that they tried to talk with me in poor English aloud in the United States. Yet I finally realized that they just want to use the same language as me and show intimacy with me. Until now, English has played a major role in my family; although English is not my mother tongue, my parents still try to talk with me in English and display an interest in this language. For this reason, I think an intimacy grew between my parents and me.
Furthermore, as Tan become an outstanding writer, she gave a speech filled with difficult words and grammar that she learned in school or from books. At the same time, she found out her mother was during her speech was full of confusion because she used the kind of English she had never used with her. Therefore, she comprehended that she used too many complex sentences in her speech or books. So she was influenced by her mother and started to write the English she grew up with: the English she spoke to her mother, which for a lack of a better term might be described as “simple.” I agree with her because complicated sentences can confuse so many people.
For my writing experience, I have always struggled with expressing complicated thoughts in my essay in a manner that is coherent and appropriate. However, I consider that fluent and effective sentences can make connections clearly between points as well as make my ideas obvious and emphatic. In consequence, I told myself simple sentences will be good or my readers will quit reading due to the complexity of my essay.
English has accompanied me for more than ten years, and we have built an inseparable and strong relationship with each other. From these two short articles I read, I found out not only some similarities learning experience between authors and me but also learned the new skills such as using our talents to give back our society. Moreover, since my reading and writing skills advance step-by-step, I believe I can also be an outstanding writer in the future.
