Home › Forums › Linguistics for Teachers of Emergent Bilinguals Fall 2018 › Week 5 Writing › How did it feel to write in another language?
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October 28, 2018 at 12:07 pm #867Ingrid HeidrickKeymaster
What was your experience like writing for 5 minutes in another language?
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October 28, 2018 at 4:55 pm #868Roxanna LedesmaParticipant
Writing in a foreign language, English, always felt like it was an aspect of the whole language I had and wanted to improve more than any other aspect. My reason for that was because when I came to this country at 16, I was told by my African American English professor that it was kind of too late for me to focus on the speaking part of the language because the later in life one learn a new language, the harder it is to speak it without sounding foreigner and much harder to learn the logistic and rules to speak it properly. So I thought, if I learn how to write it correctly, I can always communicate through writing and will not have to worry about anyone hearing my thick accent, I thought; I am not a public figure who has to give speeches, I thought. Besides, my professor told that I needed to get to level 1200 in English in order to start taking other classes in English and make them count towards my major. So, when I started learning the English language, I wanted to truly master the writing aspect of it but not all because of reasonable reasons, but because I wanted to sound like a native English speaker in papers, through my written essays. I had a very fluent Spanish background which helped me transition into other aspects of English easily. I remember been able to understand people who spoke formal without all the slangs and colloquialism well. However, writing essays was like a nightmare for me because of the lack of vocabulary and writing structure I needed it; also, the fact that I was practically an adult when I started my learning journey made it even harder since I was simultaneously raising my daughters as I took this path. I can say that learning to write in a new language was a bit frustrating and confusing for me. So I wanted to try to write about everything and keep it as simple as possible. Just like you, some of the issues I faced can be labeled as “language barrier” which just like many ELLs I had to overcome. Thus, while trying to overcome or break the barrier and making the mistakes along the way, I started blaming the innocent language professor for instilling in my head that I needed to learn how to write well so I can pass to the next English level shifting the focus from learning a well-balanced English at once and myself for falling into the pattern of learning something to acquired what I need and getting it out of the way without looking at the bigger picture and real reason why I should’ve learned well. That was real struggle and it all made it more difficult to improve my English down the line. The one thing I relied on when writing was sticking to words that I know because they sound the same in both languages English and Spanish, cognates. I also kept my sentences very simple which was the hardest thing for me since my biggest fault has been run-ons and redundant sentences; I think that still my weakness when it comes to writing. I also thought I definitely found myself in situations where l had to do some writing in a foreign language I was learning. Whether was an email, response to a forum, or an entire academic paper or business proposal, I’ll need to get things right.
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November 8, 2018 at 4:51 pm #894Ingrid HeidrickKeymaster
Roxanna, you’ve obviously had a lot of rich experiences as a language learner. I understand why your professor thought you should focus on writing, but at the same time – it’s never too late to learn! Writing is one of the HARDEST, if not THE hardest aspect of language to acquire. Because of your experience, and because you made such an effort with grammar, you have a lot of teach your students. I highly recommend The Writing Revolution by Judith Hochman as a source for activities.
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November 4, 2018 at 10:47 pm #891Frannilba MariaParticipant
Writing in another language for me has been more than an experience. I came to the United States when I was only 17 years old, I didn’t know the language and at that time I was given different choice about my education. One of the choices was to take the GED and then start collage or be push two grades lower than my grade level from my country. I’m thankful for one teacher that impacted my life and told me to stay and finish my four years in high school. The reason why I mentioned this was because when I was first given the opportunity to write, I was completely at a disadvantage in relation to other students. There time came I have to write in another language, a language that was completely new to me. At first I first confuse and there came a time that I wanted to considered going for the GED but this teacher gave a thesaurus and told me to start reading children story with few vocabulary words in it. I started to read children story and started to look up the words in the dictionary. As a result, I started to write and at the beginning was very hard but I started writing formal text using my thesaurus and guiding myself into writing. Being this said, writing in another language can be scary and challenging but I think that as educators we have to provide that opportunity to our ELLs students. I had the experience because came from another country but I noticed that as I’ve learned in this class, students that are born here can also experience academic challenges and is up to us to offer them different opportunity to build up their confidence and their ability to learn a new language.
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November 8, 2018 at 4:55 pm #895Ingrid HeidrickKeymaster
Frannilba, you also have had such rich experiences as a language learner and have so much to offer your students. Your teacher was right – you needed MORE TIME to acquire English before trying to graduate and go to college. Because you gave yourself this time, you have a solid foundation now. Acquiring a new language is hard and scary sometimes. I’m glad you were able to take time to build up yourknowledge.
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