Learning english at a young age would always be a bonus but it wasn’t my first language. Kindergarten was hard for me (at least that’s what my mom told me). As soon as I got into school, I was in ESL (English as Second Language). I used to get taken out of class to learn English with other people from different grades. I was in ESL all throughout elementary. My ESL teacher Ms. L is someone I’ll always remember. She always made sure the small group of us were always good despite all of us only knowing spanish. I used to be so shy walking into her small room. It was small enough to be a closet but wide enough to be an office. At first, I wasn’t comfortable speaking English in front of people because I didn’t want to get bullied or say something wrong but Ms.L encouraged me to do so because that will only improve my English. It was easier in second grade because my teacher was Dominican as well. She used to talk to me in both languages so I can understand her better and that was a big help. In third grade, I realized I enjoy English class but I wasn’t really good at reading. I hated the reading assessments. I never got up to a high level until middle school. Sometimes I didn’t understand what the book was saying so I used to skim it but that just made things worse. When teachers asked me what’s the main idea, I used to read the blurb and try to say it in my own words (I admit I was a little smart at my age). That used to save me until the real questions came around like “Max has a brother, what’s his brother’s name?” The blurb didn’t tell me he had a brother and now I’m going to be in level M for the rest of my life.
ESL had its ups and downs. Ups was definitely getting out of classes I didn’t really like. I always loved when they took me out of history. I mean come on. Who likes history? I remember my first grade teacher Ms. Kim was always so upset when I had to leave (I was always a good kid) and got happy again when I came back. Another good thing was having extra time during the state tests (all that meant was extra sleep). A down would definitely be getting out of class when they were fun things going on like a cool science project. In fourth grade, we didn’t have the ESL room anymore. That slowly changed things around. We walked past the room one day and I asked Ms. L why didn’t we go in there. She said “that’s not our room anymore because the assistant principal took it as an office. We walked down the yellow hallway all the way to the end of the second floor where there was a table and a couple of chairs. Let’s just say having to learn right in front of the gym was such a distraction for an active kid like myself.. One of the things I don’t remember is the ESL test itself. I know there was a section where we had to listen to someone speak and pick the answer that sounds the best. I remember how happy I was when I passed it in 6th grade. Since I went to a dual language middle school the group of ESL students was way bigger than in elementary school. I remember feeling confident yet scared because I was the first person to finish the test but, that made me the first person to pass it. It felt so weird not having extra time in state tests that year but it let me have recesses faster. Something I didn’t think about when I was in elementary school.
At first, I didn’t know why I was there and why there were only a handful of us but as I got older I realized it was to help us out. I’m just glad that I never got bullied over it. Besides, I learned English pretty fast. I have an accent but it got smaller over the years which is amazing but there’s still a couple words I can’t say or pronounce correctly like scissors and porosity. I will learn one day but today is not the day.
Sometimes I believe learning english as my second language makes it easier for me to enjoy writing. Since I wasn’t comfortable speaking it all the time, I wrote my thoughts down. I’m not saying I enjoy essays but they’re not hard for me to write if I outline it in my head. Taking advanced english classes throughout high school was also a big help. One day in class we were talking about how a lot of us were in ESL and our teacher pointed out how amazing we are to be in the class we’re in now despite english being our second language and I couldn’t agree more I didn’t realize that my weakness back then turned into a strength in the future.
2006 was the year that started my conflict
I had to mix and whip two languages and I just started
To learn and turn my rolling r’s to regular r’s.
2 years later I had to try and apply my English to the real world.
Took many tests and yet still felt like this language was tricky.
But I couldn’t stop. I had to learn and work harder.
2012 I passed and didn’t have ESL.
So you see it took me some time to climb and try to master
Este lenguaje que los Americanos llaman ingles.
Funny I added Spanish because I’m not confident in my foreign language
Like I am with English. Isn’t it chistoso that the roles cambiaron con mis dos idiomas?
