I was born in an educated family. My
parents paid extra attention to our education by providing anything necessary
for us to be able to go to school and be successful. My experience of writing
started at my very young years. First I learned to express my intentions using
drawings. I started becoming interested in writing because I saw that every
person near me was able to write. I learned Farsi alphabets from copying them
from kindergarten workbooks. I went to school when I was six. My elementary
school didn’t offer English as a course, however, we had the English course
during middle school which taught us some basic grammar, and some vocabulary.
They were absolutely not enough for being able to survive in a foreign country.
I enjoyed looking at the books my
father used to read. The books were mostly in French and English. If they
weren’t medical related books with some pictures of human body and surgical
procedures, they were books with short comedy stories or jokes followed by a
simple cartoon. I couldn’t read and understand the stories, but I could enjoy looking
at the cartoons and guess the stories.
My
parents realized that we had to leave the country someday and we have to be
prepared for it, so when I was twelve, they sent my brother and me to a private
institute to have a better English education. The private institute was very
helpful and exciting. We used ESL books published by Oxford University. We
continued going to the institution for few more years when our heavy schedule
on high school didn’t let us continue.
All
those years, I saw English as a challenge and a hobby. It sounded interesting
to spend time in a class talking in a different language to each other. It was
also pleasant when I could watch foreign movies and have a better understanding
on the story because I could recognize few more words they use in the movie. I
could speak a few words with my cousin who was not able to speak in Farsi.
One
of my teachers at the institute was a retired civil engineer. He left Iran when
he was young. He immigrated to the United States and went to a college in
Massachusetts. He studied civil engineering and worked for years there. After
retirement, he decided to return and work as an English teacher in Iran. He
always made interesting examples in the class and talked a lot about his
experience to us. He told us interesting stories about his job in the United
States which sounded even more interesting when he spoke in English. He was one of the teachers who was strict
about speaking in no language other than English in the class which increased
the quality of learning in the class. The institute followed Oxford
University’s syllabi and materials which required every class to be taught in
British English which was one of my concerns because the audio materials
provided by institute –on the old cassettes- had a different accent comparing to
my teacher’s which made some confusion in them. In that class, for the first
time I realized the difference between British English and American English. I
realize how they are different, not only in terms of accents, but in word
choices as well.
My
experience in the English language institute ended when I was in the third year
of high school. My weekly schedule had two periods of English per week. But
this time there were more words to learn. We mostly spoke in Farsi all the time
and just learned few words and grammars. It was part of the main educational
program so doing well in the class was essential. The class asked us learn
English through the book which listed the words in the columns and had the
space for us to write the meaning of it next to it in Farsi, flash cards which
had the word and its meaning on the back and daily quizzes with the same way
and other poor educational strategies which helped many students such as me
successful in the class but with no English skills at the end of the day. The
last year of high school was even more stressful. Nobody cared about English
while we had more serious courses to take care of. Calculus, Physics, Chemistry
and geometry were the courses we needed to focus on because they were main
components of the college entrance exam. The last year made me forget the
reason I started learning English. I focused on the courses that I needed to learn.
I
should mention the role of internet in my education especially improving my
English skills. I spent a lot of time on the internet reading articles,
chatting in English based forums and learning how to develop websites. Although
it was not a language class, World Wide Web taught me a lot. It gave me instant
access to information as well as translating systems and made it possible for
me to talk to other people around the world and discuss about anything that I
was interested in. It accelerated my learning about softwares and provided me
the basics to exhibit my art portfolios to the public.
Music
was also helpful. I listened to American music very often and always looked for
the lyrics of the songs that I was interested in. Not only they helped me to
learn more words, they familiarized me with more cultures and histories.
During
college English was used to do research about the materials I needed to prepare
for my classes. Many classes required us to download articles and translate it
from English to Farsi. I used to study engineering, a technology based major.
In order to be able to take further steps in that major we had to know some
foreign language to be able to use the sources on the internet. My basic English
skills and the time I spent on the internet helped me to do better in school.
Another
critical English related stage of my life is my English tests. At the last year
of college, before I left Iran I had to take an English proficiency exam
–IELTS. I needed a relatively high score for my IELTS in order to be able to
get acceptance from some of the schools abroad. That was critical for me to be
able to obtain a passport. I went to another language school to prepare me for
my test. Learning in the institution was not as enjoyable as I experienced
before. IELTS –International English Language System, is a standardized test
developed in the UK. I took the test, scored high enough, and I continued my path.
I
left Iran to Turkey. I stayed in Istanbul for a few months were I had my first
experiences of speaking in English. Many people in Istanbul speak English since
they see lot of tourists visiting the city and some of them often have
businesses related to tourism which make them even better at speaking in
English. I met a British teacher who lived in Istanbul for a few years and
worked as a language teacher there. I tried to meet him more often to have the
opportunity to talk to a native English speaker. I still remember what I
learned from him.
It
didn’t take long for me when I left Istanbul to the States. My first
conversation with an American was with a retired US air force officer in the
airplane flying from Amsterdam –the city I stopped for changing planes, to the Los
Angeles. Unfortunately that wasn’t a nice beginning of a conversation with an
American. He kept talking to me about the difficulties I would have in the U.S.
because of cultural differences. That was the only time I remember that I really
wanted to finish a conversation. Arriving to Los Angeles changed everything. A
lot of people in
California
speak Farsi. Good for an Iranian in a foreign country, however, not so good if
he wants to improve his English language skills.
After
a few months staying in San Diego I decided to go back in school and this time
study biology as my major. Starting a new program in English for the first time
was almost a challenge for me. Thinking about starting it was more stressful
than starting it itself. I didn’t take any English for more than a year at
school. The first English course I took was an introduction to literature.
Before
taking my English class, I took a lot of science courses. I should admit none
of the science classes was more challenging than my English class, and maybe I
don’t need any of them as much as I need my English class. When I was taking
the course I never thought I would miss the class after that semester. It
consisted several passages, short stories, plays, and poems from the authors all
around the world, from which, some of them where assigned to us to read and
write about. I already knew few of the authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Franz
Kafka, and Woody Allen, however, many of them were completely new to me. Although
I wasn’t the best in the class, but I could understand the literature, I could
analyze the short story as well as the poems, which gave me the confidence that
I never achieved in anything during my learning process. “I woke up the next
morning, thinking about those words—immensely proud to realize that not only
had I written so much at one time, but I’d written words that I never knew were
in the world” (X).
I
always had the problem with reading comprehension. Maybe one of the reasons I
have a poor comprehension from an English text is translating it in English
before understanding it. My reading comprehension became more critical when I
was about to take my Dental Admission Test. My weakness in the reading
comprehension and my slow reading was more obvious to me as I was getting
closer to the day of the exam. I did research on any source I could to be able
to find a way to improve my reading comprehension skills and more I looked,
less I found. I realized there are certain skills that can’t be achieved by few
weeks of practice. I had to use different tactics to achieve a certain score to
be considered a competitive applicant. I used the best tactic I could use which
landed me right on the average score.
The
test was an alarm in my head. I should do something about my reading
comprehension. I started changing my reading methods, and I still looking for a
better one. I am also looking for help from other sources I can find.
My
language education is complicated. It is far from a classic learning procedure.
It took a long time for me to achieve my current level of language skills, and
it might be an endless path to hopefully get better and better. I was
culturally diversified by having experience living different places in the
world which gave me the opportunity to learn more. “A multicultural perspective
is more and more the way to understand the world” (Alvarez). I stood in front
of my concerns and never escaped from them, learned from my mistakes and will
continue the same way.
Learning
new language is like traveling to a new world, seeing new places and
understanding more about people and their cultures. Learning a new language is
a challenge for everyone, nobody needs to be perfect in it, being consistent
and having progress in learning is more important.
Work Cited
Alvarez, Julia " Doña
Aída, with Your Permission" The John Hopkins University Press 23. (2001): 597. Web.
X, Malcolm.
"Learning to Read" by Malcolm X.". San Mateo County College
District, n.d.
Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
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