That ESL Kid

I assume a majority of the readers of my website here speak English as your first language. And, you probably had no troubles dealing with it in your daily life when you were young.

Or perhaps, some of you might be from those countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, whose educational systems are so marvelous that English has always been there for you during your entire school life, and you actually find English easy since your mother language is so similar and more complex. Or you might be from Singapore or India that English is treated as one of your national languages, thus you did not have to struggle that much.

Well, neither was my case. My mother language is not even made of alphabets to begin with. And, yes I struggled and I am still struggling when it comes to English. And If I make mistakes, please do correct me. I will be a better writer.

And, I wonder if anybody can relate this to your own experience or come up with the people you know with the similar background.

If you went to high school or college in the States or Canada, you can probably recall someone from overseas who could participate in gym, art and math classes with you but his/her other classes were all ESL. I was that kid and that was how everything started.

Even after you successfully completed the ESL program, your battle still continues. When you take an economic class, it takes four hours for you to finish reading just one chapter when it takes only thirty minutes for Americans, and you have to finish four other courses like that per semester to graduate.

And, when you think you finally wrote a great essay, your teacher gives you an A- with the footnote, “please take it to the learning center for grammar checks.” And when you take it there, the American tutor merely glances at it, obviously not reading it, and tells you that you should rewrite everything because it sucks, and your entire confidence in writing diminishes.

When you sign up for a creative writing class, some Americans look at your name listed on your works and shrug, as if to tell that you cannot write because your first name is not Elizabeth, Jennifer or Diane.

But, all of the sudden, when you keep on trying, some people start telling you that they like what you write and praise you that you are a good writer. And, you are on the Dean’s List for semesters, receiving multiple academic achievement awards and you graduate with honors.

Has anybody been there before? Well, you can still say my English is bad and it is probably still horrible but I still keep on writing. If you ever happen to be that ESL kid, don’t give up. Somebody is definitely watching your efforts and struggles. And, if you are a native speaker of English and know those kids, try to look for best in their ability beyond grammars and typos. I believe the same can be applied to any other languages.

I just thought writing this article could mean something to you and people around you. And I am happy if it could.