Backward Reflection
As my first language is Spanish, writing in my own language hasn’t been so
challenging. Since I was in high school or even before, Spanish has been
one of my best grade subjects, although I must confess, I’m not a big fan of it.
At school, I had the best Spanish teacher. He was a good writer and owned
several novels and books, his classes were all about poetry, essays and
literature, but even though I learned a lot with him about how to write
properly, I struggled a bit with my essays due to my lack of reading. I never
liked to read that much, and this affected my vocabulary and choice of
words.
I was fifteen years old when I first started learning English; like any new
language, it comes with its own challenges. The writing was difficult for two
reasons. First, it was a completely new vocabulary; sentences were
meaningless since I could not make logical connections between
words. Secondly, I could not express myself the way I wanted due to my
small repertoire of words. I had to depend on a dictionary, translating
between Spanish and English, trying somehow to make sense of words and
their meaning.
Grammatically I also had problems using verbs in their different tenses; it took
time to memorize them and learn how to apply them correctly. Phrasal verbs
were another big topic for me; combining two or three words from
different grammatical categories makes these difficult to interpret. For
example, “Cut it out!” It cannot be understood based on the meaning of its
individual parts alone. Instead, it should be taken as a whole. It would sound
like the instruction being asked is to grab a scissor; however, it just means to
stop whatever you are doing. These grammar compositions give verbs a
completely different meaning which, in my opinion, it makes the road of
learning a little rough for starter learners like myself.
With all that and admitting that with time I progress in my writing, I never felt
like I was good as an English writer, I never dedicated myself completely to be
good enough for this, it was not something that I really needed, however,
moving to a different country where English is the mother tongue and dare
me to start a career in college made me realized how fundamental it is to
improve my English in all its categories.
At the beginning of this text, I didn’t expect to consider what I’m about to say,
“I have to establish a plan to develop my writing skills” because this could
benefit my career and self-improvement. For that, I think the first I need is
discipline and willingness to learn, then start a plan based on writing
regularly and be my own editor, being tough to myself to upgrade
my writes; read more and go for challenging materials that I usually wouldn’t
read, it is proved that reading develop your writing skills when you pay
attention to vocabulary and sentence structure; also, transcribe text from
others writers to practice and see how the material flows. With this plan
I hope that my overall writing and communication skills improve to a level in
which I can fully portray my thoughts and emotions.
