I might add some of it.
When growing up being bilingual is a good and bad thing to me. Growing up code switching was not easy and learning how to speak three languages was a challenge. Learning my native language, Chinese was very easy and speaking it to my family makes me improve my vocabulary. When I first learned how to speak English at school, I always being told that I should take it easy and slow. Entering the 3 year at elementary school at Manhattan I was told my Chinese and English are perfect and I found out I can be able to communicate in both languages by code switching where there’s other people having a hard time. Everyday I would code switch and some of the time I would combine both languages. Speaking to my grandparents, I would understand what they are speaking but hard time to speak back to them some of the time. I always felt that if I don’t know how to speak it, I would get laugh at. When I was in my second year of high school, I would had to learn a new language, Spanish where I had a hard time learning and speaking so I did ask for help. I tried to learn but I found it a struggle so I gave up where it isn’t easy.
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A City Tech OpenLab Course Site
Amy, Can you notice that you are only telling me?
Instead you need to SHOW me with a few well chosen scenes from your memory. Remember how Amy Tan in “Mother Tongue” showed us the funny conversation with herself pretending to be her mother talking to the stockbroker on the phone? Now you try to do the same. Create a scene that takes your reader there to that room with your grandparents and you are “code-switching.” SHOW us what code-swithcing means.
· Reach back into your memory for the best scenes to tell a story of you being between your English speaking world and your Chinese speaking world. Remember you must create Theatre of the Mind for your reader!
· Use CSD – Concrete Specific Details.
· Make clear paragraph breaks! Your reader will be scared away from the huge long blocks of text! Turn these into bite sized chunks.
· New paragraph = new topic or new speaker in a dialogue.
Here I will give you a few suggestions:
When growing up being bilingual is a good and bad thing to me. Growing up code switching was not easy and learning how to speak three languages was a challenge. Learning my native language, Chinese was very easy and speaking it to my family makes me improve my vocabulary. When I first learned how to speak English at school, I always being told that I should take it easy and slow. Entering the 3 year at elementary school at Manhattan I was told my Chinese and English are perfect and I found out I can be able to communicate in both languages by code switching where there’s other people having a hard time.
Everyday I would code switch and some of the time I would combine both languages. Speaking to my grandparents, I would understand what they are speaking but hard time to speak back to them some of the time. [Can you SHOW me with CSD how you speak and code switch with your grandparents? Can you use some Chinese words/pronounciations to SHOW me what this sounds like? What do you say? How do you switch from one language to another? SHOW me what you are saying and what your grandparents say?]
I always felt that if I don’t know how to speak it, I would get laugh at. [Can you SHOW me this situation? Can you create a scene with CSD concrete specific details? Did this happen at school? When? Who laughed at you? What did he/she say? What did you say? Did you confuse or mix words from different languages? SHOW me this scene of not knowing how to speak and someone laughing at you. Or SHOW ME your inner thoughts/fears and how you behaved.]
When I was in my second year of high school, I would had to learn a new language, Spanish where I had a hard time learning and speaking so I did ask for help. I tried to learn but I found it a struggle so I gave up where it isn’t easy.
Where will this essay go from here? What is next? Have you improved your English? Are you confidant now? What strategies have you used to improve? How is school going now for you that you are a college student? What are you doing to keep up with college classes? Are your English skills good now?