Jessica Gomez P_DRAFT1_UNIT 1.

In describing how I learned the basic functions of what we learn and know- reading, writing and speaking (I know it was select one of them but I felt it wouldn’t be a complete story of mine unless I incorporated them all here. The first of which I remembered was learning to Read. I still have a picture of my first-grade teacher who I first remember reading words. She always gave us Fill-in-the-Blank worksheets which I had to learn how to read the sentences before I could fill in the blank. So I learned ______ Gomez was Jessica Gomez. And then I got better and filled in all the blanks after learning the sentences like “What’s Your Name”— and all of this is being done in English when for as long as I remember there were Spanish words and sounds.

The next step was in my learning to Write- not in Spanish but in English. I was now still living in North Carolina and all I was exposed to was the English language. The first year here was learning how to Read English and still understand and speak Spanish. I remember being in class in first grade and not understanding a lot of English but knowing that when I went home I would understand what was being said, what was written, and that I could read. But it only made me want to learn English even more. All I could hear in the back of my head in school was gibberish and confusion with both languages (English and Spanish) crashing together. But I remember one day in the first few weeks of school, my mother put tags on me and my sister’s bookbags which had our names and schools. This went on for a few days until my mother announced that WE would be writing our own tags. It took all day Saturday and Sunday- but we learned to WRITE our names and school which was named “BAILYWICK ELEMENTARY”. This was my introduction to Writing.

And finally, even though not required, I include my first experience Speaking the English language and it is this: I was in 3rd grade and still not very comfortable with English. Riding on the bus one morning, a little girl got on who looked just like me—scared, unsure and Brown. Even though she looked Brown like me she spoke English well and I didn’t think she knew anything but English. One day, we were in recess and she was alone. I approached her and said in English “ You look like me”. She said, In Spanish, “¿Hablas Espanol?” I said “Si!!!!”

She, like me, I found out was Mexican. Evelyn was the girl and she told me after many conversations in English that she was raised in a family who spoke ONLY Spanish at home and didn’t speak much English. So I also had the task and responsibility to not only learn how to read, write but also to SPEAK English so I could translate from the English I just learned to the Spanish my family spoke and now I had to give them the English Speaking knowledge I had just learned. I was now their teacher.