I Hate School
I guess sometimes I get praised for it and in others I am…well put down, but these people don’t understand what it really meant for me to move from one country no another where everything and everyone around u is different. I did a presentation at school a few days ago and at the end my teacher congratulated me, she said I did a great job and that the pronunciation was perfect, especialy coming from me, someone who’s speaking a language that’s not his native, that there was no accent(not that there is anything wrong with that). A few days ago some other teacher of mine was trying to explain to me an exercise we had to do, which we needed to consider some laws about jobs and all. While she was explaning she stopped and said “U are not good with spanish laws are u because u come from another country rigth?” I then explained to her that I have been here for 11 years and she was like “Well it’s about time u learn these things then”.
I have had to learn a lot since I came here at age 11, I was an illiterate when I came here. I couldn’t read or write in english or spanish, and had to learn from that age. I remember I would see a text and not understand anything, like if it was a game of alphabet soup, had to struggle to find a word or 2 that looked familiar. I had memorized my name and the word “CUP” and planned on learning each and everyword by heart, my older sister would get mad and scream at me saying I couldn’t learn everyword by heart, and that I had to learn how to read, this coming from someone who also had problems with reading and writing, but she was a lot better at it than me. It’s not like we didn’t go to school back in my country, but there the education system was so poor that in a clase of 40 students(all age 11 and above), only 2-3 can actually read with difficulty.My father who is now a principal of a school he created back in my country send me a video a few days ago that I guess he was proud of. It was a video where a woman explained how kids who were between age 9 and 12 I guess sewed pillow case as part of their economy class at school…I didn’t know what to say, I felt like that was so wrong, but my father asssured me that they all knew how to read and write, but I think he was lying.
I remember when I first heard students in spain(who were like age 9) read a text, it was increadible, they read so fast as if they had memorized each word. My teachers back then use to ask us to read out loud in clase, well not me because I had a lot to learn. Thinking back now…I can’t imagen how hard it must have been for them to teach an 11 year old student who doesn’t speak any spanish in Spain how to read and write in both Spanish and English. All this time it’s been hard for me to learn because I was never abol to understand why the way you pronaunce a letter changes once you put it into a word, but in spanish it was a bit easier, because in spanish that doesn’t happen, u read a word going letter by letter, there were some “rules” I had to learn tho, like u don’t pronounce the letter “h” in a word and if it’s “ch” the sound u make changes, or like “ll” in spain has a speshal pronaunciation. I remember she always gave me diffente activities compared to the rest of the clase, mine was a lot easier than theirs. I remember with time she began to ask me to read out loud too, but I would have to stand up, move my chair and sit rigth next to her so she can help and explin how to pronunce some words, I was slow, like it took me 5s(maybe more) to read each word. The rest of the clase knew this, so when ever I had to read, they would just go on and relax and forget about the text, because it took me a while to finish. Even now, many years later I still sometimes find myself having difficulties reading somethings. Now it’s hardy noticeble, but when I have to read something in public the first thing that goes through my mind is “Calm down”, because if I get nervous people can tell something is wrong with the way I read.
If u googled my country u will find that it says english is the official language but the truth is that it’s not english, at least not the type most of u speak. It’s a very basic form of “normal” english, and that’s what I spoke when I came to Spain, it made it a lot easier to learn proper english tho, and I learned mostly from social-media and TV shows, but I tell everyone my native language is english , since I have learned it and it’s easier to say that than explain to everyone that my native language is similar to english but not english and why. Anyway I have always been the best in english clases, liked it for a while, gat bored of it a few years later. My result are usually between 7-10/10 and I was ok with it, never felt like I had any problems, tho a few teachers had talked to me about how I had no problem speaking english, but a few things need to be fixed when it comes to grammer and spealing. I knew this already and I never wanted to presure myself about and learn slow but efficiently.
When the time to choose a profession came I decided it would be a good idea to choose something that had english in it and have to posibility to use it when I do get a job in the future. While studing, it turns out that there’s this other girl in my class who lived in USA for 6 months to learn english, and she was good at both speaking and writing. She was better at stuff like solving exercises while I was better at speaking. But everyone talked about how she is a lot better than me because she gets better grades, I will get a 9’4/10 and she would get a 9’6/10 but I was the one the teacher would call-out for some errors. I never felt pressured with my result until I gat here and for a while tho I was getting one of the highest results in my class I wasn’t happy with it, I felt like it wasn’t good enough…took me a while to undestand that there’s noting wrong with me or my results, and that I should just ignor them.
I have had to learn a lot since I came here at age 11, I was an illiterate when I came here. I couldn’t read or write in english or spanish, and had to learn from that age. I remember I would see a text and not understand anything, like if it was a game of alphabet soup, had to struggle to find a word or 2 that looked familiar. I had memorized my name and the word “CUP” and planned on learning each and everyword by heart, my older sister would get mad and scream at me saying I couldn’t learn everyword by heart, and that I had to learn how to read, this coming from someone who also had problems with reading and writing, but she was a lot better at it than me. It’s not like we didn’t go to school back in my country, but there the education system was so poor that in a clase of 40 students(all age 11 and above), only 2-3 can actually read with difficulty.My father who is now a principal of a school he created back in my country send me a video a few days ago that I guess he was proud of. It was a video where a woman explained how kids who were between age 9 and 12 I guess sewed pillow case as part of their economy class at school…I didn’t know what to say, I felt like that was so wrong, but my father asssured me that they all knew how to read and write, but I think he was lying.
I remember when I first heard students in spain(who were like age 9) read a text, it was increadible, they read so fast as if they had memorized each word. My teachers back then use to ask us to read out loud in clase, well not me because I had a lot to learn. Thinking back now…I can’t imagen how hard it must have been for them to teach an 11 year old student who doesn’t speak any spanish in Spain how to read and write in both Spanish and English. All this time it’s been hard for me to learn because I was never abol to understand why the way you pronaunce a letter changes once you put it into a word, but in spanish it was a bit easier, because in spanish that doesn’t happen, u read a word going letter by letter, there were some “rules” I had to learn tho, like u don’t pronounce the letter “h” in a word and if it’s “ch” the sound u make changes, or like “ll” in spain has a speshal pronaunciation. I remember she always gave me diffente activities compared to the rest of the clase, mine was a lot easier than theirs. I remember with time she began to ask me to read out loud too, but I would have to stand up, move my chair and sit rigth next to her so she can help and explin how to pronunce some words, I was slow, like it took me 5s(maybe more) to read each word. The rest of the clase knew this, so when ever I had to read, they would just go on and relax and forget about the text, because it took me a while to finish. Even now, many years later I still sometimes find myself having difficulties reading somethings. Now it’s hardy noticeble, but when I have to read something in public the first thing that goes through my mind is “Calm down”, because if I get nervous people can tell something is wrong with the way I read.
If u googled my country u will find that it says english is the official language but the truth is that it’s not english, at least not the type most of u speak. It’s a very basic form of “normal” english, and that’s what I spoke when I came to Spain, it made it a lot easier to learn proper english tho, and I learned mostly from social-media and TV shows, but I tell everyone my native language is english , since I have learned it and it’s easier to say that than explain to everyone that my native language is similar to english but not english and why. Anyway I have always been the best in english clases, liked it for a while, gat bored of it a few years later. My result are usually between 7-10/10 and I was ok with it, never felt like I had any problems, tho a few teachers had talked to me about how I had no problem speaking english, but a few things need to be fixed when it comes to grammer and spealing. I knew this already and I never wanted to presure myself about and learn slow but efficiently.
When the time to choose a profession came I decided it would be a good idea to choose something that had english in it and have to posibility to use it when I do get a job in the future. While studing, it turns out that there’s this other girl in my class who lived in USA for 6 months to learn english, and she was good at both speaking and writing. She was better at stuff like solving exercises while I was better at speaking. But everyone talked about how she is a lot better than me because she gets better grades, I will get a 9’4/10 and she would get a 9’6/10 but I was the one the teacher would call-out for some errors. I never felt pressured with my result until I gat here and for a while tho I was getting one of the highest results in my class I wasn’t happy with it, I felt like it wasn’t good enough…took me a while to undestand that there’s noting wrong with me or my results, and that I should just ignor them.
