Ahmed Shehada
Professor Garcia
ELL 101
October 1, 2018
Reflective Essay #1
I was born in the in the Middle East and I went to America when I was about 2 years old. I grew up learning 2 languages which were Arabic and English. For me, Arabic was my first language and English was my second. I was pretty familiar with both languages but it was harder for me to learn English at a young age because I only used to speak Arabic in my household. Although I used to go to school to learn how to read and write in English. I felt like learning 2 languages at a young age wasn’t as hard because I was learning them consistently at the same time. As I grew up, I began to understand both languages better and the dialects of the Arabic and English languages.
I feel like I use both languages equally. I speak Arabic when I am talking to my parents but I speak to my siblings in English. My siblings and I grew up with the same level of the English language so I feel like we had a better connection when talking in English rather than when we spoke in Arabic. So in general I speak both languages in my house, I speak Arabic my with parents and speak English with my siblings. The dialect I use when speaking to my parents is different when speaking to my friends. The reason for that is because when speaking to my parents it’s a different language and its more professional. The dialect when speaking with my friends is different is because were speaking in English and I feel like there is more slang in our tone and language.
Q1- what should I include in my body paragraphs?
Q2- what information should I give when speaking about the 2 languages that I learned?
Amhed, your essay needs more work. Check the rubric and the questions (what is the objective of the essay?) – you have not identified and/or explained the language attitudes towards you dialect/language(s). Have you reviewed the readings? Make sure that you are able to identify how individuals/speakers perceive your language/dialect (Arabic and/or a specific Arabic dialect), and describe the factors that contribute to these attitudes.
Ahmed, I feel you should lengthen your essay overall, in terms of analysis. You give a great oversight on your two languages, your history with them, and your usage of both languages. Despite this, you would benefit to identify (if there is one) the dialect of Arabic, as well as English. Lastly, you should mention what people’s attitudes and/or perceptions of your language(s) are.
hey Amhed maybe you should go back and look at the questions the professor gave for the essay and see if you can answer them in your essay. also check the rubric maybe it can help you out.
Hey Ahmed maybe you can include what dialect means to you and give us examples of the difficulty learning your second language.