Ron’s ESL Blogs

Well, when I came to the United States, I was 12 years old. I came from Durango Mexico. I was born there. It was not really hard to get here. Because I came by airplane with my parents. But let me tell you, there are people who would like to come here but they can’t. One reason is that maybe they are not residents. But many Mexicans crossed the borders. Sometimes they get caught by the border patrol and they are sent back to Mexico . That’s really sad, even if they are not related to me. But I could feel the way they do. Even that I didn’t do that. My aunt got here about two months ago. she had to cross the river by swimming and she was pregnant, so that is very sad. I became resident two years ago. Thanks to my father who helped me a lot those days.

I learned english in High School. Right now I feel excited because I came here to improve my English and get a better life. One thing I like here is that we have a lot of opportunities to survive in different types. First here you can get a better job as long as you have your High School diploma and know the language, which is English. When I was in Mexico my dream was to come to the United States one day and go to Dysneyland to meet a lot of famous people.

I realized that I could study a lot and get a career. When I got here I didn’t know how to speak English, but one thing that I liked is that they put me on a level so that I can receive a lot of help. One thing I did when I went to High School was to join the Marching Band and it was very fun. I never thought about myself that I was going to be on the Rose Parade one day. I even came out on TV.

When I was 19, I made my first important decision in my life. I decided to continue my education. Most of my friends come to the same college, PCC. I am leaning a lot of Engligh. It is only the first semester. By this time, I have begun to take my studies more seriously. When I was in High School, I was very lazy in everything. Now in college, I read books constantly and tried to study hard. I would like to go on learning in a serious way. That means attendig a University, something that a lot of students would like to do. However, my goal is to become a teacher one day. I hope this would come true.

Being here in the United States, I feel happy to be together with my family. One thing I miss is my sister she doesn’t live with us any more because she got married one year ago. For me she was something special because whenever I used to go somewhere she used to go with me everywhere. One day if we go back to Mexico, we are going to bring my little brother. He was born here now he is 6 years old. I am very proud of my parents because they gave me the oportunity to study a lot and they have been helping me a lot.

No doubt, English is the most important language in the world. Therefore, having great English skills will have numerous advantages. Luckily, I have realized the importance of learning English and worked hard on it since I was a child. However, 13 years of learning English experience didn’t lead me to success, but being a person who can hardly communicate in English and definitely unable to write an essay. Once I came to the USA, I knew that I had made too many mistakes in learning English. Those mistakes are translating English into different languages, don’t learn vocabulary as much as I can, and don’t read and write enough.

First of all, every language is unique. They usually have different grammar and use of vocabulary, which means learning English by translating it into different languages will lead to an inevitable defeat. For example, I have worked hard on learning a lot of vocabulary by translating them into Chinese. I thought it was a good idea to build up my vocabulary in order to read and write better. However, those translation processes were hugely disappointing. At that time, I failed to express my idea accurately by those translated vocabulary. As a consequence, good grade and improvement seemed untouchable. Also, when I either wrote or read, I had to use Chinese to think about the passage. As a result, I didn’t do it well and did it very slowly. When I came to the USA, I desperately and completely stopped translation. Just a year of time, my English was obviously and generally improved. I attribute my success to the stop of translation.

Second, I would like to show about how best we can utilize our English skills by learning more vocabulary. When I came here, I bought a book about the Second World War. The book is very thick and has too many new words for me. While I started reading, I could only read 5 pages per half an hour. However, I had never been frustrated. Whereas, I worked hard on it and learned 10 new words from it every day. Subsequently, I can probably read 12 pages per half an hour. On the other hand, the vocabulary can also help me in different aspects. Whenever I read a newspaper, a magazine or other books, they help me to understand more about the context. In addition, they also work when I write. They enable me to write in various ways for the same meaning and provide me with more word choices to write accurately. So my essay is generally improved. In my opinion, my reading and writing improvement are partly from the extension of my vocabulary.

Finally, I am going to talk about reading and writing. They are undoubtedly the key element to learn English comfortably and effectively. In the past, I put majority of time on doing grammar exercises, but improvement is near invisible. Once I put my heart into reading and writing, I can feel my English is leaping over many steps. On the other side of the coin, let’s talk about soccer. If I just tell you how to control and shot the ball, but don’t give you any chance to practice. Do you think you can still play it well? Improving English from only doing grammar exercises is usually inferior to reading and writing practice. Only practices can help us to react to the reality. Therefore reading and writing are crucial to our English.

In conclusion, stopping translation processes, learning more vocabulary, reading more, and writing more are the most effective way or even the only way to improve our English. The advice is invaluable and learnt painfully. If I have learnt them before, my English must be much better than now. Anyway, I hope you guys can pay heed to me and have a good future.

My name is Anita and I came from Armenia. Armenia is a small, but a beautiful country. It has huge mountains, fast rivers, deep forests and wonderful weather. Armenia has an old and tragic history. Furthermore it has more than 5000 years of history. Armenia had many fateful moments in her history and like miracle it survived from abolition. In ancient times kings managed the country. The borders were starting from Caspian Sea to Mediterranean Sea. It was a pretty big country. During the centuries it became smaller and smaller, because the neighbors many times attacked and surrendered most of the land. Now it has 30,000 km length and it is surrounded with Russia, Turkey and Iran.

There are many similarities and differences between Armenian culture and American culture. When it comes to culture and customs there are a lot of things to talk about. I observed in U.S. that family ties are not that strong as in Armenia. In the U.S. I have seen that marriage is not taken seriously and divorces are too common. Therefore, more then 30% of kids grow up with one parent. In my opinion it has strong impact on any child and makes his or her psychology weak.

In the U.S. people are extremely individual and they don’t understand the important role of neighbors. They don’t even know their neighbors’ names and people never trust their neighbors. This relationship is completely different from my native customs. The Armenians are very close to their neighbors. They are always together, no matter in what situations they are, sadness or happiness. There is a saying “It is better to have a good neighbor then a far relative, whom you usually don’t see oftenâ€?.

In my opinion Armenians, just like Americans, love to celebrate the Holidays. In Armenia, the whole family comes together and they make a big party. Everybody has his own task. The men make barbeques outside of house. Women prepare everything else for dinner. They make those testy desserts, salads, appetizers, cookies and of course cakes and sweets. The ones who don’t have any responsibility are children. They play as much as they want. It is very crowded. I know the Americans also like to celebrate the Holidays but their parties are usually calm and quiet.
In US with this big racial and ethnic diversity of population people live with great harmony. Every one is equal, no matter where you came from and what color is your skin or hair. I like it, because I feel free with my thoughts and opinions. I felt accepted by community from the first day when I came here. I think this is very important for someone, who came from another country, who left his or her family, home, customs.
After living in US for two years I have realized that this country is truly a land of opportunity. This country gave me a chance to educate myself and become what I want to be. In US there are many opportunities to success in your life. As long as you have curiosity and of course you are working hard you can start your carrier any time you want, it doesn’t matter how old are you. This is an extremely huge and new country, with national diversity, contrarily my little, old and one nation Armenia. Even though US is a big country, it is also very organize country with high technology. Here in US the government caring for the people and gives the benefits to the people and makes lives more comfortable.
I love this country and I want to be a part of this big community. I want to build my own home and raise my children here. But there is one think that I will miss that is my homeland; my Armenia. And this feeling will stay with me until I die.

Hello everybody! I have already talked about one of the differences between U.S. and my country Mexico, but this time I’m going to say more about this topic, because I think it is very fun and interesting for us to learn about other cultures and here in U.S. there are too many we can learn about.

First of all, I had never imagined sitting in the classroom and taking some classes with Armenian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, and even other Latin-American people because in Mexico the majority, of course are Mexican people, and is very strange for me to live in a country in which there are so many people from other countries. We all know that every country has its own customs and they are very different from mine.

When I came here I didn’t know how to talk and how to communicate with people from other cultures because you never know if your actions sometimes can offend other person, for example when you make eye-contact to others maybe it is OK with you, but maybe it is not OK with the other person because in my culture like here, is very common to look at someone directly, that means you are being friendly, but in other cultures it may mean you are being aggressive.

Other different custom is that in Mexico you can say “hi!” to anyone else even though you don’t know him/her, or if one of your friends introduces to you other person, you can kiss him/her, obviously, in the cheek, which is very normal. I didn’t know that in other cultures it is not normal because people from other countries don’t do that, they say that it is not usual in their countries.

In Mexico we are very warm people and we are friendly but when you come here from any other country you have to be very careful because of the differences between cultures. Actually, Mexican culture is not too different than American culture but the only big difference is that here it is not just one culture, here are too many.

Another difference between U.S. and Mexico is that in Mexico we are more conservative people. In Mexico we love people who have values and principles. One example is that in Mexico it is not common to live with your boyfriend, because most of our parents would like that we leave home only when we get married. And also, in Mexico it is more common to get married over 25 years old or something like that, because it is supposed to be when you already got your bachelor’s degree and you can already afford yourself and in the future your family. This customs in Mexico are common, but not all Mexican think like that.

At first, it was a little difficult for me. I suppose for all of us, but now I enjoy very much sitting in my class and listening to other languages and also to talk about another customs. In my opinion this is a great opportunity because I don’t have to travel around the world to know a little bit about other countries.

Since I came to America, I realized that I really like everything in here. Why do I like it in here? First, I can enjoy studying every minute at school and make some friends from different countries. Moreover, I am responsible for everything myself and able to push myself, especially, studying well to get good job and score and then applying for universities in the future.

Actually, here it is very different from my country. In my country, you are not to worry about your educational plan, for teachers are always concerned about your future and your job even though you are a student of a university. However, learning and studying is your own business in here. Everything is controlled by yourself, if you want to get a good job.

Secondly, I should make time to do some things such as going to supermarkets to buy some food and then I have to deal with my lunch or dinner in my daily life. Furthermore, after going home, I should wash my clothes and clear up everything. So that , I have to plan and have good schedules from day to day. On the other hand, you are not able to dependent on your mother or your father. You have to do your part.

Thirdly, if you want to go anywhere, you will drive your car, otherwise, you cannot have a good time to enjoy your trip. Therefore, I am so glad and so happy that I can take a trip with my friends by driving the car and explore every place around the US.

Finally, there are good environments and conditions. Every body likes to have a journey on holiday such as, taking children to the park, climbing the mountains, having some parties at home, going to beach to walk or have a sun bath. After your trip, you don’t need to worry about where to go to have a dinner or lunch because there are many restaurants from different countries such as Chinese, Mexico, and Indian etc. So there are a variety of choices of where to go and enjoy your meal . Vise versa, most people like to invite some friends to have a party just like Buffet or BQP. It is so interesting to share with friends and have a good relationship during the good time.

I think if you are eager and desire to study or live in here, no doubt to say, it is a good choice and excellent chance to do it.