In Phase 1, I have learned that everyone in class has different experiences with learning the English language such as speaking, reading and writing. Everyone faced challenges where they couldn’t learn English properly without being judged and discriminated against by others. There are different groups of people who couldn’t understand the language like hispanic people for example where they couldn’t speak English properly and struggle with pronouncing words correctly. Some meaningful insights that I have gained in this phase and through writing this assignment is how everyone learns English differently like learning at a slow pace instead of learning the quicker way in school for example.

I learned that language and literacy as a topic have different expectations in terms of understanding the English language based on several communities and different groups of people and their accents. Regardless of where they came from, there are people who are trying to learn different ways of English and not just “proper” English. There are moments where people remember not adjusting to the English language and how they took a lot of time and effort to understand the language. The concepts/terms that have most impacted my learning and my writing practices are rhetorical situations and practices where it has helped me brainstorm my ideas and gather them together into a formal/informal writing like the Language & Literacy Narrative for example. I feel like that helps me more since it develops my ideas further and thinks more into stories or moments that I can remember about language.

I would like to learn how to write more formally when you are doing some type of research topic and collecting sources as you go along with supporting your claim or point because sometimes I can’t tell if the sources I collected for my topic is true or not. I know that in college it is different than it is in high school but I want to write more formally on how to write on that topic and collect sources that are reliable to write about. My learning experience has changed by being provided with extra support with my learning skills like reading and writing when I was at school. It has changed the way I learned compared to when I first struggled with my writing and I was able to improve my English writing by putting in my time and effort into practicing. I also learned that everyone has demonstrated how they were able to learn and understand between English and their first language of what country they are from. Despite being born in different countries and having different accents, their parents were also struggling with learning English in the US and how it was difficult to get used to speaking. Many of them were able to improve in reading, writing and speaking the English language when they were at school for example. Not everyone was a fast learner, some were slow learners where it was challenging for them to understand reading and writing. 

I learned that everyone has different ways of communicating in speaking English and their first language in their household. Some of them share similar stories where in school they struggled the most when it came to learning English and it was frustrating for them to understand. They have gained support from their teachers to encourage them to learn at a slow pace instead of fast paced and overtime it has helped them improve on their English skills such as reading, writing and speaking.

      Final Revised Draft of My LLN

When I was in middle school, I used to have a hard time writing and spelling words that made me feel like I was clueless about what I was writing about. It was my first year at middle school, and on the second day of school, the sun was shining outside. My English teacher gave me a piece of paper and told us to write three things about ourselves. It was a big classroom full of students, and I was sitting at the back table near the right window. I was struggling on what to write about myself, so I felt like I was zoning out and my writing wasn’t great at that time. As the English teacher was walking around, he noticed my writing and wanted to help correct my spelling. After 10 minutes, my English teacher was going around to each student presenting their 3 things about them. As he was going to each student, I started panicking and my heartbeat was beating as fast as a speeding train. I was next to share, and although I wanted to participate, the bell rang, so I was saved. I handed my teacher a piece of paper with my 3 things about me. 

My English teacher called me and said, “Kevin, do you mind staying for a moment?” as he was looking at my writing confused.

I said, “Yes, Mr. John” and he responded, “I noticed that you need assistance on writing sentences and spelling so I’m going to sign you up for speech therapy sessions.”

I replied “Really? I thought it was alright” and he tells me “There are some errors in your writing so you could use some extra help from speech sessions, okay?”

I felt disappointed in myself, but the next day, I started speech sessions with my new teacher, Ms. Flores. Our first lesson began with an exercise where we practiced writing and spelling words. She was a nice speech teacher who helped students like me get better at writing in English. I told her that I wanted to give up on learning how to write in English. She asked me why, to which I replied I struggle too much with writing and spelling. She told me to not worry about it and I started to feel better about learning English words. The second day, I continued to practice and practice more complicated words in speech sessions. She encouraged me to improve and do better at spelling, words such as election, Wednesday and community. 

Ms. Flores says, “I want you to try and spell community” and I spelled “communit-ee” on my piece of paper. She looks at my paper and shakes her head no. 

She tells me, “It’s okay to make mistakes” and continues to give me a few challenging spelling words. 

The next word she gives me is Wednesday and I wrote it as “Whens-day”. Over time, I started attending speech sessions after my English class ended and it was helpful that I considered it as my help guide. I was getting better and better and never gave up on learning how to improve better at writing and spelling words. 

One day in my English class around May, my teacher decided to assign us students to write an argument essay on “whether phones should be allowed at schools?” for our final essay. I was feeling nervous as I was getting up handing the essay to Mr. John. The next day, Mr. John graded the essay and gave it back to me. I was twisting my fingers and prayed that I would receive a good grade. When he handed my essay back, I looked away for a second and thought positive. One second later, I looked and I was happy that I received a good grade which was a 85. It wasn’t bad but at least it was good to see a good grade and Mr. John felt shocked to see my writing was getting better. 

After class ended, I walked out of the classroom feeling happy and excited but Mr. John called me again. I thought there was an error again but he approached me “Kevin, wow, I’m shocked to see your writing improve” and I was feeling confident in my writing. Mr. John encourages me to continue writing in his class. I went home and showed my parents my final grade for my essay. They were so proud of me and I felt more excited about it. At first, I wanted to give up on writing and spelling words but then someone helped me get better at my English writing so it’s common to make some mistakes along the way of learning the language. Not everyone is perfect at writing English.

Many students are often neglected and forgotten in our education system because there is a lack of additional support for struggling students like counselling for example. It can lead to disengagement in classrooms, poor academic progress, and disadvantages of learning style for students. Our education system tells us that many students have a hard time and learn differently when it comes to school. Some kids are special needs or they have learning disabilities that prevent them from learning normally than others. IEP (Individualized Education Program) is also a perfect example of how kids in school process their learning and how it affects them learning from time to time like myself for example when I experienced learning how to write and spell words in middle school. It took me a long time to get used to writing and spelling words to understand how English works.