Al Ghamdi 1

Amin Al Ghamdi English 1101-054 November 1, 2013 Dr. Jan Rieman

English in my life
The earliest memories that I have about myself or about myself learning, was in the United Kingdom specifically in Manchester. I went there when I was four, and stayed there for four years, because my father was taking his masters degree there. My parents took me from the second week we arrived there to a British kindergarten. I really didnt like going there. I didnt know how to speak English or even speak proper Arab ic. Also I was really young compared to the other children. But my family did that for a reason. They wanted me to speak perfect English, and have a known English accent, not the Arabic English accent. They did not want me to have the Arabic English accent, because it is an unclear accent. I really did learn English at that time just from hearing the teacher and other children speak. And I had a great British accent too. The teachers there didnt really teach me how to write and read. They concentrated more in how to teach me talk. A funny thing is, that my family did not know that I knew how to speak English until the second year. When I was in the dentist with my father, the dentist started to ask me about my school, and whether I had a girlfriend or not. When I started responding to him and talking with the doctor. My dad could not believe his ears. He was really

Al Ghamdi 2

surprised and extremely happy. He was so happy he bought me tons and tons of candy after coming back from the dentist which is not a good idea. In the four years in Britain I did not learn a lot of things besides English, or maybe I just dont remember. Learning English offered me a lot of things, if I compare may self to others I could say that I am having a better life, in the speaking English part of course, I am not suffering in understanding or being understood by other people. I feel that I am fitting in the community easier than others. When the four years passed. Me and my family had to come back to Saudi Arabia. After coming back there. I felt a huge change in the culture. I did not know how to act in front of other Saudi kids. They played different games and they had different personalities. I am not going to lie I hated it there or at least hated the first year there. I was bullied by everyone. They used to say that I was not a man just because I knew how to speak English. Until I got out of my box of fear and faced everyone who even thought of doing something to me. I earned my respect back. But about my literacy there. I stopped learning English, because teaching English wasnt until the fifth grade. I really regret these years that I stopped learning and using English in. I completely forgot how to speak in the British accent, and forgot some of the English. The only thing that kept me know how to speak English is my sister and brother. We used to speak English together and watch English cartoons and shows in TV. When I went to the fifth grade. We finally got to learn English. I was surprised with how simple the English subject was. I was the best student in class. I was even better than the teacher himself. I used to correct him all the time. Until he felt embarrassed that a fifth grader was telling him how to do his own job. He got really angry and called my father, so I stopped. I

Al Ghamdi 3

said before that I used to be bullied because of knowing how to speak English. Well after a couple of years the view of English speakers changed to the better. Everyone wanted to learn English. I remember how my neighbors used to call my mother asking her if I could teach her son who is five years older than me. When I go to teach them they used to ask me about the grammar rules, and what they were called and when to use them. I used to respond to them with "I dont know". I didnt know and still dont know how the grammar rules work. What I do is see the sentence and look if it works or not. I believe that not knowing the grammar rules didnt affect my writing or make it bad. It is just that I didnt know how to explain to someone why that sentence is wrong or and this is write. This is what I believe is the problem with teaching English in Saudi Arabia. They care so much about understanding the grammar rules, more than actually using English. So I could say that I am a sponsor when I teach other people English, and I could say that I am a sponsor mostly for my younger brother. My younger brother Abdullah was born in the UK, but did not learn any English there. He wanted to speak English so hard that he used to take my high school English books and asks me to teach him with it. I could say with the help of my sister we thought him English better than any expert. My English literacy has not improved that much in the rest of my school life. But the huge improvement was last year. You see I used to know how to speak English, but I was terrible in writing and reading. My spelling was really terrible that I used to misspell simple words like "yes, and you". And I was a really slow reader.

Al Ghamdi 4

Last year I was accepted in a sponsorship, from the largest and richest company in world Saudi ARAMCO. The requirements for you to be accepted was that you get a score of 95% or higher in all of your high school, in the SAT1 and to pass their placement test. I knew about this sponsorship from about everyone around me, it is a well-known and famous sponsorship program. The program was that I spend one year in Saudi Arabia learning English, culture, and science. And then go to a university and finish your bachelor degree. I met a lot of friends in that program, friends who helped me academically and socially. We used to meet outside the program, make study groups and study so that everyone would understand the material. I learned in that year everything that I will take in the first two years in college. I really feel that I am doing a lot better than other classmates in this year of college. In both math and chemistry. The English classes there, were IELTS English classes. IELTS is an English placement test, which tests your writing, reading, listening and speaking. I was required to get a grade of 6.5 or above out of nine. We also were required to do presentations about any common topic just to know how to make presentations. Making presentations really helped me gain confidence and experience. In the first trimester in that year I had a British teacher called Mr. Kennedy. He was really good, but he couldnt teach us the strategies of writing and reading. Because he was a

Al Ghamdi 5

native speaker and he felt that it was an easy thing to do. For example we used to ask him, what is the proses that we should follow to get a high grade in the writing section in the IELTS test? And he used to respond just write what you feel like writing and try to use good vocabulary. Which is extremely not enough. In the second trimester the teacher that I had was a Canadian who is originally from Jordan. His name was Mr. Rami Mustafa. He helped us a lot in how to write and how to read in a fast way. He had a PHD in teaching English to Arabic speakers and had two masters in English. He knew what we needed because he is an Arabic speaker himself. I always had this rule that you cannot learn English from a non-English person but Mr. Rami Mustafa was an exception. What he used to do is tell us the proses of writing step by step. And used to take us to the library and let us read for an hour. I didnt get my English literacy just by learning in school, but also by using other literacies. For example visual literacy. One of the ways that I improved my English was by watching English cartoons as a child and watching shows as a grown up. I used to see my brother and sister watching standup comedy shows and any comedy series, and watch them laugh at the jokes. I didnt understand the jokes. So I started to watch these standup comedy shows in YouTube specially Gabriel Iglesias who is a really funny comedian. And I really believe that he helped me a lot. I used to start his shows and stop the video every time I hear a joke

Al Ghamdi 6

that I didnt understand and go search for its meaning. I never used subtitles because they would only teach how to read Arabic and not understand English. I had a goal and I reached it. Another way that helped me improve my English literacy is my curiosity. If I had something in my mind that I didnt understand. Then I have to get the answer. And if you wanted information about something then there is a big chance that it is written in English. I couldnt hold my curiosity. So I had to improve my English reading skills and put more wo rds in my vocabulary bank. I also have the hobby of copying other people or other accents. I used to watch a show called master chef Australia, I only watched that show because of their great Australian accent. I spent about two month after that show only speaking the in that accent. I also like speaking in the Scottish accent, and I love their music. One of the great songs that I always listen to is rocky road to Dublin even though its an Irish song but I cant actually know the difference between these two accents. Speaking in other accents helped me a lot in my literacy. It made talking English more fun, and it made me like to read. The accent that I really speak with is the British accent, it is the accent that I speak with in my head and speak with when talking to my family, but when I came here I started trying to speak with the American accent just so everyone around me could understand me better.

Al Ghamdi 7

To sum up, you can know from reading this paper that I am not the reader or writer kind of a guy. I still struggle with spilling in writing and pronunciation in reading. I dont know when I will reach a point when I get to be extremely confidante on reading and writing. The majority of writing and reading for me was in school. I dont remember buying a bo ok and reading it, or grabbing my pin and just write for fun.

Self-Assessment
What I did in this assignment is that I first edited and changed the parts and words that need changing, second I added more writing in the parts that you commented on. There is one comment that I didnt follow, is the comment that asked me to show the and write the technique of Mr. Mustafa in writing and assay, the technique is too long to write and I dont remember it really well, and I dont feel that it has anything to do wit h sponsors of literacy, this is only my opinion. I may be completely wrong.