When I was in eighth grade and my class was choosing our schedules for our first year of high school, I was told that for the diploma I wanted, I would have to take a foreign language. I chose Spanish, because I thought it would be easy. Little did I know that that decision would change my life forever. My first Spanish class helped me discover that languages can be more than just words on a page. I had never thought of language as something that could be a thing of beauty. The way that words flow and come to life has become a thing of wonder to me, and I can't wait to continue to learn new meanings and nuances. I would like to go to college for Spanish Education because I still remember my excitement at the thought of one day being able
The Ap Spanish Language and Culture Exam contains two sections, each worth fifty percent of the final composite score. The first section is all multiple choice and the second section is all free response question. The first section tests over reading and listening, which it would evaluate how well one could comprehend. (30 questions, 40 minutes) The reading section contains multiple texts that is in a variety of forms. (Journals, Literary text, Letters, and etc.) After each text, there would be questions that tests one’s understanding of the materials, which includes vocab, author's purpose, main idea, and details. The listening portion of the exam contains two audios, one that is provided with printed materials, possibly the text, and one that’s solely the audio.(35
When one enrolls into an honors or advanced English class, there are many worries that come to mind. These worries create thoughts such as ‘Am I a good writer?’, ‘Will I pass?’, or ‘How do I even start a paper?’. My teachers never specifically taught me to write. My teacher that I had for 9th grade English and my 10th grade honors English class always gave good grades. Once I got into my first AP English class, I felt as though my writing was inferior. In my distress, I went to the internet and I found that you do not have to be gifted in academic writing to get good grades on your essays, I found that organization is the key to writing a powerful essay.
The final weeks of my first semester in college are coming to an end. My Columbus State english class has written a total of three projects, and a total of four papers. There are a lot of grammatical issues that, at the beginning of the year, I had issues on. However, I have improved on these errors drastically, and have become a better writer because of it. Even though I am still working on many aspects of my writing, I do believe that I have become a better writer. I believe that my biggest issues while writing are run on sentences, making a strong thesis statement, and having quotes stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph.
Since my early years, I was pushed into engineering because I excelled in math and science. I took an interest in bioengineering but my heart was not there. It was just a placeholder but I was not truly passionate about it and to me that was unsatisfactory. I wanted to change my major, but to what I had not known. Going into my junior year, I was afraid my time was running out. My whole life changed when my counselor asked me,” Spanish 3 or AP Psychology?”. Having already taken two years of spanish, I opted to take the AP class. I was immediately intrigued in the subject. I went to class everyday eager to learn. I liked psychology so much because it was easily applicable to real life. I would identify things I had learned in class in and have
I read the article, “It’s Not Real, It’s Just A Story To Just Learn Spanish": Understanding Spanish Heritage-Language Student Resistance in a Southwest Charter High School” by Kimberly Adilia Helmer. Kimberly Adilia Helmer is the lecturer with Security of Employment (Senate Faculty) in the humanities division within the writing program in Stevenson college at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The article was published in The Heritage Language Journal is published by the National Heritage Language Resource Center at The University of California in Los Angeles . It is an online blind peer-reviewed journal and was only established in 2002 to provide scholars with an outlet for disseminating research and knowledge about heritage and
Looking back at my early childhood filled with many events and memories, I remember one in particular when my parents taught me my native language, Spanish, by reading books to me any chance they had. Beginning at the age of 8, I would bring home a variety of books from school eager to read them and learn new words. I spent a great amount of time reading that I eventually decided to move into short novels. This helped me improve so much that I never had trouble speaking Spanish. I vividly remember in my small class of 15 students, me speaking Spanish more fluently than any of my other classmates. Proud would be an understatement. This soon changed when I began second grade in the fall of 2006 with Ms. Magaña.
Being part of the Dual Language program is an experience I cherish because of how it molded me into the person I am today; someone who appreciates their two cultures. I was apart of the Dual Language club in high school, that was a club for bilingual students and for Dual Language students. Further, being part of a diverse program made me realize that I want to continue to celebrate and appreciate my two cultures. The Dual Language program exposed me to a culture embedded in my roots, for that I am thankful for it. Being active and part of two different cultures has impacted me more than any other experience.
Once a sunny day,in San Luis middle school a big and beige school with vintage carpet and white walls.I am in the principal's office because i had made a wrong action that affected me in some way but it also help me though.However i was there because i had too many absences in my first and fourth period.I had too many absences because i was a immature girl that didn’t heard what my parents and teachers use to say to me,and because the only thing that matter to me was having fun with my friends without measuring the consequences.
As a Junior, in the spring semester I have grown more as a student and a global citizen.This spring semester I have gained more confidence as taking action and gain more knowledge. I have been able to take action in my community by doing a civil rights project for my AP Language and Composition class. This semester I have grown more knowledge as a student in my Digital Literacy class by creating a Fake News Essay to address how everything that is on the internet or media can be fake.
Every year, a few days before Christmas break, my Spanish teacher hosts a Christmas party for all of the faculty. The students in his Spanish four class are responsible for preparing Hispanic influenced cuisine. However, the whole fiesta is coordinated by those brave enough to venture into AP Spanish. Although I’m in the level four course, my teacher assigned me as the chief organizer and décor extraordinaire. We only had four weeks to pull everything together so time was of the essence. By infusing a lot of positive energy and publicity about the occasion, we managed to spread the news and excitement among the faculty. Despite a few challenges with communication and organization, we managed to pull it off with great success. The teachers
“Tienes tijeras?” asked a young girl. Not understanding what she had said, I asked her what she needed in English, but she looked back at me with eyes full of confusion. A simple question from one young girl asking for scissors had made me nervous and completely freeze in the moment. Through this, interacting with the children worried me because of the language barrier which would make it twice as hard as interacting with the children at home.
“Same here with Spanish. I only know the common words but not all of them. If you want me to, then I can teach you German. It’s an easy language to learn. I can tell you that saying hello in German is saying hall with an O at the end: Hall-O.”
Looking back to when I typed my first AP Language and Composition paper, I can honestly say that my writing skills have drastically improved. I started off not knowing any writing strategies and thought that typing three pages was a lot for just one paper. After completing the course, I can now write a full eight paged paper using one of the three writing strategies that we learned. Before this class, I was never a skilled writer and the thought of taking APLAC intimidated me because I did not think I was capable of completing the course. I never imagined myself taking this class because In my mind I simply was not smart enough to take it. However, due to all the positive comments I received about the class and how it improved my friends writing, I
In my junior of high school I volunteered, through the educational program Scholars, at a middle school called Tomas Rivera Middle School. As I already had experience tutoring students because of my position as a certified avid tutor in my middle school, I quickly became involved. I worked with students falling in mathematics and English learners. I was in charge of 2 distinct groups. The first, were 7th grade students in advanced algebra 1 and my second group was composed of 8th grade students in regular algebra 1. I worked with these dedicated students for a semester, almost every wednesday before I would go to school, for about an hour and 30 minutes.
I have known my participant for many months previous to this interview so some of this information I already knew while other information was new to me. It is interesting to me to see the different cultures within the same language. Angie is from Columbia so she speaks Spanish as her first language. Within our swim team there are two different cultures within the Spanish speaking teammates, they are from Spain and Bogota, Columbia. All four of our teammates including Angie that are from Columbia have their own little subculture here. When talking about the settings that she speaks each of her languages in it was interesting that she only spoke Spanish to our teammates from Columbia. She discussed how it is natural for her to speak Spanish to the other Columbians because she already knew all of them before coming to America. Unlike the people that are from Spain, she speaks English to all of them. When I ask both types of Spanish about what words to use it is interesting that both of them give me different answers. I feel that the Spanish that the Columbians speak is easier to learn with already knowing English because they do not have as many phonetic differences such as the “z” sound in Spain Spanish is pronounced “th.”