Language & Literacy Narrative

To speak or not speak, to write or not write if it’s not perfect, it’s wrong. Speak loud and clear, or you might as well not speak it all. All things in life while growing up came with strong hesitation behind them, whether it was speaking, reading, communicating, or simply moving. When faced with the choice to speak or write, I felt paralyzed by the fear of imperfection. I would convince myself that if my words are not perfect and grammatically correct, they are inherently wrong, and therefore not worth sharing.

I grew up in an immigrant-parent household, where Russian was the only language I was exposed to ages 1-4. I would only read, watch, and communicate with my parents in Russian, despite their fluency in English, it was their goal for me to be bilingual eventually. Once I entered kindergarten at age 4 I was stricken by a sense of isolation. I will always remember my first day of school, the beginning of September in 2008, warm and sunny outside. I step into my parent’s car, clueless as to where we are about to go. Once I arrived at the school, suddenly Everyone talking around me in English, talking about their favorite American cartoons and food left me confused… I wondered if I was even meant to be there or if I was in the right place. 

I was soon placed into an individual speech and ESL class, where they would pull me out from multiple classes a week to attend these lessons. These lessons were the one place where I felt isolated ..but not lonely. I had the support of the instructor every step of the way, and always assured me I was not the only one in this position. Although I was assured in that one room, once I exited that room the mentality of the rest of my teachers were you either knew it or you don’t.

There was no consideration for us students who may have been at a different level in the English language than the others. It was hard to communicate or become friends with classmates in the coming years because, in the back of my mind, I always had the idea “you either know it or you don’t”.I thought that if I didn’t speak perfect concise English sentences like the rest of the kids, I shouldn’t speak or voice my thoughts at all, so I stayed silent. This applied throughout my school experience even in areas such as math where I thought if I didn’t have the exact answer, there would be no point in trying at all.

Since being in that ESL class throughout my elementary school years, I lost my ability to speak Russian, and now I am left only to be able to understand it. And the way I once felt about speaking English… Now I have the same feeling I have about speaking and relearning Russian. I’m hesitant to speak because I know I will have a strong American accent when speaking it and difficulty with pronunciation makes it difficult for me to communicate with relatives who are not proficient in English. Looking back on this time, I wish the school system implemented more ways for students who speak another language to be able to retain that language and become bilingual instead of making the sole purpose of knowing English perfectly. Children should be able to embrace both their own culture and language without having to fully conform to American standards and culture. Children must have a sense of authentic identity, not the identity society wants them to have.

This hesitant mentality is damaging to anyone’s growth and learning process, especially young kids. We should be taught to embrace our mistakes, uncertainty, and ambiguity, everything should be viewed as a learning opportunity and experience. We have our entire lives to learn to do things right, we do not have to perfect everything at a young age. We don’t know everything, and neither do our grandparents who have lived triple the amount of time we have.

We must recognize that learning is not just about acquiring knowledge solely in an academic setting, but also about developing critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills that we can utilize outside of school and for the rest of our lives. By embracing our mistakes, we can learn from them and grow as individuals, we can develop resilience, creativity, and cultivate a love of learning that will serve us well throughout our lives. We should continue to seek out new knowledge and experiences, challenge our assumptions, take risks, and remain open-minded and curious in all that we do.