Amanda's literacy autobiography
This writing was an assigned autobiography for my C&T 820 class, Teaching English as a Second Language. We were asked to recount our history with learning our first language and becoming literate, and to include details about other languages, texts, and communications that have influenced us. It shows my experience of growing up and having English skills come easy to me, whereas learning a second and third language posed different challenges. I feel like I can relate better to my English learner students because I recognized experiences I've had where I felt that I couldn't express myself in words. I also recognize in this writing the privilege I have of being surrounded by a variety of books and other text resources, when I know that some students do not have this in their home lives. Nevertheless, it reinforces the importance of knowing the background of the learner and emphasizing our strengths and success with languages.
Amanda Williams
C&T 820 Hyesun Cho
Literacy Autobiography
2/11/2014
My Language Autobiography
At home, growing up, and in school, I have been developing my understanding of
language and acquiring literacy since before I could speak. I was born in 1985, the year Windows
was released, the year the internet began its Domain Name System, the year Super Mario and
the Super Nintendo Entertainment System were released. Technology, writing, and reading a
wide variety of texts play major parts in my development as well as being my preferred methods
of learning.
My parents and grandparents are all monolingual native speakers of American English.
They have passed on to me a love of reading and passion for writing and deep sense of value for
education & literacy. In my infancy my mother and father would speak to me and read picture
books to me. There were always books and encyclopedia in our home and usually newspapers.
Both of my parents worked during the day, so my "Grandma C" would often take care of the
kids. To this day I have never met another person who reads books as quickly as she did. We
would go with her to the library for checkout and also to assist her in researching genealogy
which was her passion. I remember believing as a girl that she had surely read every book in our
public library, and admired her for it.
When we were old enough, my sister and I attended daycare/preschool at a nearby
church where we learned the alphabet and reinforced things we’d seen on Sesame Street, along
with songs and routines. Before I made it to kindergarten I could read children’s books and speak
to peers and adults in Englis however, I was somewhat selfconscious and shy and did not like
to speak up. By that point my parents had taught me to read and I would ask for books and art supplies as presents.
I had two younger sisters and was already helping them develop their own language skills.
Growing up as a little girl I loved stories. Still do. My Grandmother Lynn kept a book of her
own writing of her childhood memoirs, poems, and ideas. I loved hearing her or my
greatgrandmother tell stories about growing up in Arkansas. I loved writing my own stories and
books and reading with my sister Molly. At home we had a computer where we wrote our own
newsletters (and magazines with satirical references to pop culture and really terrible jokes).
Some of my favorite stories as a kid were Teddy Ruxpin, Berenstain Bears and
Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter books. When I was ready for chapter books I loved the Babysitter's
Club and American Girl series. Some of my favorite writers were Gary Paulson, Shel Silverstein,
Louis Sachar, Brian Jacques, and Madeleine L'Engle. I cannot remember a time in my life when I
did not have a library card and access to books to read. In this respect I am lucky; now that I am
an adult working in education it is clear to me that not all families are fortunate enough to provide
books and magazines for their children in the home.
In elementary school I remember reading and writing stories, working through phonics
textbooks and grammar textbooks, taking spelling tests and doing book reports. I was advanced
in Language Arts and Math, so sometimes I received small group instruction or extension
assignments & projects. I was a good student but many times I was not engaged or challenged
by what was going on in the regular education classrooms.
It was about this time that I had discovered that if I kept a spiral notebook on my lap or3
desk at school I could write while the teacher was talking and not get in trouble. I was once
chastised in third grade for reading a book in my lap during lessons, but nobody seemed to mind
if I was writing to myself, for myself, and so I did, almost constantly. Mostly my novels went
unfinished but a few had multiple chapters up until the end. I still keep journals in notebooks from
year to year and try to save my old writing for memory’s sake.
Middle school gave me my first foreign language class, Spanish. All students were
required to take this class. The challenge of working with these unfamiliar sounds and structures
was very enjoyable to me. I seemed to be able to pick up on patterns within Spanish that made
sense to me and made it easier to use the vocabulary we were drilling. I disliked the slow pace of
the class though because most of my classmates were moving along much slower, and if I had
known that Spanish 2 in high school would have been just as torturous, I would have tried to test
out of it.
I breezed through Spanish 2 and in my sophomore year I entered Senora LaVoie's
Spanish 3 class. She was a very supportive and influential teacher and advisor to me during high
school. She also demanded much more of her brightest students. She grouped us with our
peers but also with other native speakers in Spanish Club. My friends and I became an officers
and organized activities like translating for the Red Cross and writing letters to pen pals. I studied
all of my high school subjects with care and passed everything with excellent grades.
My grades and test scores qualified me for a scholarship to almost any undergraduate
school of my choice, and I chose to stay instate and attend KU. Lawrence was 3 hours away
from my hometown, but I could visit my family on the weekends and still get a sense of living on
my own. In the scholarship hall I lived with a diverse group of young women, several of whom
were foreign exchange students or Kansans whose L1 was not English. The diversity of
Lawrence was different from the populations in Wichita and I embraced being around people4
from other cultures and backgrounds. As an entering freshman I had not officially declared a
major and changed my mind every year until settling on Education as a junior.
Despite my experience with high school Spanish, I did not feel very confident when it
came time to entering the Spanish degree program at KU. Instead I opted to take German
language classes and study abroad in Germany for a summer semester.
With German as my newly launched L3, keep in mind I still had a rocky grasp on Spanish
as my L2. I often confuse the two languages when trying to translate from English into German
(or into Spanish.) By now I feel I have forgotten much of the Spanish and the German is more
ingrained. It is like the information for Spanish and German is stored in the same section of my
brain and to recall it I sometimes have to shuffle my mental flash cards around. Even if I am not
speaking in these languages on a regular basis, I feel that studying them has broadened my
understanding of English and language acquisition in general.
The trip to Europe gave me the chance to be in a position that I know some of my
students find themselves in. They are in a world where no one is speaking their native language
and they need to communicate to survive, but their foreign language skills are not sufficient to
express these needs. The culture also contains foreign elements which are difficult to anticipate
until you get to know the expectations and the norms.
When I came back from Germany I was ready to take a break from German language
and find my major. I was really inspired by my intro to education class and decided a degree in
teaching English was my ideal program of study. I was trained in the intricacies of the English
language, acquisition, reading and writing best practices, as well as the pedagogy of being an
English teacher in middle and high school. After graduating I found a job in a Topeka middle
school as a 6th grade Language Arts teacher. The job was very similar to my student teaching
experience in Kansas City, Kansas. There were multiple ESL students in every class, and I5
found myself working with other professionals in the building to communicate to their families
and get involved in the school community. I am no longer working in this position, but I have a
different job within a diverse public school while I continue the professional development of
Language Arts teaching.
From my beginnings as an emergent reader to my current role as a Language teacher, I
find myself always interested in language and how it develops in our lives. Languages are
continuously changing, so as someone who is tuned in to technology and literacy I am interested
to see where the future of the English language will unfold. I have experiences learning foreign
language but hope through this TESL class to learn strategies and methods that can serve my
students as they develop their own literacy.
C&T 820 Hyesun Cho
Literacy Autobiography
2/11/2014
My Language Autobiography
At home, growing up, and in school, I have been developing my understanding of
language and acquiring literacy since before I could speak. I was born in 1985, the year Windows
was released, the year the internet began its Domain Name System, the year Super Mario and
the Super Nintendo Entertainment System were released. Technology, writing, and reading a
wide variety of texts play major parts in my development as well as being my preferred methods
of learning.
My parents and grandparents are all monolingual native speakers of American English.
They have passed on to me a love of reading and passion for writing and deep sense of value for
education & literacy. In my infancy my mother and father would speak to me and read picture
books to me. There were always books and encyclopedia in our home and usually newspapers.
Both of my parents worked during the day, so my "Grandma C" would often take care of the
kids. To this day I have never met another person who reads books as quickly as she did. We
would go with her to the library for checkout and also to assist her in researching genealogy
which was her passion. I remember believing as a girl that she had surely read every book in our
public library, and admired her for it.
When we were old enough, my sister and I attended daycare/preschool at a nearby
church where we learned the alphabet and reinforced things we’d seen on Sesame Street, along
with songs and routines. Before I made it to kindergarten I could read children’s books and speak
to peers and adults in Englis however, I was somewhat selfconscious and shy and did not like
to speak up. By that point my parents had taught me to read and I would ask for books and art supplies as presents.
I had two younger sisters and was already helping them develop their own language skills.
Growing up as a little girl I loved stories. Still do. My Grandmother Lynn kept a book of her
own writing of her childhood memoirs, poems, and ideas. I loved hearing her or my
greatgrandmother tell stories about growing up in Arkansas. I loved writing my own stories and
books and reading with my sister Molly. At home we had a computer where we wrote our own
newsletters (and magazines with satirical references to pop culture and really terrible jokes).
Some of my favorite stories as a kid were Teddy Ruxpin, Berenstain Bears and
Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter books. When I was ready for chapter books I loved the Babysitter's
Club and American Girl series. Some of my favorite writers were Gary Paulson, Shel Silverstein,
Louis Sachar, Brian Jacques, and Madeleine L'Engle. I cannot remember a time in my life when I
did not have a library card and access to books to read. In this respect I am lucky; now that I am
an adult working in education it is clear to me that not all families are fortunate enough to provide
books and magazines for their children in the home.
In elementary school I remember reading and writing stories, working through phonics
textbooks and grammar textbooks, taking spelling tests and doing book reports. I was advanced
in Language Arts and Math, so sometimes I received small group instruction or extension
assignments & projects. I was a good student but many times I was not engaged or challenged
by what was going on in the regular education classrooms.
It was about this time that I had discovered that if I kept a spiral notebook on my lap or3
desk at school I could write while the teacher was talking and not get in trouble. I was once
chastised in third grade for reading a book in my lap during lessons, but nobody seemed to mind
if I was writing to myself, for myself, and so I did, almost constantly. Mostly my novels went
unfinished but a few had multiple chapters up until the end. I still keep journals in notebooks from
year to year and try to save my old writing for memory’s sake.
Middle school gave me my first foreign language class, Spanish. All students were
required to take this class. The challenge of working with these unfamiliar sounds and structures
was very enjoyable to me. I seemed to be able to pick up on patterns within Spanish that made
sense to me and made it easier to use the vocabulary we were drilling. I disliked the slow pace of
the class though because most of my classmates were moving along much slower, and if I had
known that Spanish 2 in high school would have been just as torturous, I would have tried to test
out of it.
I breezed through Spanish 2 and in my sophomore year I entered Senora LaVoie's
Spanish 3 class. She was a very supportive and influential teacher and advisor to me during high
school. She also demanded much more of her brightest students. She grouped us with our
peers but also with other native speakers in Spanish Club. My friends and I became an officers
and organized activities like translating for the Red Cross and writing letters to pen pals. I studied
all of my high school subjects with care and passed everything with excellent grades.
My grades and test scores qualified me for a scholarship to almost any undergraduate
school of my choice, and I chose to stay instate and attend KU. Lawrence was 3 hours away
from my hometown, but I could visit my family on the weekends and still get a sense of living on
my own. In the scholarship hall I lived with a diverse group of young women, several of whom
were foreign exchange students or Kansans whose L1 was not English. The diversity of
Lawrence was different from the populations in Wichita and I embraced being around people4
from other cultures and backgrounds. As an entering freshman I had not officially declared a
major and changed my mind every year until settling on Education as a junior.
Despite my experience with high school Spanish, I did not feel very confident when it
came time to entering the Spanish degree program at KU. Instead I opted to take German
language classes and study abroad in Germany for a summer semester.
With German as my newly launched L3, keep in mind I still had a rocky grasp on Spanish
as my L2. I often confuse the two languages when trying to translate from English into German
(or into Spanish.) By now I feel I have forgotten much of the Spanish and the German is more
ingrained. It is like the information for Spanish and German is stored in the same section of my
brain and to recall it I sometimes have to shuffle my mental flash cards around. Even if I am not
speaking in these languages on a regular basis, I feel that studying them has broadened my
understanding of English and language acquisition in general.
The trip to Europe gave me the chance to be in a position that I know some of my
students find themselves in. They are in a world where no one is speaking their native language
and they need to communicate to survive, but their foreign language skills are not sufficient to
express these needs. The culture also contains foreign elements which are difficult to anticipate
until you get to know the expectations and the norms.
When I came back from Germany I was ready to take a break from German language
and find my major. I was really inspired by my intro to education class and decided a degree in
teaching English was my ideal program of study. I was trained in the intricacies of the English
language, acquisition, reading and writing best practices, as well as the pedagogy of being an
English teacher in middle and high school. After graduating I found a job in a Topeka middle
school as a 6th grade Language Arts teacher. The job was very similar to my student teaching
experience in Kansas City, Kansas. There were multiple ESL students in every class, and I5
found myself working with other professionals in the building to communicate to their families
and get involved in the school community. I am no longer working in this position, but I have a
different job within a diverse public school while I continue the professional development of
Language Arts teaching.
From my beginnings as an emergent reader to my current role as a Language teacher, I
find myself always interested in language and how it develops in our lives. Languages are
continuously changing, so as someone who is tuned in to technology and literacy I am interested
to see where the future of the English language will unfold. I have experiences learning foreign
language but hope through this TESL class to learn strategies and methods that can serve my
students as they develop their own literacy.