Hamad Hadeed

P. Thomas
UWRT 1101-103
12/8/2014
Draft 3
Learning A New Language Is A Literacy
After I graduated from high school in my home country Qatar. I decided to
study Computer Science and after researching a little, I realized that studying in the
United States would be one of the best choices for my life. So I looked for a
scholarship that could send me abroad, there was one problem; at that time my
English was nowhere near the level that I needed to be able to survive in the Unites
States or to be able to study at a fully English-speaking university. So I applied for
the English Institute Language Training which is known as ELTI in the UNCC. I then
arrived in Charlotte to pursue my dream, and I was excited to reach some day. I
studied in the program and improved my English to a level I could relay on. Some of
my teachers helped and encouraged me a lot to not just learning English but to go
beyond that to love the language. Since then I know that I am going to need a lot of
passion, patience and curiosity to gain the literacy I need, learning a new language is
an enormous gain of literacy but is also a big challenge.
For more than six months I learned a lot from my teacher. His name is Seth.
He is a very helpful teacher who believes deeply that teaching English is one of the
most important things that we need in 21st century. He taught me many things but
the most significant lesson that I learned from him was to love the language instead

of thinking about English language as a way to join the university. I then started to
change my way of thinking and considered English as an essential study in my life
even more than the academic studies that Im planning to study. I started to feel that
I have a passion in learning English after all things Ive experienced here in
charlotte, so I have tried to read newspapers every morning, I looked for the
childrens books in the bookstores because it was easy to read and have some easy
way to get the author meaning or message. Moreover, I felt the need to demand
more and more to read more in English, so I started to read about topics that I like
as genetic engineering and how scientists in this field can improve the chances for
parents to have healthy children. I started to see a significant change happening in
my English when I was reading about the topics that I love and I was understanding
and learning more; turning the study from learning into passion. I experienced
many issues that could have made me quit studying the language; one of them was
my mothers illness, she had tested positive for cancer, so I went back to my home
country to see my mother and make sure that she is doing well, but my passion and
her persistence made me comeback to continue my study.
I tried a test that called IELTS that test the applicants English and I got a high
score on this test and I was able to join the university. In addition I spent one more
semester in the institute to make sure that I was on the right level, I kept learning English
especially focusing in American history and I found a lot of interesting facts about the
evolution and creation of a marvelous country. At the same time I improved my English
skills I improved my knowledge by reading many things in different fields. Also trying to
read everything in English, despite my love my language, I knew that I had to stay away

from my language for a little while if I wanted to improve my English. My native

language is a rich language that has beauty and an old history but I was patient enough to
read only in English for more than a year. Believe it or not it is very hard to avoid reading
in my language for more than a year for the purpose of improving another language skill
especially since I love to read a lot in my language. So I learned that patience is one of
the significant requirements to acquire more literacy.
One of the characteristics that helped me gain basic literacy is my curiosity. I
tended to read many books in my childhood period. I read many books that helped me a
lot to think as an adult and see the world in a different way. These books had different
messages and various ways to see things. The best book I ever read was Kalila Wa
Domna which tells myth stories that gives some wise messages that children could
understand easily. I read a lot of poetry books that are famous in our culture, the most
meaningful book I read was from the poet Nizar Kapani and the title for the book is The
Emotion and Freedom Ask, this book inspired me to change my ways of seeing freedom
and the rights of everyone as a person and a human. Its also taught me that everyone has
a right to have any emotion and right to ask questions and a right to freedom. I used to
shock my father because he used to find me reading his books even though I was a child.
The funny thing about it was that I was reading his politics books without any knowledge
of what politics meant. He used to say to me, Hamad, focus on the books I recommend
to you and if you need more just tell me. He was careful and preferred to make me read
things that I would get benefit out of. Going back to my curiosity I tend to ask anyone
who can answer my questions and even search in Google about anything I hear about or
even think about. So I have learned new things for me, which is reading a story that I saw

in a movie. For instance, I read stories and watched their movies and I gain many things.
I learned how directors switch over the authors stories to make the story fit in movies
framework. Also how they change the characteristics of the actors and actresses to make
it better for the movie. My curiosity pushed me to know about the United States history
so I watched movies, read books, but furthermore I visited the National Museum of the
American Indian, The Smithsonian American Art Museum and The National Museum of
American History. I saw some pieces that were used in the first immigration period when
the British ships came. It was a very pleasant and fulfilling experience.
All these decisions helped me gain more knowledge about both English and
American history. At the beginning of my arrival here, I wasnt interested to learn
English or know more about the American history, but day after day I discovered that Im
living in a great culture with a kind, helpful and easygoing society who likes to help their
guests and whoever needs help. All and all, I think I can have gained literacy for me in
both languages than I knew because but I still have to work a lot to perfect the language.
Also the idea of being a bilingual person is great. Learning a new language is very hard
even harder is learning how to write in that language. For me each language has its
separate world and interesting stuff and learning the new language is improving the
literacy levels for the person who studies new languages. At the end, I hope that my
literacy is going to be reaching higher levels. I know that I lack a lot of things in English
and my literacy needs to be improved, but compared to the time when I first arrived on
this country, I have learn a lot of English and with the level I am in these days, I guess
Im doing well.