Language and Literacy Narrative

English language is something I was able to understand quickly but to speak and write upon this language was the most troublesome hinderance in my early years of school. I had learned a handful of words back in the first two years of primary education in Bangladesh. When I immigrated to the U.S., I was completely glued to the TV, watching countless hours of cartoon. There was basically no cartoon back in Bangladesh especially in the far countryside where electricity was a luxury. I lived with a few of my cousins who mostly spoke English with me as we played and created chaos throughout the house. From the cartoons, to my cousins, I had picked up on many different words in three months before I started 3^rd grade.

I could somewhat make out what my teacher, Ms. Edy was asking from the one or two words that I understood. But I had classmates who would always translate things from me in Bengali. Eventually I was able to understand and answer question only through shaking my head. Ms. Edy gave me gave separate books and homework’s that were on a 1^st grade level. She would always explain what work I had to do and afterwards ask, “Do you understand?”. She would only took verbal answers and I always replied “No”. For some odd reason, I thought “No” meant “Yes” and vice versa. When I had turned in my work, she would always say “so you did understand?”, but I did not really understand what she was saying here. This continued for months, I was asked the same question, gave the same answer “No.”

This mishap of my understanding of English got me into trouble. After lunch, out of the blue Ms. Edy called me into her desk. She asked about some “trouble” I caused – a classmate told on me for a reason that I cannot remember. She asked, “Did you do this?” and to that I replied “Yes”. Then she went on a lecturing spree, “Why did you do this? You shouldn’t have done that” and so on. I immediately understood what she meant back when she said “so you did understand?”. I was able to piece together the meaning of yes and no. Even though I understood what was going on here, I could not speak English, I could not explain myself, I could not talk my mind, I could not explain my side of the story, I was frozen in place because I did not know how to speak English. My only options left was either to talk back in Bengali or try to say no verbally or with hand gestures. But I was a very shy and reserved kid that does not like to create more trouble than there already is. So, I just stood there and listened. I am sure Ms. Edy understood that I did not completely understand what she was saying.  Unfortunately, this was not the last time I got innocently in trouble. The phrase “actions speak louder than words” really is true on my muted mouth. However, I am very fortunate enough to have a teacher like Ms. Edy. She never yelled at me whenever I got into some small minor trouble, she would always talk to me in a calm manner as if she knew it was not my fault or that it was just some language barrier misunderstanding. She also specifically taught me differently from the rest of my classmates since I was completely new to English. The amount of support she gave was enough for me not despise going to school and navigating my way to learning English.

I wanted to play this game called Operations after I had watched many commercials on it. As it so happens, my classmates were playing it on one of those free class times. My muted mouth could not bring itself to say “I want to play” because I still did not know how to speak English. I gave many hints like continuously watching them play and giving hand gesture to show I wanted to give it a try. A classmate understood that I wanted to play. The classmate brought up the suggestion that I should play but another classmate shut him down. That classmate said that “He doesn’t understand English, he won’t know how to play the game.” I desperately wanted to let them know I do know how to play but I did not know how to say it in English. I just played dumb by not understanding what he was saying and went back to my seat learning the alphabet.

These types of situations were very common, not being able to speak my mind and connecting to my classmates. I eventually gave up and didn’t bother talking – perhaps this is the reason why I developed my stutter. Fortunately, as time went I on, I began to learn to speak English more. I had an amazing teacher in 4^th grade teacher, Mrs. Robolato who is a book enthusiast, that encouraged all her student to read more. I was fortunate enough that my class had a little extra mini room filled with books all around, it was basically a miniature library. There my teacher sat on a chair in front the students waiting to hear stories. I always sat in the front corner laying on the back of the self as I listened to countless stories she told. In that year I have learned so many words that I can finally speak my mind. By 5^th grade I was able to talk to the teacher freely, asking many questions about what work I was doing. I even translated for my parents during parent-teacher conferences.