Hamad Hadeed

9/21/2014
Draft2
Learning A New Language Is A Literacy
After I graduated from high school in my home country Qatar. I realized that
studying in the United States is one of the best choices I would choose in my life. So I
sought for a scholar who can send me abroad of my country especially to the US. At
that time my English was almost nothing to give me the ability to continue studying
at the university. I knew I am going to need one more year in studying English
before joining the university so I applied for the English Institute Language Training
which is known as ELTI in the UNCC. I arrived Charlotte to continue my dream that I
am excited to reach in some day in my future. I studied in the program and
improved my English from nothing to something that I could relay on. Some of my
teachers gave, helped and encouraged me a lot to not just learning English but going
beyond that, which is loving the language. Since then I believed that I am going to
need a lot of passion, patience and curiosity to gain literacy. And learning a new
language is also an enormous gain of literacy
For more than six months I learned a lot from my teacher. His name is Seth.
He was a very helpful teacher who believes in deep 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 how to love the language
instead of thinking that language is a way to join the university. Since then I started
to change my way of thinking and considered English is an essential study in my life

even more than the academic studies that Im planning to study. From all things Ive
experienced here in charlotte, I started to feel that I have a passion in learning
English. So I read a lot of 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 that I was demanding more and
more to read a lot 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 fetus. Rather than that they also can choose the shapes that they want
their child to be. The significant change happened in my English studying period
when I was reading about the topics that I love to learn about more and more and
turning the study from learning to passion that wouldnt allows me to be lazy to
learn the language. I had so many issues that were able to make me quit studying
the language. One of them was my mothers illness. 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 coming back to continue my study.
Patience was the spine that I relied on in that period to get even a little of
knowledge about the English and how I could use what I have from the language and
work on joining the university. 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 since I got
this score. In addition I spent one more semester in the institute to make sure that I was in
the right side. I maintained learning English especially in focusing in American history
and I found a lot of interesting, evolution, and creating a marvelous country. At the same
time I improved my English skills and my erudition by reading a lot of things in different

fields in English. Also trying to read every thing in English despite I love my language
and I knew that my native language is a rich language that has its 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 hard to not read in your language for more than a year in purpose of improving
another languages skills specifically when love to read a lot in your language. So
patience was one of the significant requirements to have more literacy.
One of my characteristics that helped me to gain the basic literacy is my curiosity.
I tended to read in my childhood period in my native language. I read so many books,
which helped me, a lot to think as an adult even I was counted as a child. These books
have assortment of messages and ways. The best book I have ever read are (Kalila Wa
Domna) which is talks about myths stories that gives some wise messages that children
could understand easily. I read a lot of poetry books which are famous in our culture the
most meaningful book I read was for the poet Nizar Kapani and the title for the book is
(The Emotion and Freedom Ask) this book inspired me a lot. Its also taught me that
everyone has a right to have any emotion and bask with his/her freedom. I used to shuck
my father when he found me read his books although I was a child. The silly thing that I
was reading his politics books without any consider what does the word politics mean.
He used to say for me Hamad focus in the books I recommend to you and if you need
more just tell me. He was careful and prefer to make me read what I get benefits from as
much as I can. Going back to my curiosity I tend to ask anyone who can answer my
curios questions and even search in Google about anything I hear about or even think
about. Despite all that I was feeling that I needed more and more to know about, and I felt
I demand new ways to develop my literacy in a short period of time. So I learned new

thing for me, which is reading a story that has 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 disburse the
characteristics among the actors and actresses that is requiring a lot of work to do. My
curiosity pushed me to know about the United States history so I watched movies, read
books, but the new thing I visited museums as (National Museum of the American
Indian, Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of American History).
I saw some pieces that were used in the first immigration period when the British ships
came and it was a great experience for me.
All these tokens supported me a lot to know and gain more knowledge about both
English and American history. At the beginning of my arriving here I wasnt interested
about learning English or know more about the American history, but day after day I
discovered that Im living in great culture with a kind, helpful and easygoing society who
likes to help their guests and whoever needs a help. All and all, I think I can count
literacy for me in both languages that I knew because not knowing English doesnt mean
that I have no literacy. Also the idea of being a bilingual person is a kind of literacy since
learning a new language is much harder than learning how to write or gain more
information. For me each language has its separate world and adventure stuff to know
about. 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 in advance
levels. I knew that I lack for a lot of things in English and my literacy needs to be
improved, but comparing to the time I had had to learn English and which level Im in in
these days I guess Im doing well.