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Jose A. Chavez

Katia Monterrey

Revised Draft

09 July 2021

Literacy Autobiography: Revised Draft

Growing up speaking two languages has always been a challenge for me. Spanish is my

first languag in which I grew up speaking it in my household all the time. When my first year of

school came around, I had to start learning a whole new language. My.pqygpts and both of their

families only knew how to speak Spanish so whemissueglike studyingyqqabularyor reading or"

6yriting became difficult for me, I had no one to askfor.help åiåd until I theop
ygyxpextday where_lwould askforhelpand stil not really understand what was assigned.

Luckilysthroughout elementaryLhad some-reallygood teachers:whcmade learning_Englishyve

gun which made it easier tolearn the-language and that made me want to read more
bookS'and
Cspeakconfidently in English and that made learning awesomvBy the end of element
3
graduated from ELD (English Learning Development) which assisted me and
tutored me to
better read and write English so I wouldn't be as far behind as other students
who easily
understood EnglisWandthatreally played a big factor in my education
whichled to many
bositive academic outcomes,

lementary for me was magic

because that is where I found my passion for

reading. I
read all types of books like chapter books, comics, history books, an regular
story books. Once I
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ave

reading
left elementary to go to middle school, 1 felt that my vocabulary had expanded and that

and writing became like there was nothing to it. It became easy and I would go on to reading

more by going to libraries to find new books and also by twing out e-books. Towards-the.end')

In my wrlüng andvocabulary that I used in assignments arid

hiidd1eßChodU,TWåSdöi1fident

essa9iSbåfiWjuOsta couple of mont s Twoåld be intro Liced highéölével English course

fth¯fh6pefu11fWöu1d keep my. iiiOtivation for reading and learning English.

Unlike lementary, •gh school was more difficult due to not having reliable English

Eiiglish teacherwhoemade reading fum and

teachers. MYT1fst9éåöStartedW1tWa-biåhd-héW

recommended_thatlfeåda 'Idould +éGead

(them:allthetime. Butinthatclass,.veweren'treallytäught anythingnewTfOmmy preV16Ü€ye

an&writingbecame dull and feltlike I wasjustwriting justtcwrite vnotreallyforfunortö tbett

because it really wasn't. My •thefirst' due to also

having abrand newteacherwho did assist imfåklng my-writing better arid givrng me pointers

'but the teachefeiidéd up åbahdoning the sc ool halfWåVthfoughthe yeaöso-theiest-of the-year

,and the beginning of mythird year; our ClasSSvas'leftWithsubstitutes who didnot have an idea

in how to teacher English sor did not know howtcrun a 'Class.My third year started with

substitutes who gave assignments but they never really taught us anything new and for the past

three years it felt that I was just learning the same thing over and over again which led to me not

really wanting to read or write because there was no motivation in doing that.

Halfway through my third year, Covid came and canceled school which caused me to

lose more of my education. About a month into-closure we Were given computers so we could do

gohline learning but the teachers had very-little knowledge about technologyand that caused 4,10t
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of issues in both teaching academics and also grading. This does not mean I disregard their

efforts in twing to teach but it was a lost cause and we were all just given a pass for all of ou

spring semester classes.

Like some seniors would say, our senior year was stolen from us due to Covid and with

online learning, not much learning was done because there was only so much a teacher could do
9
with the current situation. Luckily though, my English teacher was an older woman who had 3

taught English for ten or more years and had experience with teaching English which gave me

hope for learning more and bettering my English. But like I previously said, there was only so

much a teacher could do with online leaming and it felt that I did learn a thing or two in that

class but overall the class felt repeated like in my previous years.

As you might have noticed I never brought upspeaking Spanish or learning more aboui

the language and that is sort of like my situation with English, I did notpractice mySpanish an

only focused on bettering my English.

I now realize that both

my Spanish and English are iffy and need to be worked on. One might think that growing up in

Spanish speaking household would improve my Spanish but I was never formally taught it, I just

reached a point where I understood what people would say but I did not study the language the

same way I did with English and I felt that put a limitation on my knowledge of Spanish. Even

though I do not know the two languages very well, I still enjoy helping others in translation

which I did in some meetings that needed translators and also translating words for my famil
 of an
members. I love being able to speak two languages but I hope that with having more
communicate
opponunity to expand my education, I can learn a third language so I could better

with others.

in each class
When I first started school, I enjoyed learning and the academic atmosphere

to an irregular
but in recent years I have felt that my writing skills have lessened over time due
anymore, not
high school education. Like some would say, have lost my touch by not reading
hopefully
practicing writing, and just not having the motivation to learn. I joined EOP so I could
high
regain that motivation to learn not just English, but also math and social skillsuhich I have

hopes for and can't wait to learn.

e cvJ-AA--k-o

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