The Struggles and Benefits of Learning English

We went and talked to students in the ELD 150 class, where they’re learning English and we found out that in the process of learning English, people come across several obstacles but also encounter many benefits. Learning the English language is very beneficial especially if you live in a country in which it’s the primary languages such as the U.S. English makes communicating in everyday life a lot easier, even if you only know the basics.

If you are unable to understand or speak English very well, some classes can be difficult to the point where you can’t do anything. The class students struggle most with is math, especially when dealing with word problems, as most of the word problems use English words or expressions that may confuse non-fluent English speakers. This can easily cause confusion when trying to solve the problem. It can get very overwhelming at times when you’re in class and students are all of the sudden getting up and out of their seat doing whatever they’ve been told to do, and you’re just sitting there not knowing what to do because you couldn’t understand the situation. With this problem, students can end up with a failing grade which only makes things more difficult.

Having to speak English with other people you’ve either just met or have known can be very difficult. Just because you understand English doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re comfortable or confident enough to speak it. When you’re living somewhere that doesn’t necessarily require you to speak English and you can speak your first language, such as Spanish, you don’t necessarily consider learning English. However, when you move to the United States, you feel the need to learn English because that’s the language you’re surrounded by, especially in school, since most if not all of your classes are in English.

While interviewing the students in the class ELD 150, we also interviewed Ms. Grandby the teacher of that class and we asked her what she most struggled with while learning how to speak Spanish. She said, “ pronouncing words in Spanish is difficult for me. ” For many people, learning Spanish is quite difficult because of the differing pronunciation from English. Writing in Spanish for Ms. Grandby was easier since she took a Spanish course and learned how to write in Spanish. Ms. Grandby said, “ my English is better than their English but their Spanish is better than mine.” Ms. Grandby’s students have all been fluent in Spanish since they grew up in a Hispanic household and Ms. Grandby was raised in an American household. They are both fluent in their own language, which is why it may be hard to learn each other’s languages. Ms. Grandby also said, “ I took a French course and that helped me with pronunciation because of the Latin roots.” This gave her an advantage when learning how to speak Spanish.

Once you’ve beaten your obstacles, you begin to realize that they’ve actually helped you grow stronger and you realize all of the benefits that have come from them. In this case, the obstacle is learning English. Understanding and speaking English brings you a lot more opportunities in life, such as getting to communicate with people you meet and getting to create relationships with others who only speak English. Learning English will have so many opportunities such as finally being able to understand stuff in your classes and get the best grades they could. Once the person has learned English this will also help them be more involved in school activities as they can finally communicate with other people. This will be beneficial because you’ll be able to communicate, create relationships and will have a good impact on your future.