Autobiography k2n49

Autobiography

My journey with languages began since a very young age. My mom is Polish and my dad is Lebanese. I was born in Poland and lived there for 4 years on and off. I later moved to Libya where I lived for 5 years. Then, I moved to Lebanon where I stayed until I moved to Poland for my Masters half a year ago. Therefore, as it’s evident, I had quite some experience with languages and learning them. When I born in Poland, the language that my family used around me was mainly Polish with the exception of my father who would see me every couple of months and talk in Arabic because he didn’t know any Polish. So the first language I encountered was Polish. My mom recalls having said “MAMA” in a Polish accent as my first ever word. Later on, I moved to Libya and that was when all the chaos with acquiring languages began. My father and mother used to communicate in Russian. However, mom was in process of learning to speak Arabic and Dad just started learning Polish. I went to a British nursery in a British Camp where children from multi nationalities were present, from British to Indian to Arabs from various countries with different accents. Apparently, as my mom told me, at the beginning of talking, I wouldn’t say much. Mom was afraid my speech delay is a serious problem. However, I probably was just confused with all those languages which one to use first. My mom tells me that I had a big picture book with many pictures in it and I would show her what I want using it. Looking at my book reports from my KG1 and KG 2, it says as I recall, I can’t very much express myself, but again, who could blame a 5 year old with at least 4 different languages circulating around her? As I recall my childhood in Libya, my classes consisted from learning centers and a lot of showing and telling. I even have my diary as a 5 year old with sentences describing pictures that I drew of what I did on the weekend or something I would like to write about. Since I was born till the age of 7 I lived between two countries. When I was in Poland for 6 months, I would attend a public nursery nearby. However, I only the trips and nap times I had. I did however, learn some basic Polish as I suppose.

Later on was the stage where I moved to Lebanon. I entered a world where Arabic was the main language. I it was quite weak and lacked the basic structures and fluency in a Native Speaker. However, dad refused to it me to the American System at School, and so just like any other Lebanese person, I had Arabic classes. All schools in Lebanon are trilingual with English, Arabic and French as compulsory languages of instruction. I was in a school where I mainly had English language, Math, and all the Sciences in English with Arabic language, Geography, History, Civics in Arabic. I also had French which was considered a second language. I was completely lost. School was very difficult for me when I was in elementary and very demanding. I had to learn French on my own since no one spoke French in my family and dad did not have time to help me since times were rough back then. I later on when I moved to Middle School and High School; I changed schools and went to a better school. French was now being taught by native speakers. I they did not speak Arabic with us at all and many times we went through this cycle where neither we nor the teacher were able to understand each other. I can recall that there were a lot of drilling and memorizing tables, grammar rules and vocabulary. Teachers depended more on the course-books and just went on and on according to the table of content. I do , I wasn’t very fond of the French language, and so I had a lot of problems. I still have problems with the pronunciation of many words correctly and I could very weakly design a correct sentence even though I studied French for 10 years at school. The focus in our French classes was more on the form, syntax and semantics, but our conversational skills were a bit ignored. On the other hand, English language became my ion. We had excellent teachers using American books from Glencoe/McGraw Hill Literature books from grade 7 to 12th grade to Houghton Mifflin textbooks when we were in elementary classes. Arabic on the other hand was difficult, but I caught it since everyone around me spoke Arabic and my relatives only spoke it, so with time I became proficient in it as well, As a matter of fact, I graduated from High School in the Philosophy Division, so I had English and Arabic literature as well as Philosophy in Arabic and Psychology in English. I had extended Geography and History in Arabic too. It turned out pretty good for me because I studied translation for 2 years, but then I decided teaching is more

interesting and interactive so I changed majors. However, I do hold a grudge against the ways we were taught French. Learning it was never fun. As young kids, I see the importance of having games, chants, songs, and more hands on activities to learn a new language. It was rarely interactive and mostly dictations, repetition of words, quizzes, saying out loud what we’ve memorized and writing short essays. Maybe if French was taught differently, then I would have known to say something with complete confidence. However, after school, I rarely used it and that could have deteriorated my abilities to speak it too.