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Amin Al Ghamdi English 1101-054 September 25, 2013 Dr. Jan Rieman Literacy Memoir Draft the earliest memories that I have about myself or about myself learning was in the united kingdom specifically in Manchester, I want there when I was four, my family took me from the second week to a British kindergarten, I really didnt like going there, I didnt know how to speak English or even speak proper Arabic, and I was really young compared to the other children, but my family did that for a reason, they wanted me speak perfect English, and have a known English accent, not the Arabic English accent, and I really did learn English at that time just from hearing the teacher and other children speak, and I had a great British accent too. a funny thing is that my family did not know that I knew how to speak English until the second year, when I was in the dentist with my father, the dentist started to ask me about my school, and whether I had a girlfriend or not, and when I started responding to him and talking with the doctor, my dad could not believe his eyes, he was really surprised and extremely happy, he was so happy he bought me a ton of candy after coming back from the dentist which is not a good idea. In the four years in Britain I did not learn a lot of things besides English, or maybe I just dont remember.

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after coming back to Saudi Arabia, I felt a huge change in the culture, I did not know how to act in front of other Saudi kids, they played different games and they had different personalities, I am not going to lie I hated it there or at least hated the first year there. I was bullied by everyone; they used to say that I was not a man just because I knew how to speak English. Until I got out of my box of fear and beat every one who even thought of doing something to me, looks mean but that was the right thing to do. But about my literacy there, I stopped learning English, because teaching English wasnt until the fifth grade, I really regret these years that I stopped the English learning in it, I completely forgot how to speak in the British accent, and forgot some of the English. The only thing that kept me know how to speak English is my sister and brother, we used to speak English together and watch English cartoons and shows in TV. when I went to the fifth grade, we finally got to learn English, I was the best student in class, I was even better than the teacher himself I used to correct him all the time, until he got mad about it and called my father, so I stopped. I remember how my neighbors used to call my mother asking her if I could teach her son who is five years older than me. when I go to teach them they used to ask me about the grammar rules and what they were called and when to use them, and used to respond "I dont know" I didnt know and still dont know how the grammar rules work, what I do is see the sentence and look if it works or not, and that is what I believe is the problem in teaching in Saudi Arabia, they care so much about understanding the grammar rules, more than actually using English.

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My English literacy has not improved that much in the rest of my life in high school. But the huge improvement was last year, you see I used to know how to speak English, but I was terrible in writing and reading. My spelling was really terrible that I used to misspell the words "yes, and you".

Last year I was accepted in a sponsorship, from the largest and richest company in world Saudi ARAMCO, the program was that I spend one year in Saudi Arabia learning English, culture, and science. I met a lot of friends in that program, friends who helped me academically and socially we used to meat outside the program, make study groups and study so that everyone would understand the material, I learned in that year everything that I will take in the first two years in college; I really feel that I am doing a lot better than other classmates know in this year of college, in both math and chemistry. The English classes there, were IELTS English classes, IELTS is an English placement test, which tests your writing, reading, listening and speaking. I was required to get a grade of 6.5 and above out of nine. We also were required to do

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presentations about any common topic just to know how to make presentations, making presentations really helped me gain confidence and experience. in the first trimester in that year I had a British teacher called Mr. Kennedy he was really good, but he couldnt teach us the strategies of writing and reading because he was a native speaker and he felt that it was an easy thing to do, for example we used to ask him what is the proses that we should follow to get a high grade in the writing section in the IELTS test, and he used to respond just write what you feel like writing and try to use good vocabulary, which is extremely not enough. In the second trimester the teacher that I had was a Canadian who is originally from Jordan, his name was Mr. Rami Mustafa, he helped us a lot in how to write and how to read in a fast way, he had a PHD in teaching English to Arabic speakers and had two masters in English. he knew what we needed because he is an Arabic speaker himself. I always had this rule that you cannot learn English from a non-English person but Mr. Rami Mustafa was an exception.

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I didnt get my English literacy just by learning, but also by using other literacies, for example visual literacy. One of the ways that I improved my English is by using watching English cartoons as a child and watching shows as a grown up. I used to see my brother and sister watching standup comedy shows and any comedy series, and watch them laugh at the jokes that they make, and I didnt understand it, so I started to watch these standup comedy shows in YouTube specially Gabriel Iglesias who is really funny comedian and I really believe that he helped me a lot I used to start his shows and stop the video every time I hear a joke that I didnt understand and go search for its meaning. I had a goal and I reached it. Another way that helped me improve my English literacy is my curiosity. If I had something in my mind that I didnt understand, then I have to get the answer, and if you wanted information about something then there is a big chance that it is written in English. I couldnt hold my curiosity so I had to improve my English reading skills and put more words in my vocabulary bank.

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I also have the hobby of copying other people or other accents, I used to watch a show called master chef Australia, I only watched that show because of their great Australian accent, I spent about two month after that show only speaking the in that accent, I also like speaking in the Scottish accent, and I love their music, one of the great songs that I always listen to is rocky road to Dublin even though its and Irish song but I cant actually know the difference between these two accents. The accent that I really speak with is the British accent, it is the accent that is speak with in my head and speak with when talking to my family, but when I came here I started trying to speak with the American accent just so everyone around me could understand me better.