Obstacle To Live Essay, Research Paper

The obstacle to liveEducation in America is available to everyone,regardless whether a student is U.S.born or an immigrant.This fact opens a huge world of the opportunities in frontof everyone, no matter what nationality and culture youbelong to. For young immigrants, American Education meansthe achievement of the very stair where they can stand as anequal part of the American society they live in and to behelpful for the country they have chosen to be their homeand that gives them such incredible opportunities. Although immigrants to the U.S. come from diversebackgrounds and cultures, almost all of them face similarchallenges on the way to their dreams and goals. Youngimmigrants cannot be equal competitors or equal members ofthe American teams because of the proficiency in Englishthat create all their problems. Every immigrant student has to lead a double life,being suspended between an old and a new home. Every daythey come to the school and enter an American way of lifeand English language; every day they come back home in theirown culture and traditions, speak their mother tongue withtheir families. All of them are put in the limits ofhelplessness and difference. Imperfection in English lacksany practice of this. They are not able to communicate withthe people that are around them now, and therefore cannot becompletely free in their lives. Mastering English is common and the most importantproblem for every immigrant student. Nevertheless, all ofthem are passionate about learning common language becausenow every aspect of their future depends on it. But it takesyears to know English on American level and students differin their abilities to the learning of other languages not

only by their individual characteristics but also by thefeatures of their own language. For example, Russianalphabet has almost one half of the letters that are similarto ones in English alphabet. But what about Japanese wherethere is no even a single letter similar to English one?The same is true about oral speech and pronunciation in thevariety of languages, like in Asian languages, they areabsolutely different from English language. It can be a different kind of problem for everyone; andfor the international students it is linked directly tosucceed academically. It often happens that the skills inunderstanding, speaking, reading, and writing English arelimited enough to deny students the chance to learn inclassrooms where the teaching is only in English. Immigrantstudents are often inappropriately placed in specialeducation, and are at a double risk to be placed in lowacademic tracks because of language limitations. As anexample, my younger brother was placed in grade 7 instead ofgrade 9 only because of his English skills, but not becauseof his level of knowledges. It turns out to be that thestudents are evaluated by their ability to speak English butnot by their academic performance. This is a stressful time for every internationalstudent. Poor English lacks every point of interaction withAmericans, lacks any chance to succeed. However, this makesstronger their passion about learning English. For them, itis the only thread that ties them with the future where theydream of being. They want to be equal with Americans andnot to be considered as ESL students. They tend to havemore similarities with American society where the strongestone is the language, a unifying force of an incrediblediverse population.