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https://studentshare.org/other/1398711-literacy-narrative.
I have always been in love with Engines and machines, and the ability to do it in the US was a great opportunity, but doing it without ample knowledge of written and spoken English would be like putting the cart before the horse because I would not do Engineering to my full potential. To be able to obtain my bachelor's degree in Civil engineering at Rodger Williams University in the US, I had to first enroll for English classes at the ELS English center just within the same university’s campus in Bristol town.
Bristol is a small town located at the center of the smallest state in the union of Rhode Island. I experienced the beauty of the heavens in Rode Island, the breeze from the large water body cooled me off while I enjoyed the summer, the weather was fantastic, and the warmth of the people around me soothed me and made me feel at home. The act of learning became more comprehensible thanks to the support of my teachers, at the same time I also managed to make new friends and my social life was full of fun, especially during the weekends. I took my writing skills and style learning slowly and steadily, I never wanted to rush things over because I already learned that slow and steady wins the race.
Among the classes I undertook was the reading and writing class, the fact that it began in the morning was a big boost to me because I was still as fresh as the word fresh itself and my mood was always good for learning Mrs. Carol too set a good atmosphere for the learning experience and I started to see the daylight in the English language. The help provided by Mrs. Carol always prevented me from turning tail when things seemed to be a little harder. She was ever present in her office for consultations and any other questions I always had.
There is this instance of the process that I will never forget; it is one of the memorable moments in my English studying process. She gave an assignment of comparing two things within an article and the period for its completion was included as twenty-four hours. The assignment was well described by her as an open book including the thesis statement; still, I found this to be as hard as a rock. I thought that the reason for not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for this assignment was because it was the first I ever had,
I went ahead and gave it my all expecting to surprise my teacher by making up to the mark. After presenting the assignment, I was astonished when my teacher asked, ‘Where is your thesis, Mohammed?’ Knowing that it was a statement I decided to make a statement of the conclusion a scapegoat to her question instead I was moving wide of the mark. The teacher asked me how I was going to make my readers understand how I was going to make my readers understand what I was talking about if I placed my thesis at the end of the article. She pointed out that the thesis should always be in the introduction.
I was not the only fish in the pool; other international students had the same problem as me. Mrs. Carol, therefore, trying to offer a solution to my problem decided to give me links to websites and articles that were written in English so that I could practice identification of the thesis in them. I went home with a strategy after getting a bad grade. I decided to improve my grades, therefore I started to try to find the thesis in each article I came across. I must admit that the procedure was not a walk in the park. As I proceeded with the journey, I got to catch what the writer was talking about from the first part of the article.
Sometimes I tend to believe that getting bad grades led me to cut the Gordian knot that made my grades improve. I spent a lot of time studying and writing from Mrs. Carol and other teachers, without these efforts my grades would not have improved. On the other hand, my writing skills were not left behind.
The art of writing a new language is like exploring the wide seas because the rules are different. The nut I found most difficult to crack was the use of words. When comparing it to Arabic it was much more difficult. This is because Arabic had no rules for its organization and writing styles; in a nutshell, Arabic writing has no strict rules. English writing takes the same form in all articles; it is like driving which needs a license to be performed effectively. Arabic is as zigzag as lighting whereby in each article you could see different writing styles in different articles and the rules are last unlike in English where the rules are first.
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