Learning to Speak English? ¡No Te Rindas!

Eduardo Cano, International Studies Academy, Wat it do, ISA? (Spring 2007):

A lot of people in the United States speak English as their first language, but some of us speak it as a second language.

It is sometimes frustrating when you can’t communicate with other people because they speak English and you don’t. It is also frustrating when people are trying to tell you something you don’t understand and other people need to translate for you.

I am an ESL student at ISA and I know how frustrating it is when you can’t communicate with people. ESL is an acronym that stands for English as a Second Language.

There are 106 ESL students at ISA and 417 total students, so ESL students make up 25% of the student body.

There are five levels of ESL: Beginning, Early Intermediate, Intermediate, Early Advanced and Advanced English. There are three categories of ESL: Oral, Reading and Writing.

We have two ESL teachers at ISA: Mr. Elizalde in room 209 and Ms. Duszynski in room 317.

Both of our teachers said that teaching ESL helps them. Ms. Duszynski said, “I enjoy students in ESL and it’s exciting to see them learn English so well.”

I asked Ms. Duszynski if teaching ESL helps her and she said, “I learn and review English and also learn the languages the students speak and their cultures.”

I asked Mr. Elizalde the same question and he said, “I work a lot on vocabulary and it helps me understand the language of English.”

I say to all ESL students that I know sometimes it is kind of scary to try to speak English when you don’t know what to say and you get annoyed. But it makes you keep trying to learn it.

So keep trying and very soon you will be speaking English very well.

“I enjoy students in ESL and it’s exciting to see them learn English so well.”