My first semester at La Guardia
Community College was very nerve wracking because I wanted to do well in all of
my classes. My courses were
Statistics, Painting, Introduction to Language, Cultural Anthropology and Music
for Children. My first thoughts of
my classes were ‘OMG I hope I get a good grade on Statistics and
Painting’. I was very worried for
my painting class because I am not comfortable expressing myself. Part of it (I assume) is because I lack
creativity. I haven’t found a way (either through writing, drawing, painting
etc.) to express myself fully and that is my biggest challenge. But the class
that opened up my mind and eyes was Intro to Language. A lot of students like a class because
of the professor or the type of classmates they get, but for me it was the
contrary. I really enjoyed
learning about language and the science behind it.
For hundreds of years of years humans have been able to
communicate to one another through words and sounds. I became engaged once the professor started to lecture about
being able to produce sounds and how we acquire language. That class instantly became my favorite
class, the professor helped also.
She was very careful in delivering the information step by step and
making it entertaining to the students.
She would apply every-day word and new words that this generation would
create and make us understand that that is the process of language. Language is always evolving. I remember the time where the professor
made us get into groups of three and had given us sound charts. At that time we were learning about sounds
and the different movements our tongues make when pronouncing it. The activity
consisted of showing a classmate the symbol of the sound and he/she had to
produce the sound and tell the other classmate which part of the mouth it
touched. The class showed me how important language is and how important it is
to study language and how to be able to use this knowledge and help people who
have language disabilities.
I have never felt so happy to go to
class everyday. I remember applying what I had learned to my everyday job. I work with kids as an after school
teacher and I had a student at that time who was diagnosed with speech delay. Because of that class I had the
satisfaction of being able to help my student with her problem. It really helped me understand the
difficulties of having a learning disability and with the guidance of my
professor being able to help and accommodate lesson plans for my student. I remember the first week I had a
one-on-one time with my student, I left the room with a giant smile on my face
because I had experienced a change in her attitude towards speaking. It’s the feeling when you passed an
important test, when you have accomplished something that was challenging for
you, the feeling when you made someone else happy. I live for that moment for when you make a little impact on
someone else’s life. This
experience has made me rethink about my future, and I am looking forward to
taking more courses on linguistics.
