04/18/06
Conference paper
An Outsider in Your Eyes
I came to the United States on 2003. When I came, my English level wasn’t in that
level that I could speak. I could understand more than I could speak but I could
understand when others talked slowly to me. It was really hard for me to be in that
situation. I decided to go to school and learn more English. I started English classes in
ESL program. One day my teacher called me and asked me to go to her office. I went
there and she asked if I had completed my high school degree, diploma, in my country
and I said no. I complete 11th grade and then I came here. She took me to River Glen
School. It was an ESL program, which happens to be held at a junior high school, for
nonnative speakers who are high school students.
They helped me a lot to learn and talk English. I studied there for nine months but the
only problem was that I couldn’t graduate from that school. I only needed one credit
which was Health, to be graduated from an American high school. My English teacher
helped me a lot to get into summer school. That’s when my nightmare began.
On the first day of class I felt very lonely because all the students were American and
also our teacher made me nervous for several time by asking some questions. He asked
me, “Do you think in what level is your English. Can you understand what I am saying
now?” and I said that if I couldn’t understand what he is telling me then how I could
answer him.
On the second day of class, I was surprised to find out that one of my River Glen
classmates had joined our class. Days passed and it was time for first exam. We were
waiting for papers to start the exam. He passed exam’s paper and I was about to start
answering the questions when he came to me and my friend and said, “You two, take
your papers and come with me.” He took us out of the class and said that we have to wait
there for a person who is coming to help us in exam. We wait and wait and nobody came.
I went to the class and told him that nobody came to help us and if we could go to the
class and take the test. I don’t know why but he said that we have to sit there, in hall, and
take the test. I and Mexican guy, we sat on the floor and took the test. That day I felt like
I was just a piece of trash . That class was a torture.
Most of the time, our teacher would say some experiences of his in class even his
stories wasn’t related to the subject of class. One day he was telling the story of when he
liked to travel a lot. In that day he said that he will never try to go somewhere that he
doesn’t know the language of them. Also he said, “for example, I will never go to the one
of the Middle East countries because I know that they have some funny words that I can’t
pronunciation those and also I know that they will kill me.” I think his point was on me
because he knew that I was from Iran, a country in Middle East. He always, somehow,
made me feel that American students were better than me and they had a valuable think
that I didn’t have and that was speaking English. Even though I could speak English too,
but it didn’t sound English to his ear drum. Sometimes I wanted to tell him, “If you
comparing yourself to me and you think you have something more than me and that is
your English, you are wrong because I can speak more than one language and that’s mean
I have something more than you.”
In the last day of summer school when I gave my exam paper to him, he asked me that
which high school I want to go after summer and I said that I will be graduate in summer.
He said with a mean voice while he had a mean look on his face, “That means you will be
graduate just by taking one credit in the U.S.?! you don’t know enough English then how
they can graduate you? They have to teach you English first” I didn’t know what to tell
him and also I didn’t want to argue with him so I just put my paper on his desk and came
out of the class. I was happy because I didn’t have to go to a place which made me to
hate myself everyday.
My teacher wasn’t the only person who ignored me for many times. I was ignored by
a doctor, classmates, and some other people in my daily life. Also I realized that America
is not the only place that some people ignores others just because of accent in language. I
knew that anywhere I go, I will have same problem because I have accent in speaking
English or other languages. I know that it’s nature of some people to ignore others and
make themselves feel that they are better than others. I thought, If everyone imagines
themselves as nonnative speakers in a foreign country, no one will ignore another one
just because of accent but my experience with my teacher made me to realize that only
imagining is not enough. I learned a lesson from my and other nonnative student’s
experiences that I will be an outsider in the eyes of some people and I can’t change that.