Looking back at my childhood, I can’t really wrap my finger around what my first language was. I grew up speaking two languages which are Arabic and English. Although I never struggled with either, I’ve always felt like I wasn’t good enough at both. However, when my family would take my brothers and me back to our home country, Jordan, every summer, I remember forgetting to speak English with my friends the following fall when I returned to school. It wasn’t because I forgot how to speak English but because I was so accustomed to speaking mostly Arabic for 2 months straight. Due to the fact that I often traveled back and forth from the United States to Jordan, with English and Arabic being the main languages spoken in these countries respectively, I can say that this experience helped to change, expand upon, and develop my sense of literacy, language, and understanding of communication.

As a child, I mostly spoke Arabic at home because that was the language my parents were fluent in. Even though I spoke both languages, they tried to push Arabic more upon my brothers and me because they felt like it is really crucial to have us being able to speak in more than one language. My parents immigrated to New York from Jordan in the year 2001. When I was born, they had only been here for two years prior. Their English language wasn’t as strong as it is today, thus Arabic is what they primarily spoke to me at home growing up. This helped to

expand my Arabic communication and literacy greatly. I always felt like I’d lived a double life because whenever I attended school, I was obligated to turn off my Arabic and turn on my English. The only time I was able to expand my communication and literacy in English was in the school system because as I’ve mentioned before, my family and I would frequently go back home to our home country and in my household the primary language that was spoken was Arabic.

When I was younger, I wasn’t very fond of reading and writing. I felt like it was a chore instead of a helpful activity to read books and write essays in my English classes. However, as I grew up and began to attend high school, I noticed that I slowly fell in love with reading and writing. I enjoy writing about experiences I’ve had and using books that I’ve read as an inspiration to write these stories the same way the authors of the books told theirs. I was introduced to a book in high school and was very mesmerized by the fact that the author had a specific way to tell his stories and made his audience, including myself, feel as if we were a part of his stories. The more I read these books and wrote these stories, the more I’ve noticed that my literacy and communication skills were drastically expanding.

In conclusion, my upbringing, experiences, and education have had a great impact on my development and understanding of my language, literacy, and communication skills. If it wasn’t for my family and the experiences that they have provided me with, along with my education, I wouldn’t be at the level that I am at today. This topic is extremely important to me since languages have played a huge role in my life.