Perseverance In English Class

A few years ago I came to realize that with perseverance and working hard every barrier can be overcame, even though some things seem impossible, they are not. Everything started three years ago when I moved to this country to continue my academic preparation. In Mexico, my sister was the one who performed poetry, I was more interested in reading something else rather than reading poems, not to mention performing them. I started high school since my tenth grade, but I had to take English 1 because in Mexico I was instructed only in Spanish, therefore I did not take any English courses.

To be honest it was hard to move from Mexico, where a lot of loved persons including my mom stayed, to this country where the language spoken is different.

In fact, all my classes were taught in English, which at the beginning was frustrating because I did not know what was going on in the class; I had to ask my Spanish speaking classmates what I had to do and what the homework was. A certain day, my English teacher announced something that made everybody chatter, she said that everybody had to memorize and recite a poem in front of the class. It made my whole body shake as the engine of an old car. How in the heck did I suppose to recite a poem in English, if I did not even speak English, I thought.

I chose “Catch a little rhyme” by Eve Merriam, mainly because it was a short poem and it would be easier to memorize. I translated the entire poem to know what was it about and then, I started working on the right pronunciation of the words. I was not sure if Google Translator pronounced the words right, and so I asked my teachers to read it for me, meanwhile I was paying close attention to how they did it. I memorized the poem and practiced it slowly and several times in front of the mirror to overcome my shyness and improve my thick accent as