My experience learning English as an immigrant child

Hey, everyone, I'm Alex from EngVid. And today, I'm about 30 minutes away from my

home in a beautiful park in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. However, I haven't

always lived in Canada. In fact, as some of you probably know, I was an immigrant

from Poland. And I moved here with my family when I was just seven years old.

So today, I want to share my story with you. So that you can know some of the

struggles, some of the experiences I had, not only with learning to

communicate in English, but also to socialize in a new country where I

didn't understand the language. I want this video to be useful to parents who

are thinking about moving to a country where English is the official language.

And I want this to be useful to help them acquire some resources. And to kind

of put your mind at ease, to let you know that it's going to be okay. Even

though your kids might struggle a little bit. And if you do find this video

useful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, subscribing to my channel,

turning on notifications, and leaving a comment down below with any questions

you have, or maybe letting me know about your own experiences. Whether you have

immigrated, or you are thinking about immigrating to a country where English

is the official language.

So to begin, like I said, My family and I moved here when I was just seven years

old. It was me, my sisters, my mom and my dad. And we also had some aunts and

uncles who moved. And we came here -- to Hamilton, Ontario. So Hamilton is my

hometown. It's the place where I grew up in Canada. And Hamilton has a very

strong Polish community, which really helped my parents and also helped my

sisters and I to adapt to living, you know, living in a new place. So we had a

church community. And if you move to a country where English is the first

language, it can be really helpful to help you adapt. If you can find a place

that has a church, mosque, social club, or maybe just a neighborhood that

already has people, you know... that you are familiar with, that speak your

language, so that you can feel more comfortable in the place you have

decided to move to.

So that's one thing that I can tell you to do. Hair... it's this this wind in

Canada, I tell you, all right. If it flows for the rest of the video, it's

fine, guys, don't worry. The next thing I want to talk about is school. So on my

first day of school, we were sitting around in a circle, and the teacher was

asking each student to introduce themselves. And I think we had to give

our name and tell this, you know, tell the class something about ourselves. At

least that's what I think the activity was, because I didn't understand a word

of anything anyone said. So anyway, we got to me in the circle and I saw

everyone looking at me, like all these faces were sitting in a circle,

everyone's looking at me. I don't know how to communicate, I don't know a

single word of English at that time. And I started to cry. So for the rest of the

day, of my first day of school in Canada, the teacher gave me a paintbrush

and told me to paint. So I still remember I painted an orange car. It was

kind of like a box of a car, the paint ran down the sides and everything. So my

first day of school in Canada was not great. I cried. And they let me paint,

but I was happy about the painting, not about the crying. So a second thing to

know, in addition to, you know, having a community that can help you to adapt to

the new place, you need to know that your kids will struggle, your kids will

have trouble communicating, they will probably cry. And it's okay. They are

resilient.

Right. So, continuing with the crying, there's more crying. I don't remember

this, but my mom told me that when my sisters and I came home from school on

many, many days, we were very frustrated. We were angry. And we would

cry to her and say we want to go back to Poland. We hate this Canada. I hate

speaking English or I hate this language. And this was very strong, you

know, obviously strong language for kids. And it really upset my mom. It was

really hard for her. So what you need to know is, it's going to be hard for you

to to see your kids going through these struggles, to see them having a hard

time. But if you're a parent, you probably are already familiar with your

kids struggling and feeling bad when they fall down or something like this.

So, continuing on, so yes, I cried on my first day of school. I cried when I came

home from school sometimes. And oh, when I was in school, I fought with my

classmates sometimes. So my mom still has the report cards from grade two,

grade three. And it says, Alex is a little rough with his playmates. And I'm

not proud of this. Because generally now as an adult, I don't really like

violence. I don't fight people. But when I was a kid, and I couldn't communicate,

the way I communicated was, I guess, with my fists. And that makes me sound

tough. But I wasn't: I was seven, a seven-year-old kid probably doing this

to somebody. So yeah, and I'm not proud of it. I broke a kid's glasses. It

wasn't... Yeah, I'm not proud of that one, either. Anyway, so to let you know,

your kids might act in ways that are new for them and new for you. Like I've

never been a violent person. But I was when I was like seven years old, eight

years old, just because I couldn't communicate.

So communication, how did I actually learn English? Well, when other kids

were in class, like if they were learning history, or geography or

mathematics, or whatever kids learn in grade two, and grade three, sometimes I

would go to an English teacher in the school. So the school, you know,

assigned an English teacher to me to teach me English for like one hour or 30

minutes a day, something like that. And I remember the one challenge that I had,

the one that's very vivid, in my mind is, I had problems with the sound 't'

and 'th', and this is for 'tree', and 'three'. I can still see the paper, the

number three, and a picture of a tree. And the teacher telling me to say

'three, tree'. And me, Alex, new to Canada, I said, 'tree tree'. Because

there is no TH sound in Polish. So it was tough. But now I can say it. I can

say 'three tree', right? No problem.

So it took me... how long did it take me to learn English? It took me about one

or two years to really start having conversations with the people in my

class. Before that, I felt like I had walls around my head. And when people

spoke to me, I could nod and I could smile, and I kind of got what was going

on. But those walls started getting further and further away with time, as

my world opened up. And I started to understand more, I started to, you know,

learn how to read in English as well with the help of my teachers. And after

about two years, I was pretty comfortable.

So it is a process, you need to know that when you are moving, and you are

going to have struggles as a parent, because you're gonna hate seeing your

kids crying, you're gonna hate seeing your kids having such a difficult time

socializing. But they will get there, they will find friends. And they will

eventually be able to learn the language. So after that, I went through

the Canadian education system. My grades were much better after the first two

years or three years. You know what? Now that I look back, getting a C when I

didn't even know the language... it's pretty good. It's not bad. Anyway, I

went through the Canadian education system, I got my bachelor's degree, I

got my master's degree. And eventually I started teaching the language that my

mom said I hated when I was a young kid. So here I am. I'm Alex, from EngVid, on

YouTube talking to you about English and the struggles I had with it. And you can

see how far that, you know, I have come now.

So just to let you know, to recap, number one, if you can find a community

to help you feel more comfortable in the country you're moving to, that is a

great thing. If you can do that. Number two, be ready for your kids to struggle,

they will, but it doesn't last forever. They will get through it. They will

learn the language and they will make friends you know, it's just the nature

of life it will happen. And finally, number three, just enjoy the journey. I

guess. It can be difficult. It's a difficult journey I know. But just

commit to the process basically. Alright guys, so if you enjoyed this video,

please let me know in the comments what you thought of my story. Tell me your

stories about maybe your own immigration experiences, what you are going through

now if you you are a parent or maybe if you're a kid and you're watching these

videos, my videos are mostly kid friendly. So if you're a kid: "Hi", and

until next time, make sure to subscribe to my channel, give me a thumbs up, and

thanks for clicking, everybody. Good luck with everything. I wish you success

in your journeys and success in your studies.