Yuchen Hou 10/10/2013 ENGL-1101-27 Mid-Semester Writing Introduction From the reading of Guofang Lis Family Literacy: Learning

from an Asian Immigrant Family, we saw an six year old young boys literacy environment in an immigrant family. Also, Guofang used Leseman and de Jongs(1998) four, inter-related facts of home literacy practices to categorize this young boys home environment. There are four aspects: (1) literacy opportunity, (2) instruction, (3) cooperation, and (4) socioemtional quality. We will discuss the definition of these four categories and categorizing my own institution environment to these four domains. We can categorize ones literacy environment into four aspects (1) literacy opportunity, (2) instruction, (3) cooperation, and (4) socioemtional quality. For the first one literacy opportunity, which can be said the opportunity to engage with any literacy practices. This literacy practice is not only the writing and reading, but also speaking and listening. For example, In Guofangs essay we saw that this young immigrated boy had his own bookshelves with his own books, the opportunity to watch television and the books of their parents are all become the opportunity for this young boy to enroll in an literacy practice. And as the essay mentioned Sometimes, after watching television programs, he drew pictures of cartoon characters, such as Chippy, Road, Runner, Penguin, Tweety, and Puddy Cat.(page 307) The second category is instruction, which was defined as the direct or indirect guidance provided by parents to the child through literacy activities. Guofang also extend this concept to more explicit and deliberate teaching with the use of different texts and strategies in literacy-related activities at home. For example, this young boys parents using many methods to help him to learn English. Since this young boy already had the knowledge of Chinese

because he was in Chinese school before, so they made bilingual word lists in both Chinese and English from some childrens books they borrowed from the public literacy. Also, his parents continued to teach him a sense of language continuity, they kept teaching him Chinese and as this young boy proceeding more English learning at school they decreased their of Chinese to him in order to let this child to get used to English learning.(page 309) However, in my discussion for the institution literacy environment literacy instruction is not from the parent, they come from the instructors at school and the person him or herself. Third, Literacy cooperation which was defined as the involving active participation of the child in literacy-related events, which is reflected in the childs understanding and acceptance of the role he or she plays in activities and how he or she responds to parental literacy instructions. (page. 305) for example, some of the mother-son shared activities, this young child will take notes while the he had an conversation with his mom, also this young boy will report his learning from school to his mom. However, for the institution literacy cooperation this totally different from the home, and in the institution the cooperation reflected as the assignment for students and the in-class questions reflected by the students. Fourth the socioemotional quality, which was defined as an affective factor that includes indicators such as the bond between the parents and the child. (page. 305) And Guofang extended the notion of socioemotional quality to include the pressures from home and school that affected yangs emotional well-being. for example, this young immigrant boy had a good relationship with his parents and most of his literacy were gained from his parents, however he gained an bad experience from school, when he first went to English school, since he did know any English at all, and the gap of communication with other children made had a nick name cry-boy, and cause this experience he was dying to learn English, so as he learned English and got better performance in school, he got more confidence of his own literacy.(page.315) However, for the institution socioemotional literacy, most relationship is between students and some part or may can consider as somehow important is the relationship with

instructor, also the feeling of enroll in college. Over all, Guofang categorized the home literacy environment into these four categories, but not analysis his institution environment at much. So, the following is the analysis for my own institution literacy environment and it will focus on the study at collage. Literacy Opportunities in the institution I am an international student from china and currently study in an American College. I grow up at China and went American after I finished my high school. I had a regular time schedule like a native American student. However, the opportunities of English literacy environment are different from American students. I lived in an apartment with two Chinese people, one is a PHD student in business school and another is an scholar. We using Chinese to communicate with each other at home, and the only time I got opportunity to enroll in an English environment is when I checking e-mail and doing my homework. I used to watch the television of some TV shows, but after I moved my apartment, then, there is no television in my new apartment. And when I had free time, Ill using Internet to search on Chinese website. The most time I enrolled in English literacy environment in the college is when I was going to class, talk with classmate and did the teamwork at library. Also, I went to the cafeteria and other restaurants at school. Sometimes I went to some students organization and they have some activities. During the weekend I went to market and grocery store to buy food and I went to church every Sunday, but its a Chinese church. And most of my time I stay in a Chinese literacy environment even I was in United States. Someone in the church told me that when he first went to an football match, he had no idea of what is it, so he copied other s doing, when others laughing or cheering, he just did so, and he said he gradually enroll in and get understand of football. I want to get more enrollment of English literacy environment, and this could be a method. Literacy Instruction

At school, for almost every each signal class will have a reading assignment, and the time schedule for each class will hand out on the syllabus at the first day of class. So the syllabus can be considered as an instruction of my literacy at college. To meet these deadlines on the syllabus, I will arrange my time to study. For example, my network theory lab which is studied the electric circuit. In this class we need to have a pre-lab which need to due at the beginning of each lab. So I had to study for each lab before the actual lab day. Also, for every class, Ill have assignment for every next class and these assignments also will consider as an English literacy instruction. At college its hard to get an A degree. In order to get an A degree, I had my own schedule for every class. For example, my English class, I will do my reading assignment carefully. Since English is my second language, so when I was dealing with English reading assignment I will translate every signal word from English into Chinese. This may spend much more time, but it helped me to learn and understand the topic more deepgoing. Literacy cooperation Most significant college literacy cooperation is to answering the question or speaks out in class and gets conversation with my peers after class. Before I came here studied at American college, I had learned English for almost 8 years. However, this English is not what your understood English. The course called English in china basically was teaching Chinese student how to read and write in English, because teacher in class will not using English to teach student, they will write down English on the board and the student only will coy down everything on the board. After the teacher covered the book very quickly, then the reaming class is to do practice in order to get high grade in the exam. I even have a friend who got a great memory, he even dont know the English words meaning, he just memorized everything and he can get high grade of English exam, but his actual English ability was not that good. I had a great feeling when I was first come here. The actual spoken English was not like what I learned in the book at China and the good way

to learn the spoken English from the college literacy cooperation. At the college cafeteria I learned that when you want to buy something, youd better say Can I have something or Could I have something. not like I said I want this, I want that because this sounds like a child. Also, people said Whats up or how are you as a greeting, not like what I learned in china that I had to have an response for this, because in china we thought that these greeting words is the starts of an conversation. Also, in the college I learned how to speak professionally, which means using specific terminology and format. So, the literacy cooperation is the best way to be iterated. Socioemotional literacy In the college, since you have friends in class its easy to get socioemotional impact of them; also the instructor will have some influence in ones emotional response. When the first day I went into a class, I was a little bit nerves and afraid to speak out, because you dont know anyone in your class at all. However after I start known some of my class, then I just get feel comfortable in class and I will start to speak out in the class. and when I did so, Ill get more confident and this can influence my performance in that course. for example, in my network theory class, there are almost 40 people in my class and I dont know anyone in the at the beginning of class, so when the instructor asked some questions I wont response and even the class wont, however, after few labs people got to know each other, then at the normal class day when the instructor asked some questions and many people in my class will response to these questions. Also, the instructor will have some influences of ones socioemotional feeling in class. For some my classes which I attended, the instructor wont have a free speaking environment. Maybe some classes is because they have too many people in that class, but still some classes that the instructor will do the problem, but not that much communication with the class. I not judging the instructor s teaching method. But this will influence the socialemotional feeling of students. Like the physics class I took with Professor

Ian beaty. He had a very open teaching method, it a enjoyment to take his classes. And since then most of my classmates are willing to talk with him and ask questions after class, this really helped the students achievement in that class. So the relationship with classmates and professors are the literacy socialemotional of college. Conclusion Over all, the college literacy of mine in these four domains indicates that I had a great literacy in my academic aspect and for the after class literacy environment I had most Chinese environment. And think the socialemotional literacy influenced my own literacy in the most part. Reference Guofang li, Family Literacy: learning from an Asian Immigrant Family.