Personal Quality What I Consider

Personal Quality

What I consider as a great accomplishment by far has nothing to do with the usual measures of achievements. What makes me proud was an experience that I believe was crucial to my personal growth, a realization of my potentials. It was an accomplishment that gave me the opportunity to learn about a personal quality I was previously unaware of, an accomplishment that I feel is a good contribution to those who benefited from it, and an experience that I consider as something significant to me.

I am from Taiwan and at present, I am a high school student. I have spent the last three years in a boarding school in Boston. The story of my accomplishment happened last year and began when the teaching assistant for the Chinese class was not able to go to work for personal reasons. As a foreign student from Taiwan, I was approached by the teacher of the class and was asked to take the place of the teaching assistant for the Chinese class. Being approached for the job was exciting for me. The idea of having a job thrilled me as it was my first time to hold a paying job. At the same time, I felt very nervous as I have no previous experience in holding a paying job and in teaching. First time jitters were normal, I reminded myself; these thoughts gave me courage and made me focus on the thrill of starting a job and teaching Chinese.

I soon realized that it was ok to be nervous but more importantly, I learned that I have everything in me to rise up to the challenge. Being a foreigner who has also endeavored to learn a second language, I realized that I understood my students. Through this, I was able to put myself in their shoes and in effect, it enabled me to connect better with my American students who were learning Chinese.

To encourage and perhaps even inspire my students, I shared with them the challenges I encountered in learning English and in understanding a culture which was both new and different from mine. I would always tell my students that in order to improve my SAT reading and writing score, I had to exert my best effort and work hard. I would also tell my students what I often told myself, that there is no shortcut for learning a new language; one just needs to practice, practice and work hard, just like everything else in life. Indeed, practice makes perfect.

Teaching Chinese to my students also offered me the chance to reflect on myself, on how I have begun from a person who doesn't speak English to a person who learned English as a second language and finally a person who teaches Americans about the Chinese language and culture. I realized I have come a long way from where I started.