Service Learning English Language Analysis

On a fourteen-hour plane ride on the first day of the new year, I passed through the skies of several countries, into various time zones, and over an ocean. The plane touched down, and I found myself with ten other University of Missouri students on the first day of our two-week service-learning experience in Chaing Rai, Thailand. Not only was I an ocean away, in another time zone, and fourteen hours away from America, but I was also standing still in a bustling airport full of audible sounds and written characters comprising of a language, and the language was not my own, nor did I know a single utterance of the language.
Before the journey to Thailand, our service-learning group had several meetings about our worries and expectations of …show more content…
While studying at MU, I am part of the advantaged group because my teachers and those within my group of friends predominately speak English fluently and, because of that, I can easily communicate and do not have to worry about feelings of embarrassment or miscommunication when trying to speak to someone or understand what someone is saying. However, I can only assume that my peers in my classes who do not fluently speak English and most likely experience discrimination or disadvantage in the classroom as the targeted group because of their limited ability to understand English at the rate which teachers or peers speak it, and when trying to understand, embarrassment is risked by asking questions.
By being immersed in a different language without any prior knowledge of that language or how to communicate, I quickly realized my difference in attitude about non-English speakers in America as well as those who may speak English, but not fluently or natively. My cultural lens has shifted dramatically by understanding that those who are in America as non-English speaking citizens or non-fluent English speakers are experiencing just as difficult a time trying to communicate, understand and be