Essay Contest Winner An Na Yeng: Life is a Test. Life is an Opportunity

Teachers and Students together at the Morning Award Ceremony
Teacher Elizabeth Yale, Cristina Munoz Ulrich, Teacher Mary Peros,
Xiao Yu Miao, Teacher Katherine, An Na Yeng, Teacher Alesha

An Na Yeng was one of the of the Adult Education Week 2015 Day ESL Essay Contest winners.  She won first prize.   She is a student in Teacher Katherine's Morning ESL class and Teacher Shirley's ESL Writing class.

The topic of the contest was "I am an Adult School Student and This is My Story."

Here, with her permission, is her essay:

An Na and Alesha
at the Morning Award Ceremony

Life is a Test.  Life is an Opportunity

My name is An Na Yeng.  I am from Nan Jing, China.  In my country, I pursued an education.  I taught the Chinese language.  Now I am retired.  I have two daughters.  One daughter lives in the U.S.A.   So I moved to America to be with her.

Although my life was very happy, but I have never speak English.  I didn't have friends.  When I first came to the United States, I stayed home and my daughter went to work.  I was very lonely.  I wanted to socialize.  I needed friends.  I needed to watch America's T.V. and listen to radio.  Also, I like to read the newspaper.  I wanted to know the United States news, and I want to know more things, but, I couldn't speak English.  I know that language is the foundation of all communication.

I learned about San Mateo Adult School from the newspaper.  Every day, I take the bus an hour to go to school but I am very happy.  In the Adult School, I have made a lot of friends.  We are from different countries, but we study English together.  I know that studying English is very important and hard, because I am older, sometimes, I forget words, but, if you have goal, you stick with it.  It's definitely worth the time and effort.

Life is a test. Life is an opportunity.  Everyone faces challenges in life.  It's a matter of how you learn to overcome them and use them to your advantage.  My challenge was how to speak fluent English.  In the Adult School, I have gained a lot of knowledge.  Every teacher gave me help and guidance.  If there was no Adult School, I couldn't study English.  I couldn't understand American life;  I couldn't make friends, I couldn't go shopping;   I couldn't see he doctor, I couldn't... 

all new immigrants want to know about American society and to make friends.  They want to knww the law.  They want to live a happy and safe life, but they come from different countries and different education levels.  They have different living habits and different age levels.  They need to learn how to communicate with each other.  Adult School is good learn school.  It doesn't mater what your socialize education level is.  We need the most basic English learn.  So we need the Adult School.  In the school, we not only study English, but also study how improve job skills.  Adult School is a community school.  For us it is very convenient and comfortable.  If there was no Adult School, I would be very lonely and unhappy.  Now, I feel very happy!  I thank Adult School!  I thank very teacher!