Go the Extra Mile

Essay by shayla625University, Master's September 2004

download word file, 4 pages 4.8 1 reviews

Recently, I went to a photo studio to have my graduation picture taken for the yearbook. Naturally, I had to stand in line with the others who were there earlier. It was inside that miniscule box they call a studio that the unlikely mix of NORSUnians and students from another school here, put together as the main ingredient of their business. A little bit uncertain albeit trying to project an air of nonchalance, I couldn't help but notice a group of boisterous students of this school yakking a little bit loudly for my taste. I do believe there were three of them and with the room that size, their voice was magnified twice the normal decibel. While chatting away in their collegiala English, I noticed a NORSUnian beside them seemingly shrinking on her chair, looking as if she'd rather be anywhere in the world but there. She was clearly intimidated by them.

I'm sure this scenario is familiar to some NORSUNians, if not many, who have had the 'misfortune' of being inside a roomful of English-speaking students who act like they have the sole right to the language. By speaking in their own brand of collegiala English, they have effectively communicated that they are from this school. Well, let me tell you little secret.

It has always been an unspoken rule of students in that school as far as I can remember, to speak in English (not necessarily because they always do so in their campus) in heterogeneous gatherings in order to intimidate others or to show that they are from that institution. In fact, if you listen intimately their spoken English, not all of them are grammatically correct. Fluent, but not accurate. You see, there is a big difference between fluency and accuracy. When one is fluent, one...