众所周知，在申请国外大学的时候，作文是非常重要的文书材料。作文不仅考察学生的写作能力和逻辑思维，一篇好作文更是应该饱含学生本人在成长历程当中的心得体悟。

据BBC中文网报道，一位美国华裔女孩萧靖彤就凭借着一篇出色的作文，获得了哈佛大学、耶鲁大学等八所常春藤盟校的青睐，同时被八所名校录取。

回忆学习英语的经历

在这个大学申请季里，萧靖彤收到了来自哈佛大学、普林斯顿大学、耶鲁大学、达特茅斯大学、布朗大学、哥伦比亚大学、康奈尔大学和宾夕法尼亚大学的录取通知书。

她在作文里究竟写了些什么，竟然能够同时打动八所常春藤名校呢？

据介绍，萧靖彤在作文里回顾了她和母亲在美国学习英语的艰难经历。刚到美国时，她们的英语发音不准。

“在我家里，英语不是英语，但我们说话的方式很美。在我家里，我们的话并不‘烂’，而是充满了感情。我们用词语建了一座房子……这房子有点歪，有点杂乱无章，但这是我们的家。”

共收到14封录取通知

除了常春藤名校外，萧靖彤共申请了14所大学的写作或新闻类学系，全部录取。

作文原文如下：

In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.

In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.” I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.

Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?

My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.

When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”

“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”

We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.

As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.

In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.

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