As we know, it is hard to adapt to a new life experience, especially for the teenagers. Little David was born in China. When he was 14 years old, he moved to South Carolina with his parents. Every neighborhood has a lonely child, little David is the one. He is short and scrawny, and his English is poor. The other strong boys always bully him, when he wants to join them. After several weeks, he did not want to go out to play with other boys. He stayed at home all the time, never shows up to public occasions, and is often very competitive. His self-esteem is very low due to the material things in life that he lack. He never musters up the courage to talk to girls. When other students went to the amusement parks, they all find that he is very selfish: he never shares his snacks or offers to buy us anything. Some of his friends were under the impression that he was selfish, and slowly distanced away from him. He would complain about students about trivial things. Soon, his classmates thought that he lacked compassion and kindness.

He wasn’t very fluent in English and most of his friends at school were Chinese. His social group was relatively small. Even when he communicated with American students, he would feel uncomfortable because of language and cultural differences. In China, when people need your help, they wouldn’t directly ask you for help because they feel too shy. In America, however, people are very direct with each other. Native students at our school are also very friendly, but most of the time, it’s hard for foreign students to really become great friends with them. This made the foreign students feel lack of sense of security and belonging.

David is very hard with himself academically. He strives to be a straight A student, but is unable to because of his language barrier. He spent most of his time studying, but his grades are still average, especially in English classes. When there is a presentation or discussion in class, he would never speak up due to lack of confidence. The difference between his goal and his actual grades caused him to be depressed.

When he was in tenth grade, his parents believed they have to do something to let little David more positive. They asked him join basketball club. He had to work out with other teenagers and he also had to talk to them. He became stronger, and his English skill was better. In the basketball club he learned a word called teamwork. Little David worked out and had lunch with his new American friends in the club together, and he shared his snacks with his buddies when they took a break. He still studied hard, and because of the improve in English skill; his grade of other classes became higher. Finally, he got a good SAT score and he is accepted by his dream university.