George Dong is the founder of the not-for-profit Education in Sight, which provides eyeglasses to underpriviledged students in developing nations. He started learning English at age 15 with the help of an e-dictionary and continues vocabulary study now with Vocabulary.com. These are his words.
With four suitcases, my family and I came to the U.S. in 2001 from Fuzhou, China. I was 15 years old, and I couldn’t speak a word of English. I remember my welcome-to-America moment occurred in a McDonald’s in a small town of Pennsylvania. I ordered my first fast food meal by pointing at pictures repeatedly and nodding my head repeatedly.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Animal Farm is the first book that I had ever read in English, assigned by Mrs. Miller, one of the most gracious and genuine teachers I have had. The challenge was quite transparent — I was assigned to read a book that is intended for American high school freshman while I was reading on a kindergarten level, if I am generous with my self-assessment.
Besides complex allegories and perplexing semantics, vocabulary was the most insurmountable obstacle. There was no way around it. I was not going to understand the book without knowing most of the words on the page. At a time of despair, one of my distant cousins mailed me a gift: an electronic dictionary.
That dictionary changed my life. It was a beautifully designed and futuristic piece of technology at a time when the Internet still shared connection with landline phones, when Yahoo was more popular than Google, and when Motorola Razr was the hottest thing in school.
I could look up any words in the matter of seconds for translation, press a button for pronunciation, save unfamiliar words in the internal memory for subsequent review. To maximize my learning, I made a point to learn precisely 27 new words every day all throughout high school and college. I still keep these workbooks. It’s a reminiscence of my nerdy high school days and my literal journey, traversing through Thoreau’s Walden Pond and Tom Sawyer’s Mississippi River.
My electronic dictionary unfortunately died a few years ago. Consequently, my vocabulary learning routine ended. Since then, I had been in search of an alternative tool that would fill the void of my beloved electronic dictionary, something to rekindle my enthusiasm in learning vocabulary words.
Fast forward to now. Technology has become exponentially more advanced and ubiquitous. Recently, I discovered Vocabulary.com, a gem in the era of smart phones and tablet computers. Like a time machine, Vocabulary.com took me back to the high school days. It not only replaced my electronic dictionary, but it also provided a substantial upgrade: now I can find origins of words, understand how particular words are used in context, and even take customized vocabulary tests. But what I am most grateful for is the catalyst that Vocabulary.com inspired in me to pick up my old vocabulary learning routines, my thirst for learning new words, and my fond memory of 2002.
George Dong holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan, where he was the commencement speaker for the class of 2009. After graduation, he joined Teach For America and taught two years in the inner city of Chicago. As a ninth grade English teacher, he was named Teacher of the Year at his school. He was a J. William Fulbright Scholar to China where he launched the Education in Sight eyeglasses initiative.