Giorgi Managadze

Professor Colombo Russell

ENG 110 – Freshman Composition

Dec 5, 2025

Final Reflection

Throughout my time in ENG 110, I was able to experience and take part in many different activities, ranging from writings about my experiences with immigrating to the United States to conducting and writing actual research. Through this I learned quite a lot about myself and others, whilst also improving my technical skills. In this essay, I would like to describe and give examples of the most influential and meaningful insights which I gained this semester.

Firstly, I believe that one of the most interesting insights I’ve gained comes from working on our Language and Literacy Narratives, in which we discussed different types of Englishes present. More specifically, June Jordan’s “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You” was very influential here, as this piece of literature was my first real introduction into the many types of Englishes spoken in the United States. In the introduction, June Jordan says that “As we learn our way around this environment, either we hide our original word habits, or we completely surrender our own voice, hoping to please those who will never respect anyone different from themselves: Black English is not exactly a linguistic buffalo, but we should understand its status as an endangered species, as a perishing, irreplaceable system of

community intelligence, or we should expect its extinction, and, along with that, the extinguishing of much that constitutes our own proud, and singular, identity” (363). The author directly addresses the issues which are faced by those who speak Black English, as they have to constantly repress and rethink what they should say in order not to have the meaning of their words be degraded. The author also mentions how due to the stigma against Black English in more academic settings, it is spoken less and less, its speakers force themselves to speak in Standard English and thus the unique identity around Black English heads towards extinction. 

In addition to the aforementioned insight, both of the Translation assignments were quite engrossing as during the presentations for said assignments, it was always greatly interesting seeing how others could present their narratives in such diverse and unique ways. The first Translation narrative was the most beneficial to me, as I was able to completely rephrase a large essay into an extended haiku-style poem, whilst also maintaining as much of the symbolism and meaning from the essay as possible. For this process, I took inspiration from a Japanese poet called Matsuo Basho, who is often considered and recounted as being the best haiku writer of all time. His haikus on spring were really captivating and managed to strike the sweet spot in regards to describing just enough to paint a good picture. It took a lot of trial and error to make the rhymes and lyrics work, but I was proud at how it had worked out in the end.

One of the other major skills I gained during this semester was the ability to properly search and cite scholarly articles from the college library. The bulk of the learning process was done during the early phases of our Synthesis essay assignment, where, alongside my peers, I learned how to use specific keywords and features of the City College library to more easily and effectively narrow down/widen the range of sources which could be most relevant for the topic of my Synthesis essay. For my essay, the main focus was on the presence of accent bias in various different settings, ranging from academic to professional. Although at first the search warranted mostly weakly relevant sources, through more specifications, rewordings and altering some keywords, I was able to find a plethora of relevant sources.

From combing through various peer reviewed articles on my desired topic for my Synthesis essay, I additionally gained great insight into what role accent bias plays in the hiring process for many companies and just how widespread the issue is within the United States. Henri Maindidze and Co’s research endeavor showed that “Results from a multi-level random-effects meta-analysis (…) demonstrate that standard-accented (SA) interviewees are consistently favored over non-standard-accented (NSA) interviewees (…). Accent bias is stronger against women compared to men, particularly when evaluator samples are predominantly female, and was strongly predicted by interviewers’ stereotypes of NSA interviewees as less competent and, to a lesser extent, as less warm.” (1). The key points in the conclusions reached by the researchers is that there is a consistent bias against people with non-standard accents during the hiring process at various companies, with women being more affected by this bias on average. It is also worth noting that the approximate reasonings for this bias is due to perceived stereotypes of those with accents being less intelligent or less empathetic, leading to those with non-standard accents being treated less kindly and less humanly, whilst also being disadvantaged through no actual fault of their own.

To conclude, I believe that I have gained and learned a lot throughout this semester at not only ENG 110, but also at City College. From improving my soft skills to sharpening my analytical skills and getting better at research, I enjoyed it all, especially due to the warm atmosphere of our class. All of the new information and scenarios which I was exposed to due to this class have been both greatly beneficial and pleasant at the same time.