TOEFL essay- Write a letter about your experience in a foreign country

Topic: Imagine you are a student living in a different country far away from home. Choose the country and write a letter to your family back home to tell them about how life there is different or similar to life in your home country.

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living abroad experience

To my dear beloved mother:

It has been a long time since the last time I received a letter from you, I hope that you are doing well and taking care of yourself. You should know that I really miss and life here in The United states is really hard and challenging without you.

I really feel like a stranger amid all these people, everyone here speaks English and seldom you find someone who knows Arabic, by the bye, a fortnight ago, I heard a guy talking in our Moroccan language on phone while I was walking down-town, I couldn't hesitate to ask him whether he was a Moroccan or not. I was filled in with an abrupt felicity when he said to me that he is Moroccan. Afterwards, he invited me to his home, once I stepped into the latter, I recollected all my memories in Morocco, everything inside his house was making feel like I am not in the United States, from the small utensils that we use as an ornament to the living-room that had a Moroccan style.

My dear mother, I really miss your delicious dishes: The Couscous that we were having every Friday and The Tangia that you were insisting on us to make it with you while telling some silly stories. Oh my sweet mother, I hope you were here with me.

Concerning my studies, I am doing well and aced my last tests, the finals are coming and once I am done with them I will come back to Morocco.

Your son Amin.

@Aminox
Amin, you seem to have good vocabulary; however, you did not describe much about the cultural difference to your brother.You should consider adding, how life in US is different than your life back in Morocco.What are the differences in food, work, and entertainment styles? Besides, you wrongly wrote " by the bye instead of by the way". You occasionally did some sentence structure and punctuation mistakes:

English and seldom you find someone who knows Arabic. By the way,

@Riti
Thanks for your feedback, it is much appreciated. The expression " By the bye" does exist and means by the way, it is an old expression from the 17th century, you can look it up.

I think that you should be more specific in how different this country's culture is to yours. In your essay, you have just mentioned how everyone only speaks english but not Arabic. It is obvious that in the USA, people will speak english, which is different.

Amin, this letter requires a touch of cultural difference beyond the obvious. It is a very sad letter that makes one think about why you continue to stay in a country that you do not enjoy being in. While it shows off your culture in a very personal way, one would expect to read a more balanced letter that takes the time to indicate more than just good news about your studies. The letter asks you to consider what makes you stay in the United States despite the cultural differences. Your letter needs to portray what you enjoy the most about being in America, even as you pine for your Moroccan world. After you discuss visiting the Moroccan home in America, discuss the excitement or interest that you had at having visited an American family as well. Were you welcomed? Did your English speaking peers go out of their way to try and make you feel welcome on the country? How would you compare the Moroccan hospitality to the American? Are you settling into the new culture of this new world? These are but some of the cultural references that you could have made in your essay that would have resulted in a balanced, informative, and more prompt responsive letter for this task. You did good work, but it should have been even better with the inclusion of a few more considerations.