How do you read and complete assignments when your language hadn’t been good enough to understand it?

I’m a student at a American university and I’m an immigrant myself. <br><br>My first language is Vietnamese and my English was not great 4 years ago. I knew that I can’t take all English speaking courses. I wanted to take English as a Second Language (ESL) class. But my parents told me that I’m already here and I should take regular English classes. <br><br>So, my English wasn’t good enough to understand the entire lecture. The only way that I got good grades is by doing my home work and the assignments. It was very hard. Because it was in English and sometimes it made no sense to me. It took me a lot of time to complete them. I would sit there for hours and I still couldn’t understand. <br><br>But I did eventually understand. My grade was B’s all the way except one time A. <br><br>So, how you read and complete assignments when your language hadn’t been good enough to understand it?