Name: Carine Marques

My first contact with English was in the 5^th grade at a public school. I was introduced to Bob Wilson, his family, his friends and to the verb to be. The same things were taught for the next four years. The only thing I learned was to hate the language. It was teacher-centered, we had to copy a lot of things from the board and I suspect that the teacher’s only goal was to finish the book by the end of the year. The only thing I remember being taught was vocabulary and the verb to be, which only later I was able to understand why I didn’t manage to learn it. It was a form-oriented and the method used was the grammar-translation approach.

Then my father transferred me to a private school in Belo Horizonte. Not mentioning the first day panic, my first class was English. The teacher entered the class and I have no idea what happened in the next fifty minutes. The problem was that all my classmates were fluent speakers of the language and not a single Portuguese word was spoken. I asked the teacher for help, she promised to do something about it, but never did. The first test came and, of course, I flunked.

Getting home, I told my mother that I needed help. I was enrolled in an English class where I had private lessons with a teacher that taught me not only that there was not to be scared of, but also to love the language. Although she taught using the grammar translation method, she also used some other resources which helped me to use the rules and the language taught. She also loved teaching through songs and until today I remembered the first ones: Help and Yesterday from the Beatles. The big difference here was that I was highly motivated as I liked the classes as well the teacher, and, of course, I couldn’t fail the subject as my father was spending a fortune with me. Today I can also see tha my teacher created opportunities in which I could actually use what I was being taught.

Besides the three-hour classes I had, I also studied at least three hours at home and did everything she told me would help. Soon, I started getting good grades and to speak the language. Three years later I was invited to start teaching and I haven’t stopped since.

After some years, I started teaching in another school where the audio-lingual method was used. I have to say that I found this method far more boring than the one I had learned with. I need to admit, though, that some students do learn using this methodology. The good points here were the focus on pronunciation and also some authentic materials which were used in the more advanced levels.

Then I also started teaching in two other schools, both using the communicative approach. It was a new and fascinating discovery. I adapted myself much better to this methodology. Although sometimes I feel that some focus should be paid to the grammar rules, as some students don’t seem to learn the language so intuitively due to the few hours of contact they have with the target language a week.

By then, I could save enough money working and went abroad in 1997. It was a short trip, but it showed me that learning the culture could be of great value in the classes. Although the intent of the trip was different as I was taking students to Disneyland, I could meet lots of people in the endless lines and I practiced the language a lot which is highly unlikely at such a place. Anyway, it was really fun!

I decided to have my major in English so I entered the university in my city. However, I absolutely hated it and dropped it after a few semesters.

Then, in 2000 I went to Edmonton, Canada for six months. I studied in a language school and also volunteered myself in a public school where I worked with children with learning problems. I had a supervisor who gave me very clear instructions on what I should do with each student individually. This was an amazing experience as I learned some interesting things.

This is the school where I worked. The children studied there from kindergarten until the elementary school.

Living with a family and experiencing the day-to-day life was also amazing. I could learn things that are not taught in an English classroom. Despite knowing that we can learn a language here, I think that this kind of experience adds a lot as the contact with both the language and the local culture is much bigger. Besides that, I also think that I improved my pronunciation a lot as I could listen to myself after some time and then correct some of the words I mispronounced.

In 2004 I decided that I really needed to go to university to learn more, so I did the vestibular and here I am. The classes I have together with the practical and reflexive experience I have at Educonle have been much more helpful that I had ever imagined.