Nome: Rita Cristina Lopes
Idade: não informado
Escolaridade: não informado
Tempo de aprendizagem: não informado

I got married when I was about 20 years old and when I was 24, my husband went to do a Ph.D course in the USA and we stayed there for about 4 years and that’s how I learned. I met so many Brazilian ‘wives’ that even after a few years there didn’t learn anything because in some universities there were so many others Brazilian wives and they were always together talking in Portuguese. Quite a lot of them come back to Brazil with an English that is not enough to teach the very beginners. 

I was lucky again because we went to Missouri and there were no more than 2 or 3 Brazilian couples besides us. So I looked for courses I could do to fill my time and I ended up in a college doing a Photography course, another one was about cooking and in a few months I was working as a baby sitter on the weekends and had a job during the week in the photo lab developing films, etc.

So I really didn’t go to an English course but I think I had the genuine communicative experience because I achieved a communicative competence by really living out the principles we have been studying. 

I had to see what I wanted to do, look for options available to me, I had to interact in so many ways from looking for a job or course until actually do them - write, listen understand, speak, do tests, ask and offer help, study about the subject of the job or course, understand the natural curiosity people had about a different exotic country, do my homework and take and explain it to the teachers and colleagues, receive my husband friends, take care of my children and so many things I can’t remember now because even in the supermarket where it is supposed that you don’t have to say a thing if you don’t want to, you still have to read all and know what you are buying, etc.