Nome: Carlos Antonio Gagliardi
Idade: 40 anos
Escolaridade: superior incompleto
Tempo de aprendizagem: 1 ano


Well, I guess I can say now that I have learnt English in the most perfect communicative approach there is. In high school I had a teacher called Beth, who did not do anything else but follow the book by the rules, which was reading the text, and memorizing some specific words for the quiz. 

With this knowledge I thought I could speak English and moved to the United States in 1985. I learned I was wrong right there at the immigration, when the person asked me some questions which I could make out. Noticing that I spoke no English, he switched to Spanish, which did not make any difference to me. 

Passing that phase, I went to the apartment of a friend of mine and spent the night, and the next day he rented an apartment for me and left me there. I stayed in there for three straight months listening to the radio and watching TV, just going out to buy groceries. To make the long story short, I went to live with an American family: a mother, three kids and two granddaughter, one and three years old. As they had to work, I used to baby sit those kids, watching Sesame Street with them, asking them all kinds of question as I could, and they would answer me in the most patient way as possible, unlike her grandmother, which did not have much patience on teaching me English. As time went by, I used to get some books to read and translate word by word, watching TV and talking to Americans what I could. I used to go out to restaurants with friends, they’d be talking, laughing and having fun and I just there staring at the ceiling, giving that “I don’t know what is going on” smile. It also helped me learn English like reading the newspaper in the morning and listening to the same news on TV at night. 

My English was improving day by day, always going out with Americans only, most of them were very friendly and patient with me, and in the entire situation that I needed help they were there for me. I was speaking excellent English after one year of residency in that country. I realize that I learnt the colloquial English first, which was what I needed most, talk, understand and speak. On my second year of residency I decided to take some courses there at the city college, because it was free and I needed to get some certificate, in case I would come back to Brazil and needed to find a job. I took computer programming and later on I took an English course at Berkeley University because I knew it was a very well known University, and it would enrich my curricula a lot. 

I lived there for eight years, always working and going out with Americans, learning and living the day by day situations. One thing that I did not learn at that time was the grammar. I knew English by practice, having some notions about the grammar usage, but did not know its specific rules. 

I thought I’d never learn English in the beginning, because I would see people speaking fluently and listening and understanding everything people would say. I tried to go to a public school where they taught English as a second language for foreigners, and in the first day I gave up after hearing the teacher defining “breakfast” as “a quick snack”. I said I’ be better off learning English in the old fashioned way I was learning.

It was the best thing to learn English, to get involved with native speakers and not be afraid of speaking and trying to communicate, even through signs, gestures, etc. if you do not understand what is told you on the first time, you will understand on the second, third, forth time, but eventually you will. So, you have to be persistent. It surely pays off. 

After eight years I decided to come back to Brazil. Some friends started to ask me to teach them English. I never had taught English before, I did not know anything about teaching methodology, methods to employ, nothing. I just taught the everyday English as I knew it, everyday conversation. Then I started to teach at CCAA, it was there that I got some idea of how an English teacher was supposed to be or do. As I taught I learned, because I could see how the grammar worked.