Name: Geordival Martins

English: How did I learn it?

There’s a very famous saying in Portuguese (I don’t know if we have a similar in English) “A primeira impressão é a que fica.”

Well in most case that’s not true. My relation with English language is a case that proves that the first impression is not exactly what defines if we’ll like or not a situation or a thing.

I’m Brazilian! I don’t have to speak

It was in 1992. I was thirteen. When I heard for the first time the question. “What is your name?” Jesus Christ I couldn’t pronounce that! And also I didn’t know why we were having English class. I didn’t want that! For me it was all right to speak only Portuguese. But of course I didn’t have much choice, so I had to study English like everybody else.

What is this?

This is a dog!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Attitudes.htm

Nobody in my class was comfortable with the idea of studying English. It was not part of our universe. We were just teenagers that went to school to make friends and play soccer. We had problem enough with math. Why should we also study a foreign language? But I guess I was the only one who hated it. I did not want to learn English and I did not make any effort. I have no idea why I hated the idea of study a foreign language. I was a good student, but for some reason my first experience with the English language didn’t make me fall in love with it at all.

Of course I did not pass! But the worst thing happened in a work group. We were supposed to do a play about Halloween, but during our preparation, one week before the presentation, I had a fight with a member of the group. And then I quit and I lost 10 marks.

“Repete se oce fo homi”

But after that something happened with me. I was so ashamed of my situation, because other students that were called” less intelligent” than me had passed. So I decided to learn English. It was now a question of honor.

Is the book on the table?

Yes! It is.

I was really interested in learning English, but then my father decided that we should move to Espirito Santo. Unfortunately, there they did not have English. So it seemed like I was not going to be able to learn English this time.

Rock motivation

But then I met some people and I became involved with rock music. Then I really started to enjoy the idea of learning English. I wanted to know what I was listening. Every time I had the opportunity to read lyrics with the translation I became fascinated, I started to copy sentences and then to try to change words and create my own sentence in English.

Oh. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why does Sabbath mean??????

(if you want to check what I was listening at that time you can visit these links below)

http://launch.yahoo.com/ar-268114---Black-Sabbath

http://www.black-sabbath.com/discog/paranoid.html#paranoid

Walking by my own feet. Is it safe?

I remember something very funny that happened. I was watching a sitcom called “punk”. It was about a young orphan girl who was always involved in funny situations. But in this episode, she was on campaign against drugs. So people were carrying placards with the message: JUST SAY NO.

Are you sure about that? Yes!

Then I decided to translate that by myself, without a dictionary of course. Then in my mind in thought: well NO means não. I recalled that I had seen many caps from nick with the word JUST, and for some reason I understood the word JUST as USE. And I guessed the word SAY as DROGAS. So in my mind that message JUST SAY NO meant: NÃO USE DROGAS. One week later, I was reading a magazine about music than there was the lyric of a song which I don’t remember, but I found in this song the words JUST and SAY as APENAS and DIZER. I t was funny! I couldn’t stop laughing at my on situation.

Ops! SAY means dizer!

Shame on you Val!

I was really involved with the idea of learning English. I did not have a teacher, no money to attend an English course, but I really wanted to learn this language. I used to pay a lot of attention in films. I remember when I was watching a movie ( I don’t remember which movie was it) , then there was a guy trying to escape from a building , then he found a clock . But it was a bomb clock and the seconds was going like 5,4,3,2 then he said: “oh shit!

Oh! That was amazing to me. From that moment one, every time I wanted to swear, I used to swear in English. Things were not ok. So I used to say: Oh shit! That was cool at that time.

There were many words that I could learn from the films, I had that ability to memorize them although I had no idea how to spell them.

CCAA books:

There was a guy who owed me some money. It was not so much, but money is always money. So he told me that he had some English book and asked me if I could accept the books instead of the money that he didn’t have. It was 15 books from CCAA, and as I was extremely interested in learning English I accepted his offer. But the books were not helping so much. I couldn’t understand the instruction as it was all in English. But I was always looking at the dictionary trying hard to use those books. At that time I didn’t know, but I would learn how to use them. (Actually I still have them)

Sing a song.

I was 16, still living in Vitoria-ES, studying English though lyrics of music and singing sometimes. Of course the best moment to sing was when I was taking a shower. The bathroom is a wonderful stage.

But I had some friends, and one of them could play guitar and sometimes we got together to drink (yes it was beer although I was only 16), talk and as one of us played guitar we were supposed to sing songs that we liked. But as these songs were in English and as I was the one who studied English (using lyrics of songs), I was supposed to sing. Well I was not a good singer, but that exercise of sing helped me to learn how to pronounce many words in English.

As I was involved with music, I decided to learn to play guitar, so that I could sing everyday. This friend who played the guitar was my first teacher. He decided to taught me a very easy song (according to him), it was a Bob Dylan song played at that time by Guns ‘n Roses: Knocking on heavens door. It had only three chords but I had a very hard time to learn it. Well I was not exactly An English teacher but I taught him to not pronounce the “k” when he was singing Knocking on Heavens door.

Ah… what comes after G?

Well I don’t know exactly why, but sometimes life is like movies. That cinema situation I had seen in films about rebel sons that fight with their fathers was happening to me. My father and I lived in world completely different, and the same was happening between my mother and him. So they decided to finish their marriage. It was not only the fact that I was confused about my parents’ situation, I was having some personal problems, I was jobless, and I was tired of that state. Although Espirito Santo had wonderful beaches I was thinking about run away from there. My idea was move back to Belo Horizonte. I believed that my hometown would be able to save me.

“ I got go back to my hometown “

I left Vitoria in 1996. It was December a couple of days after my birthday. My mother was sad, but she understood my situation. I was looking for a better school, a job, etc... Being back in Belo Horizonte was like a rebirth to me. I met old friends and I really could start a new life. But I was still trying to learn English. I knew some English because of music and the books were helping a lot.

The new school was called Caminho a Luz. I loved that name. And they had English there. Well I became disappointed because they didn’t teach me anything. It was only focus on verb to be. Once the teacher was teaching present continuous. She asked some volunteers to go on the blackboard and write some sentences using the ING form. I wrote:

I AM GETTING SICK WITH THIS DISGUSTING SITUATION. That vocabulary was totally new for my classmates. I had learned it from lyrics of songs of course.

The funny thing was that the teacher didn’t understand the meaning of Getting. I became famous in my class because I knew some English. I had my books, a dictionary and lyrics to study. I didn’t have a computer at that time, actually I didn’t have my own house, I was living withy some friends. But I had a strong desire to learn. Let’s say I was addicted. Everywhere I saw anything In English I wanted to know the meaning. I borrowed magazines with lyrics of songs and used to write in my notebook. (the one with papers rsss) Every new word I saw I checked the meaning.

GETTING SICK??????????

On May 1997 my family, except my father moved to Belo Horizonte and I wet to live with them. I can say it was very good for me. I was getting homesick. I missed them. But now it was all right. I finished my high school in 1998. The English was absolutely easy for me. I never leant anything in class. Everything I learnt alone. I really thought that unfair. They don’t teach English at public school. They pretend to do. And for the students it’s a relief to pass, they hate English, just like I did when I was 13 and study for the first time.

The best moment was in a Halloween. We had a play. I wrote the story and acted. It was about a count, a kind of wizard who was looking for a wife. A beautiful virgin girl. That was really funny.

“That’s the best way to describe the wizard I was playing’.

When I finished high school although I loved English I decided to try ‘vestibular de direito”. I wanted to go to the law school and became a lawyer. Believe or not it was not only because of the money. I had a kind of hungry for justice. Well I did not pass. Some people told me that I should have tried letras, because I loved English. I must confess I am terrible with advices. I tried to get in the law school another two times, and I failed. Only in 2001 I decided to try Letras.

I see the world through the eyes of justice

Well my learning process of English was doing well. I used to study alone at home. Watch movies, listening to music. And I used to do all the activities in the books I had. Including those topics called: Discuss with your partner. I used to talk alone; sometimes I used to record and them check my pronunciation. I had a kind of band too. We used to play and that helped me with my English. Let’s say as a vocalist/guitarist I was/I am a good English teacher. But the music helped me a lot. I learnt a lot of new words and expressions. By the way I haven’t learnt how to be a good singer, but I still do it and I still study English doing that, I mean the learning process never ends for real. There’s always something new as language is an unfinished process.

Bon soir! Je ne parle pas français! ( ???????)

When I tried vestibular for the third time (Law school again) I knew that I didn’t have to study English, so I decided to learn a little of French. Actually I was not interested in learn French, but there was a girl in the French class that I was really interested in. (Remember the play in high school? She played the virgin girl)

Well French was boring and then I didn’t have luck with the girl. So I decided to use the time to have some drinks in a bar next to pre-ufmg.

I am sure motivation is everything in learning another language. There was no music, no films, nothing to create the same motivation I had with English.

Finally

Ufmg

Finally

Vestibular 2002, finally I tried letras and I passed. When I arrived at the university I was afraid because everybody could speak English. Some of them had even lived abroad. Well the little ‘”favelado” (It is a joke), was there

by his own foot.

Zé abre o boteco! Vamo tomar uma! Eu passei na federal!!!!!!

My fear went away when I opened my mouth and discovered that I was good enough to be there. That was a victory to me. Actually habilidades integradas I was my first English class and Herzila Bastos my first official English teacher.

Of course I leant a lot studying habilidades 1, 2 and 3 but the fact that I could be able to follow the classes without an experience in an English course before was a victory to me. I think that when you have passion, motivation you can do anything no matter how hard it may look. Everything is possible. It’s up to us to make our wishes became true.

http://www.angelwinks.net/quick/trialqc13.html