Name: Lilian Aparecida de Souza

A long journey…

Well, I dare say my interest in English was born on February 12, 1984 (oh yes, that’s my birthday!). I say that because I remember very clearly the time when I would ask my father how to say such-and-such words in English. I don’t know exactly how old I was then, but I’m sure I was very young. I also remember I had loads of fun turning my father into a walking-talking dictionary. As he himself has always been a language fancier, he would feel pleased to notice my interest in English and would always answer my plausible questions.

One of the first phrases I learned was ‘the end’. Can you guess why??? Just because of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon. This phrase would always appear at the end of the cartoon – which, still nowadays, is one of my favorites!

Another kind of media that helped increase my interest in learning English was music. I’ve always loved music – especially songs in English. The first songs in English to which I did pay attention and tried to use as a resource for learning the language were the songs by Phil Collins. My father – again – had two of his CDs and I simply loved listening to the songs, trying to follow and understand the lyrics (the latter being too hard for me at the time since I had only my 5^th grade English classes from school as a support). Some time later, I bought my own first CD with songs in English – Jagged little pill by the world-famous Canadian singer Alanis Morissette.

Here are the lyrics of my favorite song at the time. Besides singing I would also try to translate this song – I had a hard time! But anyway, it was quite useful, too.

Ironic
An old man turned ninety-eight

He won the lottery and died the next day

It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought...it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought...it figures

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think
A little too ironic...and yeah I really do think...

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought...it figures

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

And, if I’m not mistaken, that was when my father finally enrolled me at a private English course – Number One. I really liked to study English there. And I also kept up with my late practices: listening to music, watching movies in English, reading all kinds of texts in English… Finally in 1999, I had my first experience abroad. I went to the United States and spent about 8 days at Disney. It was an awesome experience! Though I had been studying English formally for such a little time (less than 2 years), I could easily communicate with people. Of course at that time I was not able to develop a conversation the way I do nowadays but I could buy whatever I wanted, ask for information and even help some of the kids who could not speak English at all. It was a very important experience.

Then, in 2002 I got into the university (UFMG) where I have been studying English and other related subjects so as to be a teacher. As soon as I got into the university I started teaching English; first as a private teacher and then, in 2004, at a course aimed at children and young teenagers. The experience of studying English in depth at the university and especially the experience of taking courses taught in English has helped me improve my English a lot – especially regarding fluency (oral and written). Teaching has also been helping me a lot. I have made improvements in the four skills. I have also enlarged my vocabulary and become more aware of grammatical and phonological aspects of the language.

Well, this is a brief history of my English learning process. I do not think it is over or that it will ever be. There will always be something to be learned because a language is both something complex and something that continually changes.

THE END