When I was nine-year-old, my brother used to listen to the Beatles and follow the song’s lyrics printed in specialized magazines. He was about 7 years older than me and had studied English in High School for some years. I loved to hear those songs and did the same as him: I listened to the songs and read the lyrics without understanding anything.

Anyway, it was my first contact with English and I became very interested in learning it! However I lived in São João Del Rei by that time and there were very few possibilities to learn a foreign language properly.

Today there are such a profusion of possibilities!!

I attended High School in a religious school so that my first English teacher was a nun, Sister Maria Teresa. She practiced that very old method of reading, translating and grammar. It was quite boring, but even so, I was interested in. I remember a day when she asked us to memorize the irregular verbs. I forgot to do it and I failed the test. It was the first time in my life that I got less than 50% of the grades in a test. I remember I got something about 30%! I was scared stiff to present my grades to my father in that month. He was very strict about grades at school. Anyway, I didn’t learn so much at this school!

At that time there was the so called “Ginasial” and “Científico”. After finishing “Ginasial”, I told my parents that I would like to attend “Científico”, because I would like to go to College. They enrolled me in another school. My new teacher was almost the same and the methods are not different. But I was very interested so I got a reasonable vocabulary and something about grammar. At the end of the course, I could read texts which were not difficult.

I decided study Engineering and I succeed my second try in the “Vestibular Exam” and studied Engineering at Engineering School, UFMG. One of the tests I did better in “Vestibular Exam” was the English Test.

I got a great opportunity to learn more, when I was invited to take a course on Hydrological Forecasting at University of California in a very nice city called Davis and a training job at National Weather Service in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was one of the most interesting experiences I had in all my life. I met very nice people from all over the world and most important: I HAD TO SPEAK!!! Anyway, I passed difficult moments in the beginning, but I got improving each day.

Once more, I had left my English studies for many years, when I decided to attend the Letras Course at UFMG, in 1999. I realized that I loved too much Literature and languages and that it was time to do something about it. I have considered even the possibility of changing my profession! And here I am, hopefully, finishing the course at the end this semester! It was a great experience!