MY ENGLISH LEARNING STORY
CAROLINA AUGUSTA GOMES
26 years old
English Teacher
Hi There!
I would never imagine to have my English Learning
Story published on the internet and the idea of having it published on the wide
world web really excites me because it is going to be very interesting to share
my experiences with my cyber mates and other people and people will see the
difficulties and challenges we go through when we want to learn a different
language but my message for all the ones who really want to learn a second
language is NEVER GIVE UP. For the people who already teach English I think it
is going to be a very good idea to ask the students to visit these homepages
just for them to have one idea of how the English learning process goes. My
English learning story is going to be very long but I think also very
interesting and it is going to have a lot of developments until the final
version because I remind of the details little by little.
My upbringing…
I come from a very poor and simple family. Most of my relatives did not finish primary
school so that learning a foreign language would be something very distant from
my reality. My mother was a single mother and she had to take care of and
support my grandmother and me. It was very difficult for her because she did
not make too much to give us the better she wanted to give us but she always
tried to do her best and she had big dreams for me because she did not want me
to have the same conditions she had. She did not want me to be a loser. Despite
having all bad conditions for making a living my mother always paid a private
school for me. Her brothers and sisters always criticized her because they said
that people like them were never able to attend private schools. I went to Instituto Maria Montessori.
Instituto Maria Montessori was by that time the best
private school in town and only rich people could afford it. There I had
contact with students who seemed to be from a completely different world and I
noticed that I was going to have a hard time but I wanted to be part of that
world anyway. My classmates had all they wanted, took a lot of classes outside
school such as English classes, swimming classes, volleyball classes and etc…
They would always go to their family ranches every weekend and I never had
anything interesting to do on my weekends or to say about it. I grew up in this
environment, which seemed so far away from me but at least I had the desire to
achieve that world.
My first
contact with English…
My
first contact with English was at school when I was in the 5th
degree (quinta série). It was amazing at first but afterwards I found out that
the teacher had a very bad pronunciation and she did not have a college degree,
she only had a CAT = Certificado de Avaliação de Títulos. But anyway at least I
found it fantastic at first. In my first English class I learned how to say the
names of the animals in English and I had to repeat those names several time.
HORSE – FROG – LION
- DOG
When I
arrived at home that day I was so happy and so proud of me because I thought I
could speak English and I also thought I had become an important person. On
that day I waited very anxiously for my mother to arrive from work and to tell
her the good news. At dinnertime while she was preparing a soup I told her that
I had had my first English class and that it had been very difficult but I
liked it very much and I asked her for some help with my first English Class.
You cannot imagine how proud of myself I was because I was learning English at
school. I was so careful with my English material and I paid a lot of attention
to all my classes. When I found out that the teacher was not a good English
professional I kind of lost my interest about the English language because I
realized that I could not learn things in a wrong way. I remember that she
taught me how to say URSO in English as Cerveja. She would ask us to repeat: _ Let’s say
URSO in English! How do you say URSO in English? I say /bir/ = (beer). C’mon
let’s repeat /bir/.
As the time went on I completely lost my
interest about the English language because the teacher was really bad. We
complained to the school’s principal but nothing happened and unfortunately I
could not attend a private English school. When I went to high school the
situation changed a little.
English at High
School
At High
School English became a strong necessity because it was important for the
entrance exams and for my professional career as well. Since I did not have a
good English teacher I started to study by myself. I wanted to speak that
language and I wanted to understand what the people from the movies said. I was
very difficult to study by myself. First I tried to learn the phonetic symbols
so that I would pronounce the words correctly and after I tried to understand
words in context. I started to notice that little by little I could understand
what people said in the movies. When I started my SEGUNDO ANO DO SEGUNDO
GRAU the school took a decision and changed the English teacher. The
new teacher was very nice. He was an English teacher and also one interpreter.
His pronunciation was so good and he gave me a lot of hints on how to improve
mine. I can still remember his name: Wanderley. He was a very thin guy and very
timid but he was one excellent and very patient teacher. It was difficult for
him to teacher my group because everyone knew nothing. The former teacher
hasn’t taught us anything. Only the students who took a private English course
could follow his classes. He helped me a lot since he noticed my interest about
English. I remember that I bought a lot of English course at the newsstand and
he helped me with the problems I had. In the same year most of my girl
classmates traveled to Walt Disney World because they wanted to travel instead
of having a 15th birthday party and they came back with a lot of interesting
stuff and news.
How English
came into my life definitely…
I
wanted so much to go to Disney but I did not have money for such big
enterprise. But on the same year we had presidential elections and my mother
got a promotion at work. FHC changed the currency and it became easier for
Brazilian people to buy dollars to travel abroad. I was 16 years old and I did
not have a 15th birthday party. My mother really noticed that I
wanted to go to Disney because I would watch my classmates’ videocassettes a
lot of times consecutively. She decided that she would make a strong effort and
pay me a trip to Disney.
She went to several different travel agents and looked for the best
price. Finally she found a 13 day-trip
to Disney with a good price. She divided the price into 12 installments. I
traveled with Tia Eliane.
Before I traveled to the
But
the trip was amazing and it opened my horizons to the world. Above there is a
picture with my hotel’s location.
When I returned to
|
.: Contagem |
|
Rua Itália,
16 |
I can
remember my first English class as if it was today. I liked it so much and the
teacher was really good. During the class someone knocked at my classroom’s
door and asked my teacher for a chair in English and I found that very nice and
I thought: _ I
want to speak like them!!!
Here
goes my first English class:
I can still
remember it and all the characters of the lesson.
I took a lot of
notes during the class and I participated of the class a lot. It was in 1997.
When I arrived at home I thought: _ Oh
My God!!! I want to be an English teacher. So I decided to
take the entrance exams and take LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE.
I passed the
entrance exams at UFMG.
I continued to
study English at Number One because that course would be the base for my
Language and Literature graduation course. The funny thing was that some times
my teachers at Number One would make mistakes or would not know the answers for
some things and I would correct them and answer the questions because by the
time I was taking a lot of subject in English at FALE and I knew a great amount
of things.
In the beginning of my graduation course I did not like it a lot because
I had to take CICLO BÁSICO at FAFICH and I took subjects that I was not
interested at all and the worst thing was that the University went on a strike
when I was taking my first term. During the period the University was on strike
a friend of mine who knew that I liked English a lot invited me to work in an
English school. I was scared at first because I did not know if I was going to
be able to handle it but I decided to try anyway especially because I needed
money.
Professional
career
I went to the school and took the
PLACEMENT TEST. My result on the placement test was not very satisfactory but I
could already expect that because I was just taking my second semester at
English school but I did well on my interview. Since the school really needed
someone to work and since I was taking a graduation course on Languages the
coordinator decided to give me a chance and hired me.
It was very difficult at the
beginning because I did not know what to do and they did not train me. They
simply told me to do whatever would please the students because it was already
the end of the term and a lot of students needed help and they would not have
time to train me. They would postpone it for the next term.
I remember my first classes were a
disaster but at least the students liked it. I started to become more
confident. In the same year I was given a trip to
I
SIMPLY LOVED MY TRIP!!!
IT WAS A TERRIFIC TRIP!!!
I did not visit only
MY TRIP’S
FRIENDS IN A RESTAURANT IN NY
Visiting planet
Having dinner
in a very luxurious boat
After three years working as a trainee the director of the
school invited me to be a teacher. I stated having one class and the experience
as a teacher was so good that in the next semester I had 12 classes. I still
work at this school and I think I am going to retire there.
Best experience
ever
But the greatest experience of my
life came last year. I was under depression and having some emotional problems.
I could not concentrate on anything and I decided to go abroad but the problem
was money. So I decided to take a work and travel program at Disney World. The
selection was very difficult but I passed and on November 29th 2004
I arrived in Orlando
I lived with three Americans girls and it was good for me because I
practiced my English a lot but I must confess that it took me three weeks to
start to speak up. My roomies used to say that my English was good but too
formal because I did not use many slangs. My experience at Disney was really
rich. I will never forget it. I had a lot of contact with people and I made
friends from all over the world.
FRIENDS
DISNEY
I.D.
I came back to
Plans for the
future
I am going to
graduate this term and I intend to continue my studies about the English
Language Learning and especially Language Transfer, which is a subject that
really calls my attention. I
also intend to take CEI – Curso de specialização
em Inglês at Faculdade de Letras da
UFMG.
In July 2006 my boyfriend and I are going to
spend 3 months taking an English course in
I LOVE TEACHING
ENGLISH AND I WANT TO BE THE BEST ENGLISH TEACHER EVER.
AND
FINALLY HERE GOES MY FAVORITE SONG
IN ENGLISH JUST FOR YOU GUYS TO SEE HOW WONDERFUL
THIS WORLD IS
