Thinking about relevant topics in my experience as a learner of a foreign language, I realize that I did not have any special experience, but I can remember the influence some English teachers had on me very well. I had really good teachers and I can remember some of them very well, their classes and their dedication.

The first teacher I’d like to talk about is Ivandecy. She was my first English teacher at a public school in Mamanguape. At that time, I studied the fifth grade and although I was too shy, during her classes I participated a lot and I could say all the lessons by heart, as she did some oral tests. She used to take folk songs to classes and I really enjoyed them. The books she used were by CCAA (books developed to high schools) as she was a student there.

My sister Cristina who is also an English teacher played an important role in my learning process too. She used to listen to English songs and tried to copy them. I was just ten years old but I helped her and after listening to the songs many times, we could write some of them. One of the songs that we could write together was The Winner Takes It All by ABBA. Because of this, I was always interested in trying to understand the lyrics of the songs in English and sang them.

In 1982, two years later, I began studying at CCAA, as my sister was a student there. However, due to health problems and taking into consideration that I was not prepared to study the language, I gave up. It’s worth to point out that we only had classes on Saturdays because we lived in Mamanguape. So we could only come to João Pessoa once a week.
In 1997, I returned to CCAA and I had a nice teacher called Patrícia. She encouraged me to be a teacher there and indicated my name to the TTC (Teacher Training Course). I did it and my sister, who was already a teacher there, gave the TTC. It was also Patrícia who told me that in order to be an English teacher I had to study “Letras”. So because of this, I did the “Vestibular” and passed i, becoming a student at UFPB.

At the university, I had excellent teachers, but two of them were special: Edna and Rosa Virgínia. It’s incredible how I can remember their classes very well. They were just GREAT.

I cannot deny that CCAA also played an important role in my learning process. I spent almost 20 years there both as a student and as a teacher. I liked the school a lot: The teachers, the environment and everything. My background is from there.

Well, that’s all I can remember. People really played an important role in my learning and it couldn’t be different because language is communication.