MY ENGLISH LEARNING HISTORY

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS

SUBJECT: COMPUTER LITERACY

STUDENT: Margaret Horta Nassif

PROFESSOR: Vera Menezes

I remember that I started my reading activities at five. One day, while walking down the street with my eldest sister, she noticed that I was reading the outdoors surrounding us – one by one, including the big neon advertisements spread allover the town.

Those brilliant lights coming and going towards us were a spectacle for me. Not only because of the obfuscating brilliancy, but because of the wonderful magic of one letter plus another letter compounding a simple word, then a word plus another word compounding a sentence, then a story – a life story.

At that time, children were supposed to enter the primary school at age seven. I did not enter the kindergarten because it was not a usual procedure. So, encouraged by my mother, I had a conversation with the School’s principal in order to be submitted to an admission test. The preliminary was supposed to be enforced if I could keep myself in the same level as the other children. So, I did my best to keep my place, and I stayed there the remainder of the years. So I was seventeen when I graduated in primary education, at high school level.

My mother already had a long and rich experience in teaching. At that time, she had already graduated in Pedagogy. I had a great deal of books and encyclopedias inviting me to enter the world of letters. I grew up in connection with reading and writing activities.

My English learning began officially at the age of ten, just upon leaving the elementary school. I was just entering the first degree of the Fundamental School. It was the first time I would study English as a special subject. Then, I was able to receive my first official English Course at M.A.I. (Modern American Institute).

My Monograph II at FALE

I have already worked in my Monograph I for the Bachelor degree. Now I finish the Monograph II so to get my BA English in Letters . Next year I will be following three last subjects at FAE so as to get the English teaching license. Here I give some items on my Monograph II. My professor adviser is Mr. Thomas Burns:

Title: “The sense of absurd in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury”

“William Faulkner (1897-1962), who came from an old southern family, grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. He joined the Canadian, and later the British, Royal Air Force during the First World War, studied for a while at the University of Mississippi, and temporarily worked for a New York bookstore and a New Orleans newspaper. Except for some trips to Europe and Asia, and a few brief stays in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, he worked on his novels and short stories on a farm in Oxford.

In an attempt to create a saga of his own, Faulkner has invented a host of characters typical of the historical growth and subsequent decadence of the South. The human drama in Faulkner's novels is then built on the model of the actual, historical drama extending over almost a century and a half each story and each novel contributes to the construction of a whole, which is the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County and its inhabitants. Their theme is the decay of the old South, as represented by the Sartoris and Compson families, and the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers, the Snopeses. Theme and technique - the distortion of time through the use of the inner monologue are fused particularly successfully in The Sound and the Fury (1929), the downfall of the Compson family seen through the minds of several characters.” (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.html).

Description: “The objective of the present work is to read the William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, under the focus of the existentialist concept of Absurd sense.

One intends to analyze the literary forms from which Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury dialogues with the existentialist notion, especially concerning to the characters construction and the exploration of the narrative focus. The work will have Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s La Nausée, as main theoretical source of research."

Then I found a job as secretary in a very important library, the city’s most important bookseller, which name is LIVRARIA VAN DAMME. Working there I had good opportunities to read daily journals, magazines and books from all over the world. Besides, I could talk with people from different parts of the world. While working at Van Damme Livraria I improved my English skills a lot.

Well, two years after, I decided to go to Europe. My grandfather, on my mom’s side, came from Portugal and I had some relatives there and in Spain. On the other hand, my grandparents, on my dad’s side came from Lebanon and Syria. I chose to go to Madrid. WOW!! Madrid!! I loved being there. Then I stayed for three months in Florence, one year and a half in Paris (staying made me improve a little bit my French language skills). By the way, I realized that while brushing my French, curiously I was brushing my English at the same time! Believe it! I guess that oral skills are important for learning any language. Finally, I had the chance to fly to Dover, Southampton and London – being there I was able to practice my English.

After living two years in Europe I returned to Brazil. I passed the Vestibular examination and I began to study Journalism, but after two years of studies I had to quit the course for private reasons. Then I got married and I continued to work as secretary in a Company dealing with Pig Iron export trading, then in another one dealing with Charcoal breeze export trading and finally in a textile plant – I stayed in this last one for fifteen years as assistant to the Director of Export Department. Working in these places I had the chance to talk to foreign people, to follow different business courses. I continued dealing with the English language. There is another place in which I could practice my English a lot. I refer to a Non Governmental Organization named Fundação Biodiversitas, working in partnership with the IUCN – The World Conservation Union and the Conservation International. I learned wonderful things while being there, besides having improved my English a lot. It is one of the best places I have ever worked. In addition, I am proud to say that the Fundação Biodiversitas sponsors of the “Master’s Program Ecology and Wild Life Management and Conservation” at ICB/ UFMG. I was introduced to the academic world, dealing with scientific terms of the English language. Our team was assigned to create and edit a book called “The Red Book of Brazilian Mammals Threatened with Extinction”. Then, I went to work in a Company dealing with manufacturing of Prosthetic Heart Valves. My Boss was an American man; he did not speak even a word in Portuguese. I was hired with the purpose to get the ISO 9001 Quality Certificate. My job was to translate the S.O.Ps (Standard Operational Procedures) from Portuguese to English. And to do so it was mandatory to know the whole process of the valves’ manufacturing. Some years later I went to work at Companhia Belgo-Mineira, dealing with iron ore and steel industry. Now Belgo has merged with the world’s major group of the steel industry and its name is now Arcelor Brasil, just born from an European Company named Arcelor and from an Indian Company named Mittal, so now it is Arcelor-Mittal. There are more than 12 years I work in this Company. I am always in contact with foreign people, especially from Luxembourg, France, Spain, United States, and United Kingdom. The new headquarter is now located in London

Nowadays, I have two sons. Both of them love reading (and enjoying vacations, of course!). The eldest one is particularly addicted to reading and he plays the guitar. He has read more books than I did up to now, despite being much younger than me. Since he was a little child, he used to ask me to buy him books, including all of his birthday and Christmas gifts. He is supposed to be graduating at FALE this semester (with me). He teaches Portuguese and Literature at Colégio Padre Machado, here in Belo Horizonte. My youngest son studies Psychology at PUC and he plays the drums. He is fond of writing, more so than reading, but he is improving his reading skills because the course he follows requires many hours of reading activities.

So, I guess that I encouraged both my sons on improving their English reading skills since they were little children. And I always encouraged them to study English as well. We have been practicing the second language at home in many ways. We like to watch movies (without reading the subtitles) to improve our listening – this is a learning tool I have been using during my life so as to enable me to understand the language not only with my mind but also with my heart. I use this strategy till these days – for me and for my children – it has ever worked this way.

“(…) with equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. (…) This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.” (Bertrand Russell, prologue of autobiography- http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/prolog.html).