Nome: Homem
Idade: 38 anos
Escolaridade: superior incompleto (já é o 3º curso)
Tempo de aprendizagem: 10 anos
I do remember that my first contact with the English language happened in my childhood (I think I was 9 years old), when my teacher, during a dictation, pronounced the word “interrogation” after a phrase in Portuguese. That was an odd word and I had some difficult to write and understand what she intend to say by using that strange word after a clear good sentence: “-Acaso não posso ter cheiro de cachorro?”. That was funny, indeed, because she got impressed with my reaction and the word “interoguêichan” I wrote in my notebook.
Years later, when I was tem years old, at school, I had a crazy Brazilian teacher, graduated in Texas, USA, whose pronunciation was not good at all and whose lessons were boring and extremely based on grammatical rules. After her, I had a queer teacher whose lessons were very funny, since she used to sing a lot in classroom; at the very beginning of each lesson, we were supposed to sing with her: we: “-Good morning, my dear teacher!” / she: “-Good morning! How are you?” / we: “I am so very happy to say ‘hello’ to you!” (nowadays, it sounds me ridiculous!). Later, however, some folk and pop songs were taught in order to teach us pronunciation and cultural aspects of the USA society and lifestyle and she was always stimulating us to use the target language in classroom and outside it.
When I started attending the first year of high school, another odd teacher appeared: the former mariner Valdomiro (there is a sickly smile on my face right now!). He was very funny and talkative, and nowadays I realize that one of his faults was to talk a lot, instead of “provoking” us to talk. His lessons, however, were grammar-based and his examinations were hated, so to speak. Now and then, some of my classmates even precluded his work, by damaging the electrical outlet or turning off a switch. After this first year, we did not have English classes at that public school anymore, because there were many other important subjects related to our technical course to be learnt.
In 1989, however (yes, folks, I am almost as old as a dinosaur, but I still do not bite, ok?!), I started learning English by myself, reading the magazine “Speak Up”, attending a distance short term course and exchanging letters with people from different countries. The problem was that I only practiced reading and writing; no listening, no talking at all, and such a procedure brought me some problems, some limitations, later on, when I decided to attend a “normal” course at a private English school. Once, the owner of the school invited me to talk about my experience towards English, because she worked as my teacher and was very impressed concerning my written English, but a little bit confused, because normally I avoided to read aloud and I was a kind of “silent” student in classroom. When I told her about the way I had learned some English, she congratulated me for my personal achievements, commented the dangers that are implicit in such a kind of self-instruction that neglects the importance of working together the four skills (listening, talking, reading and writing) and invited me to join a free conversation group at school. I could not do that, due to my professional activities, but that advice was very helpful when I decided to learn French, Spanish and Esperanto (it is a pity I did not remember that when I started learning German!).
I must point out, however, that, when adult, I attended courses at British School (in the upstate) and ICBEU, with excellent teachers who used, competently and carefully (I think it is not perfect at all!), the Communicative Approach. One of them (an unforgettable teacher with whom I tackled and passed my first Cambridge examination, years and years ago), was a kind of actress in classroom and, now and then I feel I imitate her teaching style while teaching. Another excellent teacher, an American girl graduate in English, was amazing, but demanding (everyday, she used to give us a theme when the lesson time was almost over in order to produce a composition in strictly stopwatched five minutes, to be read and corrected (with helpful tips) by her. Now and then, she selected some texts to be published in a school newspaper and, besides, at least once a month she provided us with an outdoor activity on Saturdays (there, Portuguese was forbidden) . I do miss her!...
Anyway, I have to confess that until now, even with some good international certificates (Cambridge, Michigan and Oxford), I make some foolish slips/mistakes when speaking English and I still have some serious hindrances when trying to spell some German words or sentences. I attribute such limitations to the way or the methods I (as a self-taught person) used at the very beginning of my learning experience related to those seducing languages.
Undoubtedly, as you (dear reader) could see, the Communicative Approach was present during my formation as a speaker of the English language. More important: I could know the importance it has during the process of apprenticeship of a foreign language. I just sorry that some language schools do not use that the way they should do, acting in a irresponsible way, promising miracles and selling illusions thereabout. There is even a worst situation: many modern pseudo-linguists have been trying (and achieving relative ‘success’) to recommend principles of that approach in order to teach Portuguese to Brazilian students, even here, inside FALE/UFMG, where we can read some doctorate thesis full of “linguistic deviations”, so to speak. Shame on us!