Nome: Viviane Coelho Caldeira Ramos
Idade: não informado
Escolaridade: superior incompleto
Tempo de aprendizagem: não informado
My English learning experience is quite different since I started having contact with the language when I was very young, something like two/ three years old, that is because my mother is an English teacher, so she started teaching me songs, poems, verses, prayers, etc, in English. It was so exciting! I felt like me and my mother had this secret code language that only us could speak. For sure this early learning had a great role in my future motivation to learn more and more about that “code”. My house was always full of English books and English materials in general, so when I was around 7, I started reading books and “teaching myself” with a didactic book called “Steps”.
I joined an English school when I was 9 years old, it was called “ New Way”, and it had a fantastic environment, teacher were very well trained and we had a total emphasis in communication, both oral and written, I studied there till I was 18. This studies were essential to give me a communicative competence, specially the functional and socialinguistic ones, since they made me aware of the language and its structure. When I was 11 I went to a trip in U.S, it was a great deal for me as I could see that I was really able to communicate with natives. I still remember how excited I was because I could ask for a map in Epcot Center!
At the age of 13 I went to Ireland in order to make an English Summer Course at a Marist College ( I have always studied at Colégio Marista Dom Silvério and the Marist Brothers have schools all around the world), there we had classes with other Marist students from different countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, etc. Until this time I had never really realized how English was so essential for communication worldwide. Another vital point of this experience was my contact with my host family, The Passmores, they were just wonderful and taught me the real everyday English and the Irish culture and history ( and even a little bit of Gaelic!). I could then perceive that language was above all the expression of a people, their desires, dreams and thoughts. They also encouraged my love for literature, taking me to see Wilde’s plays and lending me books. The experience was so great that I went to Ireland again the next year, staying at the same house. At this time I did the Trinity Exam, where I passed with distinction, what increased my self-confidence and started blossom inside me the desire to learn more about that “language world”.
When I was 16 I spent a 7 months in New Zealand doing High School, this was definitely the most crucial experience in my life (I can divided myself B.NZ and A.NZ!). Apart form the High School I also did a Summer English Course where I get to know two of my greatest friends (a German and a Kiwi). At this time I had fluent English, grammatically correct and everything, but I lacked the cultural and interactional competences. I have always been talkative and an observer, so that my friends and people on the streets, pubs, malls were the best teachers I have ever had. They taught me a lot of what I know and what I am. At the last month of my exchange program I went to Hawaii to meet my mother (who was studying in Canada) there I had contact with another kind of English and reality that I was used to. Sometimes people would think I was a native (but unfortunately I still do not know the hula-hula).
When I came back I decided to do “vestibular” for Tourism and Letters, to be honest Tourism was my dream, I did Letters only “ to do something at the Federal” (since there was no Tourism course in UFMG at that time). But believe it or not, Letters became an addiction. I made me realize as never before the complexity and richness of language and literature. I have always love books, but doing this course made me go beyond the book itself. I now teach English at Number One, it is been a great experience for me to finally see the other side of learning. Teaching is been both rewarding and tiring! Apart from all that, I have an interesting and modern family that helps me improve my English. My stepfather is an Italian-Canadian, so that English is the official language of my house even more because there are always friends from around the world visiting us. It is like the UN! From my experiences I can easily say that language is above all communication and the best teacher is life
itself.