Nome: Cachoeira
Idade: 28
Escolaridade: superior incompleto
Tempo de aprendizagem: ABOUT 8 YEARS
I cannot talk about my learning process without involving may personal history. I will try to be succinct and not bored you with many details; however, when necessary I will go beyond my particular life to make myself clear.
I had English classes for the first time, during two years, when I was doing college and it was based on translation, lists of vocabulary to be learnt by heart and particularly lots of grammar rules followed by boring exercises. In other words the procedures that were innate from the 18th century or before were being applied on a contemporary English course. I thought I could not expect more from a small town on the countryside, a hundred years behind our time, twelve hours far from the capital, right?
Wrong!!! I moved to Belo Horizonte looking for a better education and I realized that the differences between the educational system from my home town to the capital were nothing, even being in one of the most respectful public high school in BH, “Estadual Central” as it is better known as “Escola Estadual Governador Milton Campos”. Being there by that time I realized two things. First, I was not going to have English classes until the second year on high school. Second, the English classes that were given were not different from those I took on my hometown; furthermore, on my first class I had the verb to be introduced again followed by exercises based on grammar and translation with Portuguese as reference for learning. With so many grammar rules it gave me the impression that I was learning the mechanics of one car that I would never be able to drive. As stated by W. H. D Rouse it was like “to know everything about something rather than the thing itself”.
The main objective was being able to translate texts from English into Portuguese. Mistakes were punished by bad grades. I felt that I was never able to learn English. I got completely blocked and sometimes I put myself down unable to learn the stuff proposed. For several times I thought I would never learn the amount of rules presented by the teacher every week to the scared class.
Things only started to change when on later 1993 I was offered a discount to do an English course on the place I was working for. I had my first contact with an English class totally different from what I had had in a totally of four years. Although the methodology used was a Streamline, nowadays very criticized by linguistics and ESL teachers, it was so far better that what I had proved before as an English class. I should declare that I did not stay longer in the course for a couple of reasons. First, I had to work hard to pay my bills; second I started preparing myself for the exams to go to university, which consumed all my money.
Hence, I think that I only started to study English seriously about 1996 when I went to University. With twenty-two years old I was hungry for knowledge, money, and a successful professional life. Being at the University seemed possible to achieve all these objectives.
Wrong, again. I underestimated the difficulties of doing a course at university and my social condition. Struggling to survive by-myself and also help my family in a condition worst than mine. By that time I was being working as a clerk for more than five years because I have started with fifteen years old, and I found a better job as a supervisor in another company. It means better money and also a lot of work to do. I had to push myself to improve in a profession that was not related with the course I was doing. Thus, my spare time was shared by English books and books about computer and administration. I learned how use a computer pretty well withought never been in a course, and I was requested to teach it to new employees which also pushed into a subject out of my area, because I had to search and read to improve myself.
The situation started to change significantly after one year and a half. By these time I had learn Basic English only, because I did not have time to dedicate to it. However, I was a computer literate and understood a lot about business. As a result, having to work to pay my bills I lost the focus of my studies, and not only this but also I felt completely exhausted. I started to fail in the exams, and even so I pushed myself subscribing for five subjects per term every semester. My average slowed down considerably, and I got seriously ill. I went to a hospital in a very bad condition and I had to choose between my course and my professional life. I choose the last one; with lots of bills to pay I did not hesitate.
Nevertheless, I give up others subjects as computing and business because I was very determined to learn English properly, (I still think as before), specially speaking with a considerable good accent, thus, my studies involved at the very beginning an emphasis in phonological competence and discourse competence. So, I tried to do as much as possible studying at home, I heard lots of tapes and watched lots of films and also started to enroll on English course only at the university. I must say that I improved considerable during one year.
Being used to conduct my life in a very pragmatic way I was not happy with my improvements. Consequently, I decided to save all my money to move to a country where I could use and learn English in a more practical way. I moved to London and l lived there for about eight months, and this time was really important to develop my English. I acquired a functional competence that would be difficult to achieve in Brazil in the same period of time. I did not take English course all time when I lived in London basically for two reasons: First, a good English course is very expensive, about R$1200,00 per moth for 15 h/week. Otherwise, for about R$2500,00 it is possible to pay for 6 months course which apparently seems to be a good deal; however the classes are really bad. Even the second possibility was expensive for me, so, without going frequently to English classes I decided to take advantage of being in an favorable environment and tried to learn as much as possible by using the language more pragmatically. The final result was that in December 2000 I got my FCE certificate with exceptional grade in Speaking. It was not bad from someone that came from low intermediate and started the English studies late on life.
Subsequently, I went back to Brazil and started to work as an English teacher. I considered this an important phase in my studies. Taking into account the first and second phases as being more aware of grammar and vocabulary and reading, where linguistic aspects were the main focus, and the third phase more pragmatically focused. My experience as a teacher made me aware of my condition as a professional. In this phase I learnt considerably by studying grammar rules and preparing my classes. I felt the grammar rules easily to be understood, it was like driving first and learning the engine after. In this phase I realized my necessity and the importance of improvement to be able to conduct my classes properly. I went back to university more confident and with more clear objectives and I also felt, when facing literature, that a long way was still necessary to be walked on.
I should say that I feel comfortable doing things on my time, thus the English courses offered by Vera Paiva were very suitable for me; moreover, I became more interested in the research about learning autonomy. The opportunity to study by internet and to provide any help in Vera’s research, and also being invited to stay in a friend’s house in London motivated me to move for the second time. I do feel necessary for myself to look for a high level in English language and culture. I also think that there is still a gap between speaking/comprehension and writing/grammar, which means that I have to learn considerably in these skills.
Besides, I think that having a good accent will give a bit of help when working as a teacher with Communicative Approach; however, I believe that leaving in another country, mainly in my condition because five months is not a lot, is not the only way to achieve a good English accent; furthermore, it does not guarantee competence in English teaching. In addition, I have known very good English teachers that have never lived abroad, some teachers that are native speakers but do not know how to do it properly, and some teachers that know a lot and have a near native-speaker accent, but do not have sensibility to deal with students that are struggling to learn. For the first, I should say congratulations and keep doing a good job, for the second ones keep improving, for the last ones I just fell sorry.