Nome: Andréa Ferreira Viola
Idade: 23
Escolaridade: superior incompleto - Letras
Tempo de aprendizagem: 4 anos e meio
I’ve been studying English for more than four years and during all this time I’ve studied at the same school. In the very beginning I didn’t have the purpose of getting “communication skills” (I mean listening, speaking, writing…). I was only trying to learn some grammar rules and some techniques to read and understand texts to get good marks in the entrances examinations I was trying to pass on. But after a certain time I changed my mind. I was really enjoying learning English.
In the basic levels the classes weren’t very communicative because the methodology used by the school in these stages is structural. The reason is that they teach us all the grammar points in the two basic stages. However the teachers were always trying to create different activities to contextualize the grammar points and to make the classes more pleasurable.
On the other hand, from the intermediate levels on all the classes were very, very communicative. Of course teachers kept teaching grammar, but in these stages speaking and listening were the two most important skills to be developed. Besides the material used in these stages were more original. Music, newspaper ads, magazines, short videos, everything could be used in the classroom.
Nowadays I’ve been taking the last level and I can see my success in all the skills: writing, reading, speaking and listening.
Note: I didn’t consider my experiences in the university to write this text.