Nome: Cássia Scheinbein
Idade: não informado
Escolaridade: não informado
Tempo de aprendizagem: não informado
It is not an easy job to describe my experiences with english because they started a long time ago. So, I’ll try to divide them in periods which I consider marks of “learning” english.
I started to learn english in school as a regular discipline. I continued it in high school. I also studied english in a private course, until the advanced level. In that time, the method was conservative, it focused on grammar, on reading extra books and repeating dialogues. I used to ask all the doubts I had. I was always very interested.
I had the other period, this after getting my Dentistry degree at the PUCMG, which was completely different. It was not a formal learning at school, but practicing everything I’ve learned. I did some professional training outside Brazil and practiced english for long time as well as other languages. I can say, english was my second language at that time, not considering my mother language. I had many friends from the USA, Europe and I also travelled to many countries where I communicated in english most of the time. I have fluency for that reason.
With the “fashion” of the internet, I started to surf it, with the objective to know people from everywhere in the world, and I had and I still have the opportunity to practice english all the time, so I think, hear, speak, and write in english. It’s natural.
There is the recent period (about 4 years), which is the time I’m studying at the University of Letters in UFMG. I improved english concerning literature and writing. The homeworks, the tasks that were given, allowed me to improve this part specially.
To conclude, I can say so far that, I always liked english, and I had lots of interest to put in practice, to be fluent and to improve it as much as I can.
My real “learning” according to communicative approach is the practice itself. I used the language in real contexts, experienced all the competences, like communicative, functional, and sociolinguistic competence where I used english in formal and informal ways, when necessary, according to the situation and the context. I had contact with varieties of english of many countries like USA, Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa and countries where english is teached. My experiences were real and natural. I also add the interactional and cultural competences, as I experienced the direct acquaintance with people of various cultures in several opportunities.
Practicing in real contexts is the best way to improve a language when someone has its basis. In life, we are always learning things, so I consider I used the communicative approach with its principles naturally, in practice and not having consciousness as one academic approach of teaching a
language.