Well, I dare say my interest in English was
born on February 12, 1984 (oh yes, that’s my birthday!). I say that because I
remember very clearly the time when I would ask my father how to say such-and-such words in
English. I don’t know exactly how old I was then, but I’m sure I was very
young. I also remember I had loads of fun turning my father into a
walking-talking dictionary. As he himself has always been a language fancier,
he would feel pleased to notice my interest in English and would always answer
my plausible questions.
One of
the first phrases I learned was ‘the end’. Can you guess why??? Just because of
the Woody Woodpecker cartoon. This phrase would
always appear at the end of the cartoon – which, still nowadays, is one of my
favorites!
Another
kind of media that helped increase my interest in learning English was music.
I’ve always loved music – especially songs in English. The first songs in
English to which I did pay attention and tried to use as a resource for learning
the language were the songs by Phil Collins. My father – again – had two of his
CDs and I simply loved listening to
the songs, trying to follow and understand the lyrics (the latter being too
hard for me at the time since I had only my 5th grade English
classes from school as a support). Some time later, I bought my own first CD
with songs in English – Jagged little pill by the world-famous Canadian
singer Alanis Morissette.
Here are
the lyrics of my favorite song at the time. Besides singing I would also try to
translate this song – I had a hard time! But anyway, it was quite useful, too.
Ironic
An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next
day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think
It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought...it figures
Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think
It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought...it figures
Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face
A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic...dontcha think
A little too ironic...and yeah I really do think...
It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought...it figures
Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out
And, if
I’m not mistaken, that was when my father finally enrolled me at a private English course
– Number One. I really liked to study English there. And I also kept up
with my late practices: listening to music, watching movies in English, reading
all kinds of texts in English… Finally in 1999, I had my first experience
abroad. I went to the
Then, in
2002 I got into the university (UFMG) where I have been studying English and
other related subjects so as to be a teacher. As soon as I got into the
university I started teaching English; first as a private teacher and
then, in 2004, at a course aimed at children and young teenagers. The
experience of studying English in depth at the university and especially the
experience of taking courses taught in English has helped me improve my English
a lot – especially regarding fluency (oral and written). Teaching has also been
helping me a lot. I have made improvements in the four skills. I have also
enlarged my vocabulary and become more aware of grammatical and phonological
aspects of the language.
Well,
this is a brief history of my English learning process. I do not think it is
over or that it will ever be. There will always be something to be learned
because a language is both something complex and something that continually
changes.