Learner Autobiography

 Learner Autobiography Revised

Daniella Yasmin Anne Andrade Honório

 The very first word I learned in English was “yellow”; it reminded me of my cousin’s name. I was 3 or 4 years old and we would see some vocabulary in English at school, like colors or animals. I do not remember much about this time, but I know I thought English was difficult to learn and I did not think I would be able to listen someone speaking English someday. When I was 9 years old and my parents signed a cable television I realized I could switch the language from the shows I was watching. I decided I was going to learn English watching TV.

 I had English classes at school during the years, but they were always very simple. The verb to be was addressed very often, important questions like “What’s your name?”, and “How old are you?” would appear every year. I thought studying by myself was better. I did not have any specific study methods, but I would use repetition a lot. I would watch the same episodes of the same shows, sometimes in Portuguese, sometimes in English. They also had a lot of songs and I would learn the songs seeing the lyrics online during the weekend.

 I don’t remember exactly when I became fluent in English. But I could hold a conversation by the age of 15. Until then I would only practice with myself and talking to people online. A year after that I finally started an English course. It was important for me to practice conversation talking to real people face to face. It was important for me to make sure I was speaking correctly.

 It took about 6 years for me to become a fluent English speaker, and although I didn’t think about ways to make that happen I know I made English a part of my life and that’s what made it possible for me to become fluent. It was also easier because I had the tools needed, like access to internet, cable television and international music. I also used a dictionary very often, since Google translator was unknown to me at the time. Playing online games also helped me. I would also try to translate small texts written by me, at first they would come out wrong, but I got better with time. Something I would also often do, even when I didn’t understand the language, was imitate dialogues from movies. When you’re learning a new language you have to make it a part of your life in order to acquire it. You won’t get things right at first, but that’s how you practice and improve. 

 When I joined an English course, I noticed how different it was from the classes at school. The teacher would always use games and role-plays and encourage us to talk. We would never try to speak English at school, but at the course we were not allowed to speak Portuguese. If we weren’t talking to the teacher during discussions she would promote we would join in pairs and have conversations on or own. She would always check on us to make sure we were speaking English.

 I don’t remember having any good English teachers at school. They would usually not speak English at all and remain doing the same “fill in the blanks” activities. Although I remember having a better English material since age 11, before that we would only work with worksheets every class. But I did like the songs the teachers used to bring. At 21 I had two very different teachers at another English course. I found the first one very good because he would correct the students pronunciation and not accept them speaking Portuguese, which for me was just the usual I was used to, but other students didn’t like him and said he was really strict. That was the 5th semester of the course. During the 6th semester I had another teacher and she was completely different. She would speak English and sometimes Portuguese, which made me confused. She would also allow students to speak Portuguese if they wanted to and only ask for a couple of sentences in English. She spent most of the time talking about her private life and friends she had. I even remember some of the conversations about the blind friend she had and how she loved cats. She seemed to be a nice person, but I didn’t learn anything from her, nor practiced conversation. It was very strange to me, since the semester before the teacher was the complete opposite.

 It was around that time that I entered a University. At first I studied only Portuguese. I had never thought of becoming a teacher, it was what my parents wanted for me, since my mother used to be a teacher. They were so very proud when I started studying at UECE… I had already started teaching Portuguese when I was offered a scholarship to teach English at Núcleo de Línguas Itaperi. It was when I went to UFC to study both English and Portuguese. I found teaching English more interesting than teaching Portuguese and it was also easier for me because I liked English more. I used to teach teenagers from ages 13 to 16 and it was fun. I loved creating games for their classes to be more interesting and they loved competing with one another. I spent 3 years teaching there, there were some semesters when I taught adults and I was surprised that they liked playing games as much as the teens. 

 Now I’m teaching online individual classes. It’s very different and somehow lonely. It’s just me and the student. It’s hard to be creative and fun when there’s only one other person there. And now I’m teaching mostly adults. It’s very hard when they’re having their first contact with English during the first class and they already want to see some improvement. They don’t seem to understand that it takes time and they think all they have to do to learn is to attend the class at the right time. I struggle to keep the classes interesting to them, but it will always have some time that they’ll have to see something they don’t like, or they think it’s too hard, so they don’t want to read, don’t want to answer and only complain. I wonder if it is my fault that I don’t understand what it’s like to learn a new language as an adult, since I learned English as a child and had all the time and tools at my disposal.