Autobiography - How I decided to learn English

English entered in my life when I was 12 years old; I’ve always been a huge fan of

international music and it was allied with music that passion began. I still remember this day because it was a mark in my life: it was Sunday and my uncle brought me a Roxette cd “Roxette’s Greatest Hits: Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus!” and I completely fell in love with the language. I was fascinated by the sonority of English and I kept myself wondering how wonderful would be to speak that language and to be understood.

            After listening to the entire CD, I recorded it on an audio cassette and wrote down all the lyrics on my notebook. From that day on, I swore to myself that one day I would be able to comprehend and communicate through English.

           

Of course I had studied English at school but it was just a matter of grammar. That wasn’t sufficient to me: I wanted to speak, to talk to people in a different language. I missed in my English classes at school the opportunities to speak and these moments never happened. I’d imagine how classes would be more effective if the teacher did this and that (now I realize that this was a sign that I’d be a teacher).

            Thus, I remember how hard it was to comprehend certain words in English; at certain points I felt the need of a good teacher to guide me throughout pronunciation and oral skills. However, as a self-taught, I created some strategies to make the process of learning easier: I’d listen to the song and, if there were any words I didn’t know whether pronunciation and meaning, I’d look it up in an English dictionary for meaning; and, for pronunciation, I’d repeat that specific word the tape, pressing REWIND as many times as I judged necessary and I’d try to pronounce the word the way I was listening to. This was based on Brown’s principle of strategic investment: successful learning of the second language will be, to a large extent, the result of the learner’s investment of time, effort, and attention to the second language learning process. Nowadays I see how tedious this process was, but once I loved music, it was nice back then.

            I expanded my knowledge by studying grammar topics in English at school – I see now how I disturbed my English teachers asking to translate words/expressions I saw in some place.

            Back then, it was the boom of internet and through it, I guess, I’d search for lyrics translation on the web; I’d listen to new songs, kept myself trying hysterically – for instance –, for one entire afternoon, to pronounce “correctly” the lyrics for the song “How do you do!” by Roxette.

            In these five initial years of English – which I call honeymoon-, MUSIC influenced me a lot. Obviously, I didn’t know the enormous complexity of learning a second language; for me, nothing was so different from Portuguese. I had already finished high school and I wanted to work with something related to English. Music had helped so much and I guessed I had something good with me. My friends would ask me to translate words in small English texts and this contributed enormously.

           

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In 2007, when I entered college, everything was so new and refreshing and it was like being brought again to the day my uncle brought me that Roxette cd: a world of English within another world in English.

            My first semester professor made me fell in love again and deeper with the language. In the classes, when the professor introduced the conception of phonetic symbols, the definition of voiced/voiceless sounds, I thought to myself how much I already knew and how that new knowledge would contribute to make me go the extra mile and, as time went by, I realized that my English was actually good. This feature is based on Merril Swain’s comprehensible output (CO) hypothesis which states that learning takes place when a learner encounters a gap in his or her linguistic knowledge of the second language (L2). By noticing this gap, the learner becomes aware of it and may be able to modify his output so that he learns something new about the language

            This same professor taught me for two years. I remember the teacher being very demanding, especially regarding pronunciation and grammar. It seemed tedious at first, however, the teacher focused on USE and MEANING in grammar aspects and how this would influence our oral skills in order to communicate better. This aspect is based on meaningful learning concept:  one of Brown’s guidelines for teaching second language:

a) Meaningful learning: meaningful learning will lead to better long term retention that rote learning. A good example can be found in several content-centered approaches to language teaching.

For pronunciation, I recall that the teacher would give us some texts (In semester ONE, it was about the city of London/ in semester TWO, it was about Aesop’s fables) and we would retell the plot to the teacher. In my opinion, the teacher was very structuralistic, but I loved that because the teacher was very intelligent and prepared: throughout charts/cards/ exhibition (using visual techniques), the teacher would explain about technic expressions (as in found in Phonology). The greatest thing about the teacher was the constant feedback the teacher would give us; thus, eventually mispronunciations were corrected in a subtle way and student would feel very comfortable about the learning process. I remember that, individually, the teacher would comment about our progress throughout the semester, the things we needed to improve and how to achieve this improvement.

            The way this specific teacher acted and behaved influenced me so much because, of all teachers I had, that one was doing exactly what I expected from a teacher. I saw in the teacher a role model and my beliefs started to be molded back then. I thought to myself about what I could do in class to motivate my students, how to pass the knowledge to my pupils. For me, the process of learning/teaching is an exchange and much of that I had from this teacher.

            On the other hand, in college, I had another teacher who was very smart and intelligent, nevertheless, in my opinion, way too rude. I mean, the teacher was an expert with a vast teaching repertoire and plenty of knowledge but, at the end, students would present the seminars the teacher was supposed to present. The way this teacher would provide feedback after each seminar – in front of all students – was terrible for me. The worst part was that, in my seminar, the teacher said that I’d never become a teacher because my pronunciation was terrible. I was being challenged and I accepted it: I proved to the teacher – and to me, as well – that I was capable of being a good professional without being rude or unkind to my students.