One year down, three more to go

The last week of this semester has finally arrived. I'm so nervous about the final tests and papers, but I hope everything is going to end just fine. I'm happy - because I'm sure I learned a lot this semester! It was a challenge - I learned difficult things, I volunteered as an English Teacher, I studied French... I know I did a good job, after all. It was worth it!

New challenges will certainly have to be faced next year - that's what the university experience is all about!

After thinking about my experience as an English student, I came to the conclusion that the school where I studied based its teaching method in the Communicative approach. Many friends of mine say they learned English with the Audio-Lingual Method, though.
Last week I had the opportunity to talk about this method – which I studied and researched about. The Audio-Lingual method is an oral-based approach that incorporated principles from behavioral psychology. It was believed that the best way to learn a second language was through conditioning – “helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement”. The teacher is allowed to use only the target language in the classroom (actions and pictures are also used to show meaning). He/she uses drills to help the students learn the language patterns. Students are expected to repeat sentences over and over – when they mispronounce something, the teacher is supposed to correct right away. If they pronounce the sentence correctly, the teacher says “very good” or “great” – by doing so correct habits can be developed. The sentences are not the same – difficulty increases during the class, since the teacher conducts transformation and question-and-answer drills. Vocabulary is limited – the most important function of this method is to provide the students with new linguistic patterns. It is believed that vocabulary can be learned afterwards. There are no grammar rules; “grammatical points are taught through examples and drills”. Written work is limited – speech is believed to be the most important skill in a language. Other skills are also taught, in an order that is like the one we usually learn a first language: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Culture is also taught through dialogs which describe daily activities, everyday behavior, etc.
It’s important to mention that there is no “best method or approach” for learning a second language. After all, we must take into consideration that individuals are very different and, as a consequence, methods will work differently with each person. Besides, most schools are usually a mix of different approaches: every method has interesting and useful ideas that can be used effectively.

Having learned about second language acquisition theories, now I can reflect about my experience of an ESL (English as a second language) student and teacher. The input, interaction and output theory, for example, made me think about the negotiation processes for acquiring meaning. I realized that, as a teacher, sometimes I don’t use these processes as much as I could – and if I did that, my students’ learning would probably improve. Last class, when we discussed about some hypothetical situations involving SLA, we agreed that input is extremely necessary – every single theory considers it an important part of acquisition. In this sense, I believe my experience as an English student was very positive: my teachers used to advise me to watch movies, listen to music and read books in English. I learned a lot from that – even more than what I learned in class, I dare to say. The Monitor Theory explained things I had always believed to be true – although I couldn’t explain why or how it happened. The Monitor hypothesis, which is a part of the Monitor Theory, says that second language speakers monitor their production all the time. I think it always happens to me: I’m always asking myself “are you sure this is correct?”, “what’s the best way to say that?”, etc. In conclusion, this module of Applied Linguistics was very important to me, since it gave me theoretical support for my practices as a teacher and also as a student. In addition to that, I was able to reflect about my actions and try to improve them.

I finally presented my paper on “Rimbaud” (a French poet) at my Poetry Class. I was feeling so nervous and so insecure, but I think I got pretty confident about myself during the explanation. It`s always like that: I’m too anxious, too worried… But there’s always a happy ending (fortunately!). I was talking to a friend and she told me I probably improved my speech because of my experience as a teacher. I agree: I still remember the first day of class. I was so scared with all those students! Now it feels like most of them are my friends.
This week I also spouted a poem written by “Mário Quintana”. It was very nice and I knew it entirely by heart. Here it goes:

Recordo ainda

Recordo ainda... e nada mais me importa...
Aqueles dias de uma luz tão mansa
Que me deixavam, sempre, de lembrança,
Algum brinquedo novo à minha porta...

Mas veio um vento de Desesperança
Soprando cinzas pela noite morta!
E eu pendurei na galharia torta
Todos os meus brinquedos de criança...

Estrada afora após segui... Mas, aí,
Embora idade e senso eu aparente
Não vos iludais o velho que aqui vai:

Eu quero os meus brinquedos novamente!
Sou um pobre menino... acreditai!...
Que envelheceu, um dia, de repente!...


Best,

Happy Halloween!

I can’t believe it’s already Halloween! It means the semester is about to be over – we have only about one month left. In fact, it makes me happy and sad at the same time. It’s great to rest, have the opportunity to travel and read things I’ve really wanted to (but never had enough time to). Although, I am sure I will miss all these papers I am supposed to write, these classes I am supposed to go to… After all, despite my “freaking out” moments, I love my life as a university student!
Last week was so busy: I had lots of readings to do and, consequently, time went by so quickly. On Thursday I went to a lecture on “An experience of translation”, with a man who had the opportunity to translate a book by “Borges”, a very famous and important writer. It was really interesting – since the audience had the opportunity to talk to him, asking questions, making comments, exchanging points of view, etc.
On Friday we discussed about the event we are organizing for the end of November. It’s going to be about “Literature and Childhood” – there will be three lecturers and we (“Children’s Literature students) will have to present our research papers. As I have already said, I am going to write about “A Series of Unfortunate Events”! I think it’s going to be really interesting! (At least I hope so!)
That’s all for now. I gotta go – my books are waiting. And since it’s a beautiful sunny day (which has been rare here in Florianópolis), I intend to go out today. After this busy week, I deserve it, don’t I?

After a very busy week, I am kind of tired. The 7th SEPEX (“Semana de Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão”) started on Wednesday at UFSC, and I had a lot to do. I subscribed to two courses: “A linguagem nas histórias em quadrinhos: a nona arte” and “O lúdico como ferramenta nas aulas de Língua Estrangeira”. Each course took four hours, and I had the opportunity to learn very interesting things. As last semester I wrote a paper about Dom Quixote’s adaptations to comic books, I thought that taking a course about “HQs” would be a very nice idea. Also, I enjoyed the other course, since I will be able to use many of the ideas in my volunteer work as an English teacher. After all, I am very concerned about preparing fun and enthusiastic classes – I want my students to have the desire for learning!
This week I also had the opportunity to discuss my essay with Teacher Raquel. She gave me very nice tips and ideas so that I could improve my writing. I’m so happy about “constructing my paths towards academic sophistication”!

This week officially started only on Tuesday, so I had more time to rest and specially to write my essay about “Applied Linguistics throughout time”. I really hope it is good enough! So, my week at university started with some classes about Krashen’s Monitor theory (it’s a Second Language Acquisition – ESL – theory), and it was really interesting because we had the opportunity to exchange points of view and practice our English, specially in the class we had on Thursday. We continued studying Poetry and it is really nice! Now we can identify poetry syllables, which are different from the grammar ones.I also had a review in my French class, since we are going to have a test on Tuesday! I’ll have to spend my weekend studying…
I’m so excited about the coming days – I’m going to take some very interesting courses at SEPEX. But I’ll talk about them next week…
XOXO