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Date Posted: 08:36:06 06/26/03 Thu
Author: Patrícia de Almeida Neri
Subject: Task 8

1) Write a narrative telling us your learning history. Include your classroom experiences and
all the actions you performed in different contexts in order to learn English.
2) Analyze you learning history according to the communicative principles and tell us if
there were some of its characteristics in your learning experience.
I started learning English at Number One, when I was eleven. I really enjoyed those drills and the teachers. Although the classes were very funny for me at that time, now I can see that it was not communicative. For instance, listening and speaking were not focalized,there were lots of repetition, therefore mistakes were forbidden, mainly pronunciation errors. Grammar was taught inductively, but there were lots of grammar exercises.
I studied there for four years, when I went to CEFET and studied English for specific purpose (Reading). After High School, I wasn’t very sure about what occupation
should I choose. I passed at Newton Paiva in Relações Públicas. I had to stop because I couldn’t pay. During this course, I realize that I should choose another course.
I identified a subject which I really enjoyed. Since High School, I was looking for a course that emphasizes “grammar”, mainly syntax, because it was the subject that I most like. So, I decided to try Letras at UFMG and I passed. Finally I had found out the right course for me.
I chose English first because I always loved this language and also could learn English grammar. In the beginning of the course, I participate of two researches, first about translation and then about teaching. In the second one, I read a lot of theories, wrote summaries and discussed about them with the whole group. This really make me learn English, because we used the language to understand theories and to discuss, I mean, to communicate.
At the same year of this research, I started teaching English in a public school, where I tried to apply everything I was learning in the research, for example, how to teach communicatively to a large class in a regular school and the importance of it. It was very hard, because the apprenticeship during all my life was not communicative. Besides, I loved grammar and I thought teaching English was teaching grammar explicitly. After filming my own class and discussed about it with the group, I changed my mind.
Then I started teaching at CENEX, where I improved my teaching and English. In this way, I learn English every day, because I have to interact with the students and to
research a lot to try to give a good class. There are pair and group works and the learner is the center of the process. Errors are part of learning and other principles of communicative approach. I use the language to communicate and this make me learn more than just with
those drills that I was used to study.
In conclusion, I see that in the beginning, my English learning was very traditional and this influence was being reproduced to my students. Fortunately, after the research that I participated, teaching at CENEX and now with this course, I’ve known the communicative approach and started to reflect about all this. Thus, my process of learning has changed and also my own teaching. I can say that I am really involved with communicative approach and
its principles, for example, I don’t teach grammar explicitly, because it does not work. The
focus is the communication not grammar. Furthermore, I tended to emphasize the structures, now I know that every structure depends on the context and meaning.

Patrícia Neri

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