My Autobiography

My first experiences with the English language started when I was 11 years old, when I started to study English in the fifth grade. I remember that I was very anxious and felt scared, as my all classmates before the first English class. The Principal came before the English teacher to calm us down, she said we did not need to be afraid of English and that “everything is gonna be okay”. As she said, it was really simple and I liked that a lot. The first class ended and the English Language had not scared me anymore. That demystification about the subject and the idiom contributed to my success in learning of that L2.

I remember that in elementary School I always had good grades in English, I was praised by the teacher and asked by colleagues. But I felt that this was not enough and it was very easy. During this time I was able to learn a little vocabulary and some simple grammatical structures, and as I had already studied by other means, I needed to move on to something more challenging. I can say that in this period, there was nothing of the behaviorist perspective in my acquisition process, because there was no imitation and few repetitions. I agree that the Innatist perspective can explain this initial phase of acquisition, personally I believe in the theory of universal grammar and I see that it can explain many steps of my L2 acquisition process.

One day when I was 13, I heard my older sister having a conversation with my mother about the importance of speaking English, that talk motivate me a lot and I became more curious about the Language and started to read the English-portuguese dictionary and to study. I stayed hours reading the words in English and its meanings. I liked to play with the dictionary by finding out how Portuguese words were translated into English. It was something pleasant and I did without obligation, so I think I learned significant vocabulary that way. At this stage of learning I think that I have an individual difference to most of my classmates at school, I was motivated to learn English, and I already had some of my own learning styles which were my favorite means of learning the language. (LIGHTBOWN & SPADA 2013). I was motivated in the classroom, because I was always impressing the teachers and getting compliments, even the other students liked to consult me when they did not know the meaning of any word in English.

Unfortunately the public school was already suffering from reduced English classes, unmotivated teachers, and other typical problems that negatively impacted not only my own but all the students' performance. My family has never been able to invest in my learning. I think these factors hindered my learning process.

Another remarkable factor that influenced my English learning process happened when I took a bunch of books from the dumpster of a private school that was on the street of my house. Among those books was a dirty old book with the following title: “Talk in English in fifteen days”, I really enjoyed reading that book multiple times, because it was organized in a simple way: The sentence in English, after that the way I should pronounce the words and one line below there was the translation to Portuguese. I remember that this book helped me a lot with the pronunciation of the words, unfortunately I could not use these sentences in any situation, but I could learn a little more about pronunciation...

I consider my most effective experience in learning English happened by playing video games, principally RPGs. RPG games set in the middle ages involving magic stories and warriors like Dungeons and Dragons are my favorite pastimes. I spend the most part of my gamer life playing the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) World of Warcraft. These types of games involve many communication dynamics, group work and significant reading, allied to the fact that the game holds 100% of a player's attention, the game become a powerful way to immerse yourself in the world of the English language. 

I can say that I had a good experience with English in the school and by myself. I realized that could speak English when I started to interact with people from other countries while playing games or surfing the net. When reading stories from people who learned English through the internet I decided that this was possible. My strategies consisted in keep playing games always in English, never translated. I always looked for to read and to watch content on ESL, a little later I decided to study English in the university. At this stage I was discovering new ways of learning from different types of input, and I was already developing some beliefs about learning English and how I could acquire it. I saw how my English developed rapidly just by being in touch with games and the internet and was more confident, since I was already experiencing some real communication situations.

I chose to study Letras because I had free time and because I knew that I could improve my English and thus improve my chances of finding good jobs, it was not my goal to work as an English teacher because I had a very negative view of I worked in a school surrounded by teachers also because I was already a graduate in computer science.

The course of letters is very useful for me, I feel that my learning has improved a lot. All my prior knowledge has been organized and structured and I am developing other skills like writing and speaking. Much of what I have learned here is broadening my horizons and I feel that I can even practice the profession of English teacher more safely. In this new stage of my learning I identify more with the cognitive and connectionist theories of second language acquisition. I realize that the more exposed I am to input and learn situations faster, this is in line with the hypothesis of connectionism that when connections are strengthened through input the acquisition happens. Maybe because the university has made me remodel and organize my prior knowledge, or maybe because these theories are very familiar to me, for having studied computing.

I consider myself a good language learner because I always looked for new ways to improve it. I think I need to be more organized and committed in my learning process. Or thinking about it, I think it's time to try out real and more immersive situations, like spending time abroad.

Think about my autobiography makes me feel proud about my performance and that I have to study hard to achieve my goals. If I have the opportunity I would create an strategy to teach my students how to learn english by themselves through the games and internet.