In my 9 years of experience, people have come and asked me thousands of questions of how they could improve their skills on the language, how they could overcome their difficulties and sometimes, how to learn in weeks or months, something that took me years.
Some of those questions were asked in agony and despair, what made me feel really sad.
Well, it kept me thinking of the way things happened to me. It reminded me of days when I was a student and sometimes wondered if I would EVER be as fluent as the teacher I was having then.
I kept seeing those actors in movies speaking English and, wondered if I'd also speak that way.
During those years, one of my biggest challenges was, putting in practice everything I learned in classes, having in mind that my father had no money to send me to a trip to the States and, I had no one to talk to out of school.
Things started to change when I made a promise to myself: "I would bring the United States of America back to my house". It sounds weird, but I decided to have my own "exchange program" without leaving the country.
That would be possible through a routine of watching, reading, studying, watching again, listening, writing ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY in English.
We're talking the NINETIES here, so that means I didn't have as much as you guys do today, as far as technology is concerned. There were no IPODS, IPHONES, PODCASTS, INTERNET RESOURCES with all those data that makes the process even easier and more entertaining.
I don't remember exactly when I realized I already spoke English. Things happened naturally as soon as I decided to engage myself on that. I knew that I had to USE MY ENGLISH FOR OTHER PURPOSES IN LIFE, OTHER THAN ONLY INSIDE AN ENGLISH CLASS.
That's exaclty what happens in an English-speaking country, you wake up, think, write, go out, watch tv, read the paper or magazines in English. This way, the frequency you learn new words and review others increase.
This way, whenever you come across a conference call, a job interview, a talk to you foreign boss, everything will sound so simple and natural, butterflies on your stomach will sound as past as Abraham Lincoln.
Some of those questions were asked in agony and despair, what made me feel really sad.
Well, it kept me thinking of the way things happened to me. It reminded me of days when I was a student and sometimes wondered if I would EVER be as fluent as the teacher I was having then.
I kept seeing those actors in movies speaking English and, wondered if I'd also speak that way.
During those years, one of my biggest challenges was, putting in practice everything I learned in classes, having in mind that my father had no money to send me to a trip to the States and, I had no one to talk to out of school.
Things started to change when I made a promise to myself: "I would bring the United States of America back to my house". It sounds weird, but I decided to have my own "exchange program" without leaving the country.
That would be possible through a routine of watching, reading, studying, watching again, listening, writing ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY in English.
We're talking the NINETIES here, so that means I didn't have as much as you guys do today, as far as technology is concerned. There were no IPODS, IPHONES, PODCASTS, INTERNET RESOURCES with all those data that makes the process even easier and more entertaining.
I don't remember exactly when I realized I already spoke English. Things happened naturally as soon as I decided to engage myself on that. I knew that I had to USE MY ENGLISH FOR OTHER PURPOSES IN LIFE, OTHER THAN ONLY INSIDE AN ENGLISH CLASS.
That's exaclty what happens in an English-speaking country, you wake up, think, write, go out, watch tv, read the paper or magazines in English. This way, the frequency you learn new words and review others increase.
This way, whenever you come across a conference call, a job interview, a talk to you foreign boss, everything will sound so simple and natural, butterflies on your stomach will sound as past as Abraham Lincoln.
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