March 11, 2014           

The Challenge of Learning English

            Growing up, I preferred French instead of English language. When I was a child, my dream was to speak French and to live in Paris. But like John Green said, "The world is not a wish-granting factory." Since August 2013, I have been learning English in the United States. I came to New Orleans, Louisiana, to participate in an exchange program, so I must learn English as soon as possible. I arrived here without speaking English, so imagine how it seems a little nerve-racking to me. New country, new culture, new people, new language. Challenge accepted. Let's get started.

            On the first week in my new university, we had a meeting with our future professors. They introduced themselves and explained about the English Program. Thankfully there was an interpreter on this day. Only because of this I am now able to explain what they were talking about. On August 26, my English classes started. I was a little worried, but still positive. I was enrolled in four classes: Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing, Drama for Pronunciation, and Cultural Enrichment.

            During the first classes I had difficulties understanding what the teachers said. I could understand the main idea of the classes, but I missed a lot of words. American people speak so fast, and they also do not pronounce the entire word. In Portuguese we pronounce every letter of the word. I thought to myself: "What is the purpose of the letter in a word, if we do not pronounce it?"

            In classes I could not speak Portuguese with my classmates. This was a good rule because we needed to practice our English, but sometimes it was hard to follow. Once in Speaking class we were debating about ET, and the discussion ended in Portuguese because the groups could not agree with each other. To help me learn English faster, at home I watched movies and series with subtitles in English, and I also started to read books in English. In the beginning it was hard, but in the course of time, I did not need to translate a lot of words to understand what I was reading about.

            About two months later, my English was improving. I could better understand and formulate sentences that were not just "I am fine and you" or "I am sorry, I do not speak English very well" as it was before. Almost every day I had homework to do, essays to write, and tongue twisters to memorize. At the end of the semester, I had exhaustive final tests and a presentation to present. I have to say that I definitely was not born to be an actress. On every rehearsal, I thought: "OMG! I need get out of here. I do not want to be an actress". But I needed to do this because my grades depended it. I knew that it was good for improvement the of my English, so with a lot of effort and shame, I did it. Thereby, four months later, my first period of English classes was finished.

            In this current semester I am continuing studying English. Now my English is much better than when I arrived here. I still have problems in Speaking and Writing mainly, but I am working on this, and I believe that with more effort and study I will soon reach my goal. Unlike before, I like the English language very much. English is no longer a terrible monster that frightens me. Nowadays, it sounds like a beautiful and simple language to me.

 Marília Silva