Leaving our comfort zone

This Saturday it was time to analyse what the previous module meant for us. Studying "Abordagens no Ensino de Línguas e Preparo de Material Didático" in just 40 hours seemed quite an impossible challenge. In one of our next posts we are going to take you on a guided tour of our thoughts on these last few weeks. One thing I can tell you in advance is that we all left our comfort zones at one point or another.
     With this in mind, here is a nice excerpt of a post from Jeremy Harmer's blog, an author that was mentioned today in class.

Of fingernails, gliders, guitars and glue – a new ZPD?
by Jeremy Harmer

"In a sense all teachers leave the comfort zone every time they meet a new class or teach a brand new lesson, but deciding to do those shows in South America (I hope you are following!) seemed a little more than that. A real risk. An exciting and terrifying risk."

(click to read the complete post)

Jeremy Harmer is a teacher, teacher trainer and author of more than 20 books HeJeremy also loves music and, more recently, he's become a fan of the sites Twitter and Second Life.

Generations Chart

     If you have been teaching for some time, you have probably crossed paths with one of the generations below. It is important to know their characteristics, strong suits and preferences to design a better class plan. Do you agree with the information below? [click on the image to read]

About me

    Hi, everybody!

   Well my name is Mariana Malaquias, I'm 28 years old, I was born in São Paulo and I have one younger brother. I've been married for almost 6 years and now I'm living in Cotia and pregnant of my first baby boy Davi.

    I studied at the same private school since I was a baby until the first year of high school and there I used to spend all day long most of the days because my parents worked a lot from 8 to 8 and sometimes more than this. There were some days that the school had already closed and they couldn't arrive before because of work, so the school's secretary (that was a really sweet woman) used to take me and my brother to her house that was near school until my parents arrive. When I was in the first year of high school I had to move to a public school because my parents were having financial problems. I've never felt sad about those situations because my parents were and are wonderful, role models I always wanted to follow and were always present in my school life. Most of what I am nowadays I owe them.

    Well, since I was a child I have shown my passion to English and I always inteded to work with it and I used to learn the language faster than the others in my class.

    I've given classes at Yazigi Morumbi for 2 years, a really nice school with an awesome environment, where I do my best and work with pleasure. Before Yazigi I worked at Skill for 6 months.

    In my opinion giving classes is a gift that should be more valued by the people in general. There is nothing more rewarding than to know that you can change the life of bunches of people with your knowledge and to hear a "Thank you teacher" in the end of the semester. It's the world's nicest thing to know that my knowledge can improve people's lives, that's why I don't intend to stop so soon. I love my work.

     I am Sandra Costa and I was born in São Paulo in 1957. Although graduated as German Translator and Interpreter at Unibero in 1983, I have been an English private teacher for 21 years now.

     My parents met very young at the age of 7 at their primary school, got married at 21 and I was born when they were 22. I had a sister, who died in 1981 and I have a little brother five years younger than me. My parents came from very poor families and had to leave school earlier in order to work to improve their income. So, I was born in a very simple place and did my primary school at SESI, located inside a factory near our house.

     I have learnt to work hard since the beginning. I helped them at their pub and restaurant, which was opened 364 days a year. My father has always been an entrepreneur and when I was ten our financial situation was much better. No sooner had we moved to Santo André in 1967, I started studying at a Catholic school - Instituto Coração de Jesus, which made me really interested in English. As soon as I finished High School, I was sent to Saint Clare's Hall in Oxford then later I studied at Trinity Language School in London.

     Back to Brazil I started working as a secretary in an import and export company. Later I worked at my father's factory. In 1980 I got a job in an international airline company - Cruzeiro do Sul, where I met my husband, who worked for Varig. I left the airline company in 1988, when Iwas invited to work as the General Consul's secretary at the General Consulate of Mexico in São Paulo. Two years later, we moved to Granja Vianna, where we still live. I have been a private teacher since then.

     Now that my both children are married, I have decided to go back to university and started an Advanced English Sutdies further degree course at Unibero - Anhanguera Educacional, which has been an incredibly suprising experience, not only for the quality of its professors, but also for the possibility to interact with other youger professionals so enthusiastic and dedicated in their careers.

Being an English Teacher

     Hello, guys! I'm Mariana Chiarion and I'm going to tell you a little about myself. I was born in Bragança Paulista, S.P., first of two children. Since I was nine, I've been interested in English language.
     Being an English teacher has happened in my life, actually, it was not my first option. As I was saying, since I was nine, I've studied English and I've loved it!
     When I graduated from high school, I satrted my undergration course in languages and translation at Centro Universitário Ibero-Americano. In 2005, as soon as I'd finished my undergratuation course I went to England and I spent seven months there.
     When I came back to Brazil, I started to look for a job as a bilingual secretary in São Paulo. I couldn't find anything. So, I went back to Bragança and found a job as an English teacher. I really fell in love with teaching! In this first job I met my husband, who is also a teacher. I can say that I've always been surrounded by teachrs: mother, aunts, husband, sister-in-law, friends.
     It's very important to realize that being an English teacher requires lots of studies, daily studies, we, teachers, must be updated, we can't stop studying. That´s why I've decided to take a graduation course at Anhanguera.
     I'm currently teaching English for the employess from Unique Garden Hotel & Spa, and I also teach in an English Language Center in Bragança.

     I'm very happy for sharing information with you!
     Thanks for reading us!

First introductions

It's now time to present ourselves to you. In the next few posts we are going to say who we are, what our academic, professional and personal interests are and why we chose this specialization course.

    I'm Paula Carnasciali, born and raised in Osasco, SP, and first of five children. Things around the house often were a controlled mess, but my siblings and I were always surrounded by educators: my mom, aunts and older cousins, all public school teachers, helped us with Math assignments, Portuguese compositions and, most especially, instilled in us the love for books. 

    Becoming a teacher, though, was not so natural a process for me, and I just got my degree in 2008, at the age of 31, thanks to a full scholarship offered by Anhanguera Educacional Osasco, then called Faculdade Integração Zona Oeste.

    The learning process at FIZO was increadibly improved by fantastic educators, who were focused on interdisciplinarity, and who helped us interlace theory and practice in a seemingly effortless way. Besides that, I had the opportunity to meet great people there - true poets, really - who made the experience extra special, and later became my great friends.

    As a final college challenge, some of us had our ENADE evaluation (national performance exam conducted by MEC), and I obtained first place in the 2008 edition, as a undergraduate student of Letras. I was rewarded with this graduate specialization at Centro Universitário Anhanguera de São Paulo – Unidade Brigadeiro, and I hope to use our discussions here to write an article that will be of great value to my teaching praxis.

I am currently an English teacher at CNA Osasco Centro, working with learners with ages ranging from 10 to 50, of all levels. It has been a great joy being around them; if there is one thing I wish for everyone is finding a job that makes you excited and proud (and pays the bills, of course). As part of the MTV generation and daughter and sister of IT professionals, I am also interested in technolgy, Internet, gadgets, music and comics. As my Twitter profile says, I am a nerd and artist wannabe. I have made some playful attempts in writing (my numerous personal journals can attest to that), painting (our house is filled with family 'art') and even singing (OK, dreadful attempt). My next one will probably be dancing, so watch out!

Abordagens no Ensino de Línguas

That is the topic of this module, guided by professor Fabrício Ono. Once again we discussed the kind of learner we are dealing with: the Millennials: We All Want to Be Young (leg) - Geração Y, Millennials (video)

Last Saturday, we had an overview of language teaching methodologies. If you want to read more, here is one by Englishraven.com
http://www.englishraven.com/method_overview.html

And last but not least, we discussed this module's WebQuest. It will be divided in two parts: the creation of a blog and the creation of a collaborative text on Google Docs. Are you familiar with these tools?



More information about blogs on Blogger
http://www.youtube.com/user/BloggerHelp



Google Docs Tour
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/tour1.html

How to Use Google Documents: Video Series | eHow.com
http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_114_use-google-documents.html

How to Use Google Documents: Overview of User Interface (video)
http://youtu.be/t6AzljgxNi4