All
activities from the beginning of the discipline of English III were performed
in English. First, we worked the concept of a
learning log for a text that the teacher Ana Antonia passed to us and we read
together with our colleagues. That day I did not have a clear idea of the
meaning of learning log, because I sought the meaning literal to the letter and
it wasn't the case. But I recorded something the teacher said "Learning
log is like the firewood for the bonfire." Perhaps the Bonfire of the
phrase meant all that motivates us and the Learning Log would be the strategies
that keeps us motivated in teaching and learning.
I soon saw we would learn something
new this year, something that doesn't follow books, a learning by literacy. I
was anxious about how it would be.
With the "Happiness" poem, we worked the
meanings of sentences. We read and discussed about what the text could be
saying. A text that to the letter was almost impossible to be interpreted, as literally it made no sense.
It was a simple situation of a morning, but
told metaphorically. We had a larger effort that led us to think about what it
could mean. It was interesting.
We
discussed about what makes us feel happy, it wasn't so simple, when the teacher
asked for just one example. We had some
issues such as around the world trips, being with friends, being with family,
having a lot of money, etc. And we explained why our answers. The teacher had
passed some slides to introduce
the topic and we thought much about it.
In classes, I knew a bit of history
of my classmates and friends, how they learned English and how they used to
evaluate themselves. A very cool practice. Very different stories. One of our
classmates said she hated her old teacher because she didn't learn anything, another classmate said she never
studied English before entering college,
another classmate had much contact with the language because of the
opportunities that her father had given her paying for
courses. It was strange to say how I learned. It
wasn't not something hoped. The contact and the practice had only result after a
long time, but I just know that always enjoyed learning other languages. Not just the language, but of the songs, movies,
accent, curiosity in other cultures, of the willingness to travel etc, all this
motivates me.
A
classmate even showed some videos of the singer
Beyoncé and we discussed in class on the meaning of music, clip,
dances, etc. Some of USA culture.
Already working with the text "The Filipino and the drunkard" echoed much in the class especially about personalities. It generated themes such as stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Themes worked in about three classes. We associated the character of the characters to examples of our reality.
Reflections appeared as: "Why do so many
people see countless injustices and do nothing about it, even when there is the
opportunity to help someone in time?", "Why attack someone so
prejudicially?", "Why when you feel
unfairly treated even when there is a better alternative, provide life?",
"How not to judge or how to judge? ".
We think of three ways, in fact, in four ways, as if we'd been in
Filipino's shoes, in shoes of the arrogant drunk, in shoes of those people and how we see every one of that story.
By coincidence, in Brazil, in the
same week that class, a little boy had died, victim of a tiger attack. We
discussed the hypotheses of the father's
recklessness, negligence of the people who filmed, lack of watchfulness, by the
lack of boy's intelligence or disobedience.
My classmates brought several examples and we continued to argue about why
people don't do anything about the injustices even when they are so close and
can prevent a disaster. After all, we started to rewrite the
Filipino and drunk story.
We learned the differences between stereotypes,
prejudice and discrimination. It wasn't a simple question to work with, but the
method of the class became the
content easier to understand. Each of us could in sincerity, expose some
bad stereotype. The sentences were shocking, but really were part of our
reality by the way of thinking of the majority
on a particular group of people. The
teachers introduced us to many types of
groups in English too, for example, I dovetail myself in some groups such as the chocaholics,
adventurous, sleepy, gospel.
Something that caught my attention
were the videos that the teachers passed, very strong. It involved an
experience of a teacher with some
people about discrimination, treating them like most treat the people
considered "inferior" in a society, as in the case of black people,
she adopted the criterion of color of eyes, leading us reflect on things we
don't accept because they are bad, but allow and often we do with people,
because of our selfish way of thinking about inferior or superior race.
I sometimes
forgot that class was in another language. I also suggested that the doubts
were taken of Blog, doubts like, I don't know, "for / to," "should / must / have to" tenses. Because then we would be working
with Greeks and Trojans without exceptions, for that my classmates also feel at
ease. And we kept the Blog activated.
Through the poem 'classifying" we worked with
listening. Each one wrote in a paper about himself/herself, about what they like doing. We had the opportunity
to get to know our classmates. I learned also some new adjectives about kind of beggars like alcoholic
beggars, dirty beggars, crazy, addicted, poor, thirsty, stink, hungry, artist,
barefoot and etc. In pairs, we made a kind of an intertextual text, classifying our friends in the classroom, our
classmates. We read and worked in a text about routine of the people's lives,
life styles in a new point of view, analyzing about the possible topic of the
text and the paragraphs, introduction, development and conclusion and
reflecting on the main idea of each one. One more time, knowing better each one
of us.
The homeless
poem is from an unknown author. The class was
very interesting. We analyzed some social opinions across the reality of
beggars. Preconceptions and prejudices surfaced. The issue wasn't the fact that I
have learned new words and expressions and how to pronounce them or the
pronunciation of them, but
as we were dealing with a
social problem and even with the use of a second language
still some feelings of injustice were aroused in the hearts of the people as a reflection of how
society mistreats beggars.
Often we suffered many injustices and it also becomes unfair for us to take
a stereotypical and prejudiced view of certain groups.
The teacher also took children's books in English and
everyone enjoyed looking at them. I took a book about a story that appeared of terror,
narrated gradually. The phrases were repeated and even without knowing the
words, I could imagine its meaning by the figure. It was cool. We continued
with the class involving texts and expressions.
Looking back, I liked working with
literacy, because I learned the contents and today felt at ease with English.
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