Learning English is definitely FUN!

Last Friday I had a great time with Lígia Gava & Galaor Bortoletto. We met at 9p.m. and decided to play SCRABBLE.

It was my first time, and I couldn’t imagine how good, interesting, genial, fantastic, and awesome it is. We spent over 6 hours playing this game that’s similar to a crossword puzzle in the format of board game, and I can tell you that it’s a great exercise to learn English. 

At first, it seems a very complex game, but then you see how easy and enjoyable it is. Besides practicing, I learned new words.

Another advantage is that you can play alone, or with the maximum of 4 people, which makes the game much funnier. 

To play the game you only need a nice vocabulary and cleverness to make the right moves.

Here are the general instructions:

1.   Agree on a dictionary to use in case of a challenge.

2.   Put all of the lettered tiles face down in the lid of the box and shuffle them.

3.   Draw seven tiles and place them on your rack.

4.   Combine two or more letters to form a word on the board. Begin the word on the red star square.

5.   Remember that diagonal words are not permitted.

6.   Add up the total score for the word.

7.   Draw the same number of tiles that you just played and put them on your rack.

8.   Alternate turns making words.

9.   Keep in mind that new words must use one of the letters already on the board.

10. Don't use words that are always capitalized, abbreviations, or words requiring a hyphen or apostrophe.

11. Win the game by achieving the highest total score after all of the tiles are used. If you have tiles left that you couldn't put on the board, you have to subtract the value of each one from your score.

Read more: How to Play Scrabble | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_11302_play-scrabble.html#ixzz1RwqtiibJ

Check the video out and see how nice it can be!

Do you know what is nicer? There are different editions and also in different languages. What are you waiting to buy one and have a lot of fun with your dudes? MOVE!

And now, a little of our own production! 

Do you know any other game?! Tell us! 

Are You an English Speaker?

Well, if you can read this post you’re probably an English speaker. If not fluent, you may know how important it is to speak this language nowadays. But I’d like to propose a reflection about 3 issues concerning English:

1. Do you have any idea about how many countries in the world have English as the official language?

2. Do you know that there are different English accents?

3. Have you ever reflected about the purposes why Brazilians should learn English?

First, this video (with a funny song) will show you 30 countries in our globe where people have English as their first language.

Get more about it here! http://englishenglish.com/english_facts_3.htm 

Secondly, because there are some many different countries that have English as their mother language, English is spoken with different accents worldwide. 

ACCENT: the way in which people in a particular area, country or social group pronounce words (Cambridge Dictionary).

Thus, do not get frustrated if you think you don’t understand a word when you land in one of these countries or even if native people seem not to understand a word of what you’re saying. Calm down, breath, and ask them to repeat slowly or do it if someone doesn’t understand you. Humans tend to try to explain the same things differently automatically, so everybody is safe, just DO NOT PANIC!

Finally, why should people learn English in Brazil? I could list thousands of reasons, but here are some:

Get access to knowledge – great sources of knowledge are mostly published in English. So if you want to get smarter, you’ve got to read foreign productions.

Communicate with people – great people speak English. Yes, influent people who want to be connected with other people around the world need to speak English. Good network? You’d rather speak English.

Push your career forward – in Brazil like in other countries where English is not the official language, speaking this language is essential to be part of any companies or even to achieve higher positions inside the one where you work. In some cases, it’s essential that you speak English to keep your own position.

Enjoy art like never before – a great number of really good TV productions, for instance, is in English. Therefore, having a good knowledge of the English language is crucial to understand them. The same apply to books and music.

English is easy to learn – compared to Portuguese, English has very simple structures, although its pronunciation has great differences compared to our language.

Get satisfaction – learning English is not status in our society anymore. It’s an important need. However, when we become able to understand and communicate in this second language, we feel a wonderful satisfaction.

 

Get more about it here! http://www.antimoon.com/other/whylearn.htm

Vacation Time!

Isso aê galera, as férias chegaram! Finalmente. A todos os meus alunos, quero deixar bem claro que ter passado este semestre com vocês foi um grande prazer. Mais que isto, com vocês aprendi, vi, observei, analisei, conheci, cresci, vivi. Espero ter contribuído de alguma forma com vocês da mesma forma que vocês me fizeram crescer.

Eu gosto bastante das férias (embora quem pare são somente vocês). No entanto, o que eu mais gosto mesmo é da expectativa que cresce em relação ao próximo semestre  e de tudo que vem de novo.

Cá estão algumas das peças que tornaram meu semestre algo formidável.

Renato, Sofia, Lais, Paula e Julia - Magic Links I

Felipe, Giordano, Ana, Rafa, Raíssa, Maria e Lê - CEP2

Roldão, Vera, Renan, Gú, Kátia e Macedo - MYP3

José Miguel, Isa, Sofia, Guibas - Yteen 1

Gabriel, Pitta, Mateus, Gabriel e Gú - CEP2

Paulinho, Leila, Lí e Rê - O melhor STAFF

 E agora, o curso que inovou e badalou o Yázigi Piracicaba esse semestre. Começou com uma idéia humilde, com poucas pessoas, temas meio inseguros, mas superou as expectativas. As Conversation Classes 101 conseguiu juntar o que tem de muito bom na escola. Que sirva de motivação para outras jóias raras.

Meu obrigado especial!

Obrigado pelo ótimo semestre e fiquem ligados aqui!

Interesting Famous CEP3 People

Hi everyone. Today I'll have the pleasure to introduce some celebrities from Yázigi Piracicaba.

They are six girls full of energy, emotion, and joy. Moreover, they are eager to learn English, what makes me very happy. At the beginning of the semester there were 2 boys in this CEP3 group, but throughout the semester they were transferred for personal reasons, and then the girls decided to shine more than ever before.

The proposed activity was to write a biography about them. Look now the result of their inner view and how they see themselves.

Juliana Bosqueiro was born in 1988, in Campinas. She lived in Piracicaba until 6 years old and nowadays she lives in Saltinho, a little boring town. She would really like to move to Piracicaba again.Since her childhood, she was a very creative person with great imagination. She loves music (ROCK AND ROLL!), movies and design. Juliana is graduated in marketing and now she is studying graphic design. She believes that graphic design is better for her. Actually, she doesn’t like to talk about herself… So that's all!

 

Mariele Santos was born in 1990. She is the last daughter of the couple Antonio e Renata. She moved to Vila Industrial when was three years old and she is living there until today. The sisters, Michele, Mariane and her have spent the childhood playing dolls and riding their bikes. When she was fourteen years old, she started having drama classes and one year later, the group won a prize as “Revelation Group” in a festival in Sumaré. In 2006 she changed groups and did “Don’t want to talk about this…” In the same year she began to work and met her boyfriend. Three years later she finished college and received a degree in Logistics. She continues her successful career at Kraide Engenharia as a receptionist until today. Nowadays, she is helping her boyfriend with his magician career and studying English.

Natália Bombo was born in Piracicaba on August 08^th, 1993. In 2004, she started practicing gymnastic, a sport that became a passion. She attended many competitions and she has even won some medals. She was very good in all apparatus, but her best was table jump. When she was 15 years old a bad thing happened: her father died.When she finished school, she didn’t know what to do with her professional life and chose to attend an accounting course at college, already working in the financial sector of a company. Nowadays, she is in the second semester, working hard and studying English to be a good accountant.

Débora Corrocher is a girl. She’s 25 years old. She’s from Brazil and lives in Piracicaba – SP. She likes to surf on the internet, to travel, to go shopping, to work, etc…and doesn’t like to play soccer. She is a physiotherapist, graduated by Unimep. She loves her profession, works hard and takes advantage on weekends to rest. She does not like English, but she knows that nowadays it is essential. Her birthday is on February 13^th and her sign is Aquarius. She’s sometimes impatient, sentimental, anxious, emotional, hardworking, shy, reliable, friendly, honest, careful, etc….

 

Fabiana Barrios was born in 1988, in Piracicaba, at Santa Casa. She was a beautiful blond girl. When she was a child, she studied at Recanto do Castelinho and since that time, people said “this girl is going to be journalist”. When she was 8 years old something sad happened, her sister died. Many years later, she went to Educare school, and became known because of being talkative. In her prom, she was the speaker, and touched people. In the end of high school, she didn’t know what to do with her professional life, and she joined the faculty of geography, but she thought “it isn't my life” and dropped college. Only in 2010 she found out journalism was her life. In the same year, her father died. And now she's studying journalism at Unimep. And she's going to be a great journalist, fluent in English.

 

This is Erica Possebom. She was born in 1982, in Piracicaba. She´s graduated in Administration at EEP and nowadays she is working at ArcelorMittal. She loves animals and she´s helping an NGO called “Vira Lata Vira Vida”. Now, she is part of a social work with children. In December for example, she gives gifts for poor children. Nowadays, she´s collecting coats for poor people.

What else could I say about them?! AWESOME! These girls are really good! Thank you for the great semester together. 

Teacher Pedro

Let's learn more!

Teaching English requires not only having a nice technique and dynamism, but also having a huge knowledge of vocabulary and expressions like idioms, for instance. Some students sometimes doubt teachers’ capacity if they once in a while don’t know how to say a word in English. But, do you know everything in your mother language?  I’ve studied a very interesting book (How do you say it in english?) which teaches interesting words and expressions from Portuguese to English. I've selected some of them, so, enjoy them!

Do you know any other word, expression, or idiom!? Contribute!!

Teacher Pedro POR Pedro Euzébio Brandão

Nasci em Iracemápolis-SP em 1986 e lá vivi até 2005. Comecei o curso de Letras Licenciatura em Inglês na UNIMEP (Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba) em 2005, onde tive o prazer de experimentar as delícias e as amarguras da profissão que escolhi para vida: professor de inglês. Mudei-me para Piracicaba em 2006 para facilitar os estudos e também para ter mais oportunidades de trabalhar como professor de inglês. Passei então a experimentar as aventuras e desventuras de morar sozinho, desbravando meus medos e me conhecendo melhor a cada minuto. 

Ainda na faculdade conheci pessoas (mestres, palestrantes e colegas de classe) que me inspiraram e ainda inspiram em tudo que sou e/ ou não quero ser enquanto professor de língua estrangeira. Foi sem dúvidas o melhor dos momentos da minha vida, pois foi quando comecei a ver que o mundo era muito maior do que pensava. 

Conjuntamente com os estudos estava a profissão. Comecei a trabalhar na SYSTEM Idiomas também em Piracicaba em 2006. Esta sim me deu muita base e só fez confirmar que eu estava na direção certa. Ser professor nesta escola (que hoje infelizmente não existe mais) construiu as bases mais sólidas que um professor de 20 anos poderia ter. Conheci pessoas com conhecimento imensurável que como bons colegas de trabalho tiveram o prazer e a paciência de me ensinar e educar para que eu pudesse viver no mundo da educação. Experimentei também a área dos negócios me associando à instituição em 2008 e me dedicando à coordenação do curso SYSTEMIC (English as a Medium of Instruction for Children), que é a melhor metodologia bilíngüe para crianças que eu já conheci em toda minha vida. Foi então que decidi subir mais um degrau.

No final de 2008 eu me formava na universidade e me desligava da sociedade da SYSTEM para realizar um sonho: ir para os Estados Unidos da América.! Através de uma parceria da UNIMEP com a Marietta College (Marietta, Ohio-U.S.A), pude estudar por 4 meses (correspondente a um semestre letivo no Brasil) e experimentar o que eu posso chamar de maior emoção que já tive até agora. Aprendi demais (também tive que me esforçar muito mais que no Brasil), conheci professores fantásticos e amigos que cultivarei por toda minha vida. Tive o prazer de conhecer Nova York antes de regressar ao Brasil. Isso foi fechar a viagem com chave de ouro, sem dúvidas.

Voltei para o Brasil em maio de 2009, quanto tive o prazer de começar a trabalhar onde estou hoje: Yázigi Piracicaba. Como nunca tive problemas para me relacionar com pessoas novas, logo reconheci que estava entre pessoas realmente interessadas por educação e que levam o ensino e o professor de inglês muito a sério. Decidi fazer parte desta escola que acredita muito em qualidade de ensino de línguas, em indivíduos que querem verdadeiramente aprender, que acredita nos professores como pessoas cheias e não como tabulas rasas (ZINK, C. 2011). 

Para concluir, em 2011 voltei a estudar depois de 2 anos. Nada fácil, mas me tornei um aluno especial do mestrado do IEL-UNICAMP (Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem-UNICAMP), e só fiz aumentar o meu desejo por saber. Conheci pessoas ótimas. Espero agora poder entrar definitivamente para o mestrado e colaborar com a educação e o ensino de língua inglesa no Brasil.

Bem vindos ao meu blog!

Olá galera, tudo bem?

Bom, estava eu pensando sobre a importância de se ter um BLOG sendo um professor de inglês e as vantagens são muitas. Depois de ter refletido bastante e ter entrado em contato com alguns amigos, optei por criar este portal.

Os objetivos são vários, como estar mais em contato com alunos, ex-alunos, outros professores, críticos e logicamente amigos. 

Sempre fui do tipo de professor que gosta de explorar o que os alunos têm de melhor. Sou um grande admirador do bom humor e da criatividade, o que torna minha profissão muito mais prazerosa, mas também desafiadora. No entanto, penso ser positivo exibir aqui alguns dos trabalhos (sejam estes realizados dentro ou fora da sala) dos alunos para que outras pessoas possam avaliar, comentar, elogiar, criticar, etc. Enfim, o foco aqui não é só permitir um real crescimento dos alunos no que se trata de exposição de suas produções e automaticamente do conhecimento, mas também no meu crescimento profissional, podendo dar seguimento ou desenvolver novas técnicas que favoreçam à todos afim de aprender inglês.

Em segundo lugar, mas não menos importante, espero contar com a colaboração de outros professores de inglês dando dicas, idéias, sugestões, fazendo suas criticas e observações, tudo que possa possibilitar meu desenvolvimento e dos meus alunos neste processo de ensino-aprendizagem que nos envolve.

Espero que gostem e participem! Enjoy it!