Camila, Ana Luiza, Athalo and Daniella
Autor: Letras | Publicado: 2011-08-07T21:50:00-07:00

All of the students from the Integrated Skills III class were excited about interviewing Brazilian people who had already been in an exchange program. Luciano, who is 43 and spent nine months in London ten years ago, was introduced to our group by our professor Deise Dutra last Thursday - April 14th. He seemed to be very happy to have the opportunity to share his experience with us in order to help us with our project. The conversation lasted about 12 minutes and we can say we learned a lot from it. Now all of us are willing to travel abroad too, so next time we will be the ones to tell stories!

Why did you go to London?
First, I went to study English, and second, because I thought London would be a more interesting place to do that.

Did you stay in a hotel?
First, I stayed in a hostel. It was a very good experience. I think I planned to stay there for two weeks, but then, I stayed for just one week because, after that, a family invited me to stay with them. It was a good surprise. But the hostel was very nice too because although I had to sleep, for example, in a dormitory with a lot of strange people, most of them were very friendly. You make friends easily there, so I had a very nice time.

What were the main cultural differences between Brazil and England?
I didn’t see many differences. Probably, it is because I had internalized most of their habits. For example, I’m very strict about time, so I always follow my schedule and I like to arrive on the right time or even before the right time to my appointments. It was ok for me because I liked that. The cultural difference that I noticed was that they are not so opened when you first meet them. They seem to be very formal. They don’t hug you, they don’t touch you, touching is not something they think it is natural like we do in Brazil. But apart from that, everything was nice to me because somehow I think I was expecting that, so I didn’t mind.

You said that not being open is something you expected, right? What else were your expectations for this trip?
Well, most of my expectations, of course, were to speak the language, to use the language, to learn and to practice it, but of course I had this great interest in visiting, seeing the castles, the palaces and the gardens, because London is full of gardens, full of parks. Every day I went to see places in London and I found out maybe this something different from us, because the parks there are very important for them, so they go to the park every time they can, even during the week. On Monday afternoon, for example, I went to the park and the park was full of people. And I thought: ‘’That is something different.’’ In Brazil, if you go to Municipal park or Mangabeira’s park, even on weekends, you don’t see many people there, right? So, that was, I think, one of the cultural differences that I noticed. They enjoy these parks very much and, of course, their old buildings.

So, did you prepare yourself before going abroad? Did you study English before going?
Yes, actually I was already a teacher before, I was teaching English for about ten years, because when I started I was about 20 years old, and I was always interested not only in the language, but in the culture as well.

Was it difficult to come back?
Yes, because after some time there, you get used to their habits and to the places, to their living standard and then when I thought I had to come back to Brazil, I thought: “Maybe I should stay here”. The shocking experience was...actually when I left the airport here because then, I realized I was in a completely different place, and I didn’t see the old and beautiful buildings, the clean streets, but I saw, for example, some favelas and I was shocked. Actually, in that moment I felt I should go back to the airport and take another plane back there. It was very funny. I thought that would not happen to me because I have always loved Brazil and the way we are, but it happened. For the first couple of days, I was a little bit depressed here because I missed everything there and the way of living.

Do you think this experience changed your life?
Yes, it did because I saw we can have a better life, a better country, everything better if we want to, because what I saw was: yes, they are really serious people, they really believe in working, for example. For them, working is really important. It’s not like here because I always had this impression that we somehow think working is not important. There, for example, they don’t go out so often as we do here. So, they stay working all day and most of the time they just go home, but here we see people working for very little but then they always go out and I think: "yes, it’s different".

Did you work there or you just studied?
No, I didn’t work. That was something that I did on purpose because I planned my trip and I said “I will take extra money because I don’t want to work, I want to experience the language and their culture”. I wanted to live as if I were on vacation, but at the same time taking advantage of everything I could.

Where did you study? In a university?
No. I was in an English school or institute called International House. Actually, I think this school is different from the others because they always have courses for English teachers from around the world, and they have even some connections to Cambridge University. So, some of the professors and teachers came from Cambridge University. It was a very nice school and the location was perfect because it was London, downtown, just opposite to Green Park which in this case is where the Buckingham Palace is. So, this school was perfect for me and I think the courses were very good. I took two courses there: one was improving language in general, I think like the subject you are taking here, but for teachers, and the other was teaching through literature. They gave us an introduction about how to use literature in the classroom, which was good for me too because I always felt that I didn’t know how to use literature in classroom. Actually, I didn’t. Although I used to read a lot English literature, I used to think "how I’m going to use this?", because the stories are usually too long and how are you going to use these stories, for example for people that are learning the language. Then, they showed us many techniques, and the classes were only teachers of English. So, I enjoyed it very much.

Although you had already studied the language before, did you face any difficulties in understanding them, for example, in idiomatic expressions, accents?
Yes, of course because...actually, although I thought I was very well prepared, the fact is that here in Brazil, we are exposed much more to the American pattern or standard pronunciation. So, I had this great influence from American materials and teachers that I studied with.

We would like to thank you for your help on this project. We appreciate it.
Oh, you are welcome.