PUB USER: dan_oli

I have a teaching Degree in Modern Languages focused on English and Portuguese. I also have a BA degree in Translation - Interpretation. I have taught for six years now and recently I finished a post-graduation course in Philosophy and Contemporary History. At the moment I study Performing Arts at Fundação das Artes, in Sao Caetano do Sul, Brazil - Drama major. I have experience in translating and revising, but looking for more.

This is a sample of my translation work. I wrote this article in Portuguese and now I present it translated into English

Mastering a second language represents a personal breakthrough and the expansion of possibilities that may create intense human experiences and meaningful cultural references. If one is able to grasp the world through a different perspective, having another language structure as basement, they will enlarge intellectual boundaries and have the interchange of different reality phenomena approaches. Education must zeal for a foreign language acquisition if it aims the construction of a free citizen who is able to really live in the world.

However Brazilian education struggles the challenge of teaching another language with some perplexity. If on one hand the problem is contained on the fact that a Brazilian individual does not have the habit of learning another language, culturally saying, since one can transit over more than 5 thousand miles without using any different language, on the other hand, Brazilian teachers who work with foreign languages feel less confident to teach a subject that seems to be distant from them, except for a couple of teachers.

Language changes every day and may be accessed by different products of entertainment, clothes, and food industries, which transforms the subject into a dangerous swamp, full of traps and embarrassing situations for the teacher.


Thus, if learning another language represents an inefficient effort for the student, to teach approaching the subject with challenging classes may represent an uncomfortable and traumatic experience for the teacher. Then, both students and teachers get far from a truly proximity with the language, basing the learning process on an artificial model, avoiding surprises in the classes. Well, teachers lacking confidence, students just alike.

In order to change this picture the first step is to increase teachers confidence. Only a teacher who masters the contents may approach relevant pedagogical methods adequately, however he must know that the concept behind “to master the contents” means actually “know how to manage learning taking into consideration all the possibilities at hand”. Language teachers must keep up in contact with the language they teach, as a way to improve continually and maintain their level of fluency. After some years teaching fluency might decrease as experiences of speaking are rare.

Also after some years reading texts with low standard demands so students may understand them teachers might lose the habit of reading texts more stimulating. Listening skills also might get low, since there are no dialogue between teachers and students. None would say that is an exaggeration if one works at a public school with thirty students minimal.

As a result, teachers end up losing their professional identity because they do not experience the language as a real speaker only through a pedagogical procedure.