Some years later… in the 90’s

As my parents are monolingual, that is to say they only speak one language, Spanish; they have never taught me English. However, they brought me to school where I started to learn the language when I was three years old. I still remember the teacher who I would say spoke to us everything in English. We used to sing English songs, watch cartoons and listen to stories in English... It was really fun!

Afterwards, when I was in primary school, we used to have a reading book, which was in colours, and a black and white workbook. Each unit started with a story and then activities where in relation to that story. We worked vocabulary, verbs, different types of sentences, listening… But we didn’t had conversations or anything to improve our speaking. As my parents thought learning English was important and school wasn’t enough, they took me to a private English academy in my neighbourhood. I was about eight years old. I can remember how I improved my English, because, for the first time, whatever English teacher at school asked I knew the answer. At that time English at school was very easy for me!

After that, in secondary, we continued doing grammar above all, and lessons where really boring. Anyway, I think they did one thing really well, which was to make us read 3 novels a year. The novels where really good and I enjoyed reading them. For example, “Rebecca”, “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” eta “The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and ¾”.

I continued this way, learning English at school and academy, until I took the First Certificate in English at the age of 17. That year, in summer, I went with a scholarship to study English to Ireland for a month. There, I spoke in English with my host family and at English lessons, but the rest of the time I didn’t. This is because the trip was in group and all the people were from Basque Country. Really it’s a shame. But I think it is normal, taking into account that we all where 17 and our maternal language were Basque or Spanish. Anyway, I would say that on that trip I improved significantly my English, most of all pronunciation skills. Although, I fear I have lost them.

After that, I haven’t continued learning English. The main reasons are lack of time and lessons cost. I also have to admit that at the moment I don’t like the way or method I’ve seen at English academies. What I mean is that I’ve been studying English for a long time, nearly all my life, and that I can’t say I’m able to speak it well, in a fluent way and with a good pronunciation. I’m sure this is because we didn’t use English lessons to speak; we spent most of the time making written activities. I think English lessons may be most of the time practising it orally, speaking about interesting themes, having real debates, singing songs… And the most important: having a good time!