…and I'm finally in London!

I’ve lived in America for sometime and I’ve been to some English speaking countries but London! After so many years of English teaching I finally got to visit London. What a beautiful place, plenty of nice people and amazing places to visit.

But I’m not here just to visit places, I’m here especially to learn… and from what I’ve seen so far in classes, I’ve got a lot more to learn.

All lessons have been very useful and precious! The morning sessions and the afternoon sessions so far have given me great ideas to adapt and use them back in Brazil with my students: guided discovery, pronunciation, connected speech, blogs, British culture, songs … to name just a few. I hope to finish this 4-week program with loads of information and teaching material so that my students can benefit from them.

Eveline Cavalcante – FATEC Santos

What I didn't expect

Hello everybody,

 I’d like to talk about my experiences in my first visit to London. Everything has been really great, the course, the sightseeing, the hosts, the food, but I want to talk about things that caught my attention and I wasn’t expecting somehow. For example, people are really good at giving you directions, they stop to listen, they try to help as much as possible, even going out of their way to show you the best way go about. This shows how polite people are and how they respect tourists, I really liked it. Something I also didn’t expect is the high number of restaurants that serve natural and healthy food and how there are not so many people overweight as you see in other countries. This is also very positive and surprising as it goes against the tendency of eating junk food, which some countries as Brazil is following. That’s all for now, I’ll write again soon.

Gilcéia 

The Royal  family
 Today I Had the opportunity to see a little more about the royalty as we Walked around Windsor casttle. I was wondering the conspiracy theories surrounding the family And we will  Never know if they are true or not.

We Could see so many beautiful And interesting things And people! I dont think this form Would work in Brazil at All.

The trip by train itself was really interesting as I am into traveling. And the history? Well, history is not my thing, but I Could manage to get to know many important facts which has happened.

Another amazing fact was that we bought the tickets but nobody asked to check them. A negative aspect was the delay. Can You imagine that the train arrived one hour late? In the UK? Wow!

See You át. Stonehenge tomorrow, people. Bye. Have a Nice night.

Kisses.

My first week in London!

I’ve had funny and enjoyable moments since I arrived in my family house.

Brenda, my hostess, who is a very friendly retired woman, welcomed me with a traditional English dish called roast chicken with gravy. I wasn’t expected to have lunch and despite having a delicious food she also opened a bottle of red wine to welcome me.

The first funny thing that happened was that she tried to correct my English pronunciation of the word “own”. Oh my god!!! That was hard…but I finally could manage to pronounce it correctly.

The other funny thing that happened was about the misunderstanding of “pudding”. This word is closely related to a Brazilian sweet called “pudim”. She offered me to have some pudding and I accepted. I was very surprised when came with a piece of chessecake with strawberries as  I had no idea that “pudding” means dessert. We laughed a lot when I told her about my idea of pudding.

I’m really enjoying having the experience of living with an English family. I’m sure I’ll have loads of things to tell about by the end of my trip.

Ana

Pub, Why Not?

Hello, folks!

I'm very happy to share our experiences and thoughts here!

In my opinion, we're having a unique opportunity to live and share this experience in an amazing city. 

I've created this Post about 'Pubs' for three reasons:

1- I'm really surprised how the British people love the pub. We saw in class that almost 95% of the population regularly go to the pub during the week and at the weekend;

2- I love happy hours, hang out with friends, a good environment and also beers, and we can find all of those things in the pub;

3- I've been in amazing pubs here in this short time: Green Man, The Old Monk, The Magpies, Tia Maria, The J D Wetherspoon, The Ice Wharf, and others;

The pub culture here is really interesting, for example, a lot of people also go to the pub for a roast dinner on Sunday with their families, I can't imagine a family in Brazil going to the bar or a pub for a meal. Other interesting thing that I've learned is about the pub etiquette, that is also very important. It is a good idea when you are at the bar not to push front of people as there and jump the queue, in Brazil it's hard this situation happens because usually we don't need to pay at sight to buy your booze (drink).

Finally, if you haven't visited a pub yet, you should go and also invite me. So, late make a 'toast' to celebrate this amazing travel and city. Cheers!

A Brazilian Man in London

A Brazilian man in London

I've been an English practitioner for about 15 years, but honestly I do feel like a student most of the times.

I felt in love with an artist in my adolescence (of course I don't dare to say her name now!) which made translate all her lyrics into Portuguese. And that got me started with English. When I was 17, I was a foreign exchange student in the USA for a year. That was an unforgetable experience to me. Back in Brazil, I majored in arts and Literature. My master's degree was in Semiotics. I studied a Russian movie director whose name is Andrey Tarkovsky. Then I started teaching English and some literature in colleges. I also spent some time in South Africa doing nothing, or better yet, ridding my invisible pink elephant, Nadia.

The school

I find the IH a wonderful place. Both our teachers are excellent, very patient with the group and their approaches and activities have been extremelly engaging. I am already full of new ideas.

The city

London is reviting, full of energy and I think it comes from the diversity of people and its multi ethnics. I see different and unfamiliar faces all over the city and I just love being hidden in this sort of anonymity, being among totally strangers. Even though London seems to me oddly compact, as if we are all going to the same place, to the same direction, to the same spot - centerwise, spinning, like a screw that's turning each time you take your next step, we never end up seeing the same face ever again. I blame the tube for that.

Each turn of the screw could be a "time swap".

When I was a young boy, I used to read Virginia Woolf and her London somewhat became mine and it trigged my imagination. In 1993, when I came to England for the first time, I was really disappointed with the city. Where did it all go? Years later, here I am. I'm older now. I was so naive back then. Three days ago, walking down a street, I grasped Virginia's saddness, Virginia's London, her profund silent in the middle of the busiest part of London: the perseverance of the old buildings. They were still there, patient and beautiful. I heard them saying their prayers, them singing their desperate songs nobody wants to listen to anymore. Like old men sitting on park benches alone waiting for your time.

Slow food, healthy food

Well, let me share with you somre of my impressions about this big, peculiar and amazing city. I don´t know if what I am going to say is relevant, but at least it can be food for thought in a certain way. Has London turned into a greener city in terms of food?

The first time I came here backpacking with my boyfriend (actually my husband today),  my daily diet was based on sandwiches, burgers and fries, some fruit bought in markets, not going much further than McDonalds and Burger King ans some of their oily options. It was a hard winter and on top of that it was a good way to save money or at least not expending so much.

It´s been more than 10 years since then and now when I´m back for this one-month teacher training, I found the city with many options of healthy food stores, including some vegetarian dishes, which can be easily found in chains of modern restaurants exploring the “slow food” movement, such as PretaManger (with shops spread all over the city) and Leon (a vintage-style  place near Trafalgar Square). This has been a positive point in my view, that´s why I thought it was worth commenting. If someone has any ideas or impressions on this, just let me know. Any suggestions of good places to eat at good prices for Latin American visitors are welcome too.

Ilka Santi