KOMENASHIANS: MAKING A DIFFERENCE: CELIA'S LANGUAGE LEARNING EXPERIENCES

LANGUAGE BIOGRAPHY

MY LANGUAGE LEARNING AIMS

As I want to become an English teacher in the future, I want to have a good command of the four skills in English language (reading, listening, speaking and writing). It is essential to master the English language if I want to teach it to my future pupils. Moreover, I want to master the English language to read its literature, as I love novels, as well as TV series. Finally, English is the most spoken language, so you need it to talk with people over the world.

MY LANGUAGE LEARNING HISTORY

I started learning English when I was 6 years old. My mother signed up me for a language school in my town. I attended this language school until I was 17 years old, because back then I was in Bachillerato and I wanted to focus on the course. I now thank my parents for the decision of writing down my name in that language school because, otherwise, I do not know what I would have studied in the University.

Furthermore, when I was in 1^st of Bachillerato, I obtained the C1 level of Valencian language in JQCV and, when I was at my second year in the University, I started to study German. However, I could only study it for one year, because on the next year I went to study abroad as an Erasmus student and I was not be able to continue studying German. This year, I have obtained the “capacitació”, which is a course that I need if I want to become a teacher, and in a month’s time, I am going to do the exam to obtain the C2 level of Valencian language.

MY MOST SIGNIFICANT LINGUISTIC AND INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCES

My most significant linguistic and intercultural experience was, doubtlessly, my Erasmus year 2015-2016. I went to Sheffield, United Kingdom. The University there was incredible, and I discovered a lot of activities and societies that I do not have in the University of Valencia. The city of Sheffield is also amazing; it has a lot of parks and museums to visit. People there were also very nice to us, and I met a lot of incredible people I still have contact with. Thanks to that, I could improve quite a lot my level of English. I still remember when I first arrived there, that I could not understand anything in English because people spoke too fast but, at the end, I was able to understand and speak with them fluently.

In 2017 I enrolled in another Erasmus+ program. I went to Carcassone, France, for 10 days and it consisted on living with people from 7 different countries (France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Lithuania, Rumania and Greece) to get to know other cultures and talk about Environmental problems. Regarding Valencian language, it is my first language so I talk in Valencian everyday with my family and friends. Thus, I master it perfectly and this year I am going to do the C2 level exam.

MY CURRENT LANGUAGE LEARNING PRIORITIES

One of the main priorities is to speak fluently in English, and to acquire a more colloquial or informal vocabulary. I am used to speak and write in a more formal way, because I have learned English, mostly, in formal contexts (language schools, high school, University…). Thus, now it is turn to acquire a more informal register of the language.