How I Became a Brazilian Portuguese Teacher- How You Can Learn Brazilian Portuguese

Oi! Tudo bem?

Can you understand the sentence above? Well, it's written in Brazilian Portuguese and it's my native language! For those of you who don't know, I'm Brazilian, but I don't live in Brazil. I've been living in Argentina since 2011.

Oh, I forgot to say what the sentence means! "Hi! How are you?" 

Anyways, you probably know I am an English teacher as a second language, which means I teach English to people who are learning it as second language and not to native speakers of English.

When you study to become a language teacher, you must study not only all the aspects of the language, but also the methodologies and the techniques to be able to share your knowledge and help your students learn.

As a native speaker of Portuguese I never formally studied to become able to teach it, but I was forced to understand why I say things in a certain way so that I could explain my own language to my husband who is Argentinian. 

I had to search Brazilian Portuguese books for foreigners and blogs that explained why I spoke the way I did :-) and I got very curious about my own language, so I decided to teach a few intermediate students of Brazilian Portuguese.

I've taught people from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, the United States and New Zealand and it was great fun! It was a challenge, of course, but one that I deeply enjoyed.

Due to this experience, I decided to create an online video course for people who wish to travel to Brazil and if you want to learn Brazilian Portuguese from a native teacher, try my free mini-course Brazilian Portuguese to Travel. Just click here and fill out the form with your name and email and I'll send you the course via email!

It has 3 video lessons and 3 written activities to practice what you learn from the videos.    

Also, check out my lesson on Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation below, trust me, you want to start from pronunciation!

Hope you like it!

Online English Lesson - Leonardo DiCaprio Oscars Speech

After a long long time I decided to blog again! Hurray!

My life has changed a lot, but one thing has not changed, my passion for teaching.

When I turn on my computer and call a student via Skype or Google Hangout all the problems disappear! I am right there with my student at that moment and it enlightens my day to feel that I am being helpful and that my student is learning something through me.

I chose to teach online because it enables geographic flexibility, you see I am Brazilian, but I live in Argentina and I absolutely love to travel. If I were to work in a school or a language course, I would not be able to visit my family in Brazil in May, for example or to accompany my husband to a course he will be attending in the US.

I love what I do and I love the way I can perform it, that's why I believe I am good at my profession. I have my flaws, of course, but I am always aiming to achieve perfection.

Anyways, enough about me! What I really wanted to do today was to share an activity I created for one of my students. It's about the Oscar, more precisely about Leonardo DiCaprio's acceptance speech for his first Oscar.

Here is the activity! If you wish to download it, click here.

A)Today we are going to watch the acceptance speech of Leonardo DiCaprio. Click here to watch it. Then answer the questions below:

1. Who are the ones he thanks?
2. What does he thank Mr Caton-Jones for?
3. What does he thank Mr Scorsesse for?
4. if you won an Oscar, what would your speech be like?

B) Now, click here to simply listen to Dicaprio's speech and complete the gaps on the script below:

Thank you, thank you all so very much. Thank you to the Academy, thank you to all of you in this room. I have to congratulate the other incredible ____________ this year for their unbelievable ___________.

The Revenant was a product of the tireless efforts of an unbelievable cast and crew I got to work alongside.

First off to my brother in this endeavor, Mr Tom Hardy. Tom, your fierce talent __________ can only be surpassed by your friendship _________.

To Mr Alejandro Iñárritu, as the history of cinema unfolds, you have forged your way into history these past two years. What an unbelievable talent you are. Thank you to you and Chivo for creating a transcendent cinematic experience for all of us. Thank you to everybody at Fox and New Regency, in particular Arnon Milchan. You were the champion of this endeavor. My entire team.

I have to thank everyone from the very onset of my career. Mr Caton-Jones for ________ me in my first film. Mr Scorsese for teaching me so much about the cinematic art form. To Mr Rick Yorn, thank you for helping me navigate my way through this industry. And to my parents, none of this would be possible without you. And to my friends, I love you dearly, you know who you are.

And lastly, I just want to say this: Making The Revenant was about man’s relationship to the natural world, a world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow.

Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.

We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.

I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.