My English is a work in progress...

The ones who knows me well knows how much I like to write and how much I’ve always liked the English language. I remember when I was between 12 or 13 years old and I hadn’t had a quarter of the access to information as we have nowadays, and I used to love to buy magazines at the newsstand because they had the translation of all the song’s lyrics that I used to like. It was not just a few times when I stood all night awake, with the English-Portuguese dictionary in my hands, trying to do my own News and Wording translations, according to what I used to find interesting at that time. It was a hard time when we didn’t have Google, internet, or any virtual connectivity like we have today... and inspite of loving all this experience I couldn’t even imagined how much that moments would be so valuable to me a couple years ahead.

Okay, I’ve been writing on this blog for 8 years now, mostly as a way to release the stress and I’ve been sharing my deepest feelings, dreams and experiences in this pages, but I’ve never dare to write not even a tiny text in English, and I think the reason is quite simple and it’s called FEAR. The truth is I’ve never felt prepared enough to express myself in English, neither spoken or written. I’ve never believed in myself that much and I’ve never tried to get out of this viewer’s condition as well, that kind of condition that maintain so many people stucked to a clearly unfriendly situation, although it might bring some brief deceptive and welcoming feeling of being comfortable. Just like in that little frog story, in which he feels so good in the warm water that he doesn’t even notice when the water starts to boil, killing him slowly. And in face of this moment I believe there’s nothing left to do...

Specially this year I’ve decided that I wanted to jump out of that warm water to try to change some things in my life that used to make me feel unsatisfied. Improving my English is one of the challenges that I’ve had in my mind for a long time and I admit that today I realized that maybe it’s the less complicated of all challenges in my life, after all.

First, thinking over the situation (just like always), I understood that perhaps I would never feel really prepared, and just like a baby bird maybe will never fly away from nest without a little push, I’d never get out of that English level If I didn’t push myself to a real change. I knew this change wouldn’t be easy, just like any other changes in life, but here I am, writing in English, facing my fears. Thinking that way I started to search for options to communicate with other people in English, and it would be better if I wouldn’t spend a lot of money, of course. Aiming to this goal I downloaded applications like Tandem, Italki, HelloTalk, Cambly, LyricsTraining, Radio Garden, Dictionary, MusicxMatch, among others really interesting applications that have helped me a lot, even now. Of course, I also made some tiny changes in my daily routine that was quite important like, for example, change the language of my cell phone; I’ve started to read some news and comic books in English, to listen to podcasts and to see movies in English with no subtitles as well. I’ve started to follow some excellent YouTube channels, like SmallAdvantages (the one I’ve already written about it here, by he way), TimExplica, Learn English with Papa Teach Me, English with Lucy, Ask Jackie, English in Brazil, To Fluency, mmmEnglish, Easy English and Marina in America; among others that are very special to me even nowadays, because it has been important to my learning process. The problem of all this actions is, despite of the obvious value of it to my evolution process, it still doesn’t helped me to achieve the main goal, the one I’ve found harder to improve and the one I needed most: the speaking ability. Yes, I agree it’s very important learning how to read, how to write or listening, but speaking, in my opinion, is the main challenge of any student who wants to learn other languages, because it puts you in an extremely uncomfortable and complicated situation, where you are obligated to expose yourself, even knowing that you’re going to make unbelievable mistakes. At this point, it’s like you’d coming back to be a child, learning the basic communications, although you have the consciousness of an adult who’s embarrassed to make mistakes, who’s afraid to be judged by the others, who cares about what other people thinks, who’s naturally grew up and are not used to admit your faults anymore, someone who can pressure themselves to get a fluency that will never come, unless you’re willing to get through this painful and persistent phase, which we call LEARNING. Like it wouldn’t be the only certainty in life, besides the death itself, that we will be learning something until our last breathe for sure...

In order to start to develop the awaited conversation, I realized I didn’t had another choice but to find a professional tutor or professor, so first I’ve decided to look for those applications like Cambly and Italki, both highly recommended by YouTube people, mainly because they could provide conversations with native speakers, which I admit that sounded very interesting to me. The thing is, to be honest, I found the classes prices extremely high for my pour pocket, beyond I was ready to pay, even because those applications charge you in dollar and dollar is an expensive currency at this time, at least for those who live in Brazil. Unfortunately, It got me a little discourage, and I’ve decided I would going to try to talk to people that I’ve known from Tandem, a free version from a really good application, but I have to admit it was not a great idea, since the majority of people who answered my approaches was usually men that have started to talk to me with a nice conversation, but almost every time ended it asking me for sexy pics. Yeah, sad but true.

Therefore, one day I received a recommendation about a teacher who has been teaching English to my coworkers from another subsidiary in Santa Catarina, and I found it interesting although I got to confess that it took me too long to contact him. Deep inside I guess I was not sure if I was more afraid of liking or disliking that possibility and I kept putting it off as much as I could. I don’t know, some things are really hard to explain.

It took me at least three months until I have contacted Mr. Akbari, a man with a photographic model face and a broadcaster voice, who teaches English with the honesty and seriousness of someone who doesn’t owe anything to anyone. His method includes more than teaching English, actually, I have to admit it’s a moment of the day when I feel comfortable enough to talk about my life, about what I’m feeling, the issues I’m facing or my dreams and plans for the future. The suggested topics goes from Prejudice to another abstract themes like Prosperity and he constantly motivate us to think and reflect about things that we’re not so used to think nowadays, because almost all the time our mind is full of information but empty of contemplation. We’re always running against time and collecting easy communications, that prepares us to use half of our brain capacity or maybe a bit less.

For me, in addiction of the good humor, the naughty smile and those almost purposely and provoking questions, there are another two major qualities about this Iranian guy classes, that makes me like very much his approaches: the honesty and diversity. To be honest, I don’t believe the first attribute is so appreciated by everyone around us, as much as it should be… but definitely it makes me feel like I don’t have only a English teacher, because just like I’m lucky to have a lot of great people in my life, I’m really proud to say that Ali Akbari is more than a company with a registration number, that might send you a bill to pay by the end of the month, with no additional concerns. He will cares about you’re having an actual learning process, he will feel uncomfortable about any indifference you might show, he will be pissed-off about your lack of dedication and the coolest thing of all is that he will say it right to your face, outspoken, using that straight and objective way of many foreign people usually shows us (and that might be so weird to Brazilian people), transcending his modest contribution beyond the language. The personal growth that someone like this kind of person can provide is unquestionable, at least for those who wants to understand it. Every time I find someone like this guy in my path, someone who came to the world to offer more than he’s paid to provide, showing to care less about the price of things  and more about the value of it, I feel much more than privileged.

Certainly there’s an obvious professional relationship in here, because everyone needs money, but what I mean is: I always feel glad to find someone who wants to make difference in other people lives, as their main goal in life, motivating them to be better; someone who sees the financial recognition only as a consequence of his work and not as a main goal. It’s so hard to find people who’s entirely committed to what they do, people who works with love, people who get involved with their own delivery and dedicate themselves with passion in their profession. I know just a few people like that, most people around me are concerned to do as minimum as possible.

I recommend Ali to students who wants singular classes and who has an open mind to argue about different kinds of subjects with a clever, interesting and very good-tempered guy. I recommend him to people who wants clear and straight feedbacks about their performance, to who doesn't care about being congratulated or criticized, as long as it’s for the best, as long it’s for them to grow.

Before ending this writing, I want to insure the recording of my simple gratitude to what this guy has been doing for me, for the last 3 months... there are nights when he is my psychologist, another ones when he’s a shoulder to cry (almost), sometimes he’s a good shape and nutrition coach hahaha... but mainly he’s always an excellent English teacher, and all of this at the same time. Multifunctional man. Even when he’s tired, sometimes in pain, even late at night, sometimes it seems that for him the commitment is a law. Just like a loyal dog, that stays static looking at his owner face, he’s always there, ready to start. That kind of thing is priceless for me.

Thank you Ali... for being so patient every time I’m not excited as I should be, for being so committed even in face of my lack of initiative, for being so honest when I’m complaining about everything, for being so kind when I'm almost losing myself completely... Thank you for always doing more than you are paid to do, the world needs more people like you. Despite the short time, I already feel that I’m better than I was before, I think I’m more prepared than I was 3 months ago, and if we’d stopped right now, I would consider this 3 months a huge success. I know there is still a long path ahead, but with your help, I believe is going to be a little less hard to get there. Today I feel like the boundaries that separates us from our dreams can be crossed with a kind little pushing. Thank you for pushing me to progress! You’re amazing and I hope you keep having a lot of success in your life and profession because you really deserve it.

Well, during one of our last classes I’ve promised you that I would prepare a feedback about your work but I believe this written words keeps that promise very well huh… ;-)