About
Hi! I’m an EFL teacher from Recife, Brazil and I am very passionate about teaching. I think education is the key to solving many of the problems in today’s world and became a teacher because I truly believe teachers can make a difference in students’ lives – call me a romantic if you want, but I do – and I take teaching very seriously.
Besides teaching my other passions are books (am an obsessive reader), music (all kinds, but am really attached to 80′s rock), art and most of all my two kids. I have recently discovered the wonderful world of Web 2.0 and blogs and what it can do for a teacher’s professional development. And after reading many blogs , I realized that blogging is a powerful tool for professional development, not only for the one who reads but also for the writer. And I felt the urge to try and give something back to the blogging world too.
Here I plan to write about things, ideas and questions that go through my mind when I am teaching, because I teach. I plan to share activities I come up with and I think my PLN might enjoy… Let’s see how it goes. Because this blog is a box of chocolate for me: you never know what you’re going to get!
languagegarden
October 20, 2010 at 6:00 am
Hi Cecilia
Thank you very much for the quotations. I’ve made the Jorge Saramago one into a language plant on my blog, and translated as best I could, but would welcome any improvements.
The Cora Coralina quotation I’m struggling with working out its meaning. Could you help, please?
David
cecilialcoelho
October 21, 2010 at 12:12 am
Hi David!
I saw the Saramago quote on your blog…and loved it! The translations seems fine. I actually enjoyed the whole idea (and posts) of your blog
As for the Cora Coralina quote, I think it could be (roughly) translated as:
Happy is he who transfers what he knows and learns what he teaches. – Cora Coralina
What do you think?
languagegarden
October 21, 2010 at 6:05 am
Hi Cecilia
Thank you for your kind comments.
About the Cora translation, what does the last bit mean exactly? I understand the idea about passing on knowledge, and am happy when it happens (and when I receive it), but does the second part mean during the act of teaching you learn more about the subject matter? I do believe, well, it’s fact I’m sure, that you really find out how much you know about something when you try to explain it to someone else.
Thanks
David
cecilialcoelho
October 24, 2010 at 12:57 am
Hi David,
You got it! The last part of Cora Coralina’s quote talks about how we also learn when we teach someone, we learn more about what we are teaching. Just like you I also believe in this. I know a lot more (and about) English than I did when I started teaching so many years ago.
You’re always welcome
Cecilia
Rachel
May 7, 2012 at 6:09 am
Hello! I am so happy to see a Cora Coralina quote! I sort of stumbled onto her story but cannot find English translations of her poetry. Her concepts and ideals seem lovely and I would absolutely adore to hear more! I’m an American and a literature fan, any idea where I might find an ENGLISH versionof her works? Thank you so very kindly. Rae
Language Garden
October 24, 2010 at 5:39 am
Thanks Cecilia. It had me scratching my head. I’ve mentioned your emerging language post in one I wrote…
cecilialcoelho
October 25, 2010 at 11:12 am
I know…I saw it
I’ve added you to the list of posts on the topic. Really enjoyed it too.
Gianluca
June 19, 2011 at 6:15 am
Hi Cecilia, my name is Gianluca and I am from Italy. I am a passionate and eager English learner. I have found out your blog by chance on Twitter and I’ve got to admit it is really interesting and stimulating. I crave enlarging my vocabulary so I keep reading a lot and continuously whatever I come across. Yesterday morning I started reading some posts of yours and I could not give up doing it for a couple of hours, without stopping myself a moment. Your writing style is great to such an extent I believed, at first, you were a native speaker of English. Keep up with your wonderful learning activities on line. Have a nice day!
P.S: I noticed a little typos in your “About” post which I imagine you’ll see to correct: “I plan tyo* share activities”.
Laszlo Peter
July 28, 2011 at 7:53 am
Hi Cecilia,
I’m Peter Laszlo, a former student and colleague of Mark Andrews in Budapest.
Sorry to be writing in a comment, but I couldn’t find any other way to contact you.
I am the co-founder of http://iSLCollective.com, a free teaching material
sharing site for language teachers.
I’d like to draw your attention to an initiative that I’m sure your readers would find very useful, and I’m kindly asking you to link to us/mention us on your website.
In return, I’ve linked back to your site on http://en.islcollective.com/links
Here’s a short summary of who we are:
http://iSLCollective.com is hosting the Internet Second Language
Collective, a file-swapping community of ESL, FLE (French), ELE (Spanish)
and DAF (German) teachers sharing free, downloadable language-teaching
materials. All printables are originally created by our members, and are
in fully editable doc/ppt formats. By July 2011 our resource library grew to over 8000 worksheets, and is growing fast by the day so it’s worth checking back every now and then.
I am looking forward to receiving your kind reply.
Yours truly,
Peter Laszlo
Co-founder, iSLCollective.com
ESL teacher, Xantus High School, Budapest
Josefa King
July 30, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Dear Cecilia,
My name is Sister M. Josefa. I teach EFL in Mâncio Lima, Acre, Brazil. I got really excited when I found your blog – It’s an excellent blog and the great thing is you teach in Brazil AND (it seems) you are even more passionate about teaching than I am! In your post: “Challenges, PLN and Where They Have Taken Me” you mention how you “discovered the world of Educator Blogs”, something which I started some time back and am still discovering. It was Jason Renshaw’s blog which led me to yours.
I have found many resources and information about teaching EFL, but very little from (or about teaching in) Brazil. I did not grow up in Brazil and the Brazilian school system has been a challenge for me, especially since I was not trained to teach English (my area is Mathematics), but every year I enjoy it more and more.
I would like to know if you teach in a public school or a private school? I hope that we will be able to do some networking and share some ideas.
May our good Lord bless you abundantly!
Sister M. Josefa