Curso de Inglês em Oxford - Testemunho da Professora Marisa Rocha
Marisa Rocha, professora de Inglês, ganhou no passado o Concurso realizado pela APPI (Associação Portuguesa de Professores de Inglês) e a MultiWay e por isso recebeu uma bolsa de uma semana de Curso de Inglês, alojamento e viagem em Oxford. Deixamos nas linhas abaixo o seu testemunho (em Inglês, claro está!).
"As soon as I found out about a contest promoted by Multiway and APPI, I decided to grab the challenge. After all, the topic – 21st Century Skills in E.L.T. - was both important and familiar. Winning the prize was extremely uplifting and I started dreaming about my trip to Oxford straight away!
All the little doubts that had nagged me for some time before my departure quickly died out when I was picked up at Gatwick airport: flying unaccompanied for the first time was not that bad, the taxi driver was already there for me and we had a lively chat all the way to Oxford and the sun was shining.
When I got to my host family’s home I was welcomed with open arms by my 3 colleagues who came from Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. Now I was just another foreign teacher and I felt like I really had to represent my country as well as I could.
The next day it was time to go to Lake School and start the course. Walking briskly towards the city along with all the little kids and teenagers who were heading to their schools made me feel like a proper student! In my class there were students from Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and of course, Portugal – all women! It didn’t take me long to realise how nice and friendly my class was. The same applies to our teacher who was energetic, well-organized, and sociable and had a great sense of humour.
Throughout the week we had twenty-one hours of lessons in which we covered a wide range of topics, such as stereotypes, regionalism, everyday expressions, new words, Multiculturalism, collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms, the British educational system, to name but a few. We also had four hours of guided tours of Oxford.
Oxford is beautifully concentrated, so everywhere you look you are sure to see mesmerising beauty! And there is always so much going on – literature, art, music, history, the lot! I used all the little free time I had making sure I would complete my “Places to Visit & Things to Do” list. I started with a quick visit to Saint Giles Fair, right at the heart of the City – lots of crazy rides, candy-floss, multicultural food stalls, loud music and loads of noisy teenagers. So, not different from anywhere else in the world!
After something like that, only a trip to a nice pub would do the trick, and there are so many outstanding ones around! The Eagle and Child, for example, is filled with history. In fact, that is where the literary group “The Inklings”, of whom the most famous were Tolkien (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit) and C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia, Lion Witch & Wardrobe) met, ate and drank and exchanged ideas. There is also The Turf Tavern, a historic and mysterious pub from the 13th century, where lots of University students meet and where apparently Bill Clinton was seen in his early days inhaling illegal substances! The Turf is also well-known because of a former Australian Prime Minister who drank a yard glass of beer in 11 seconds, setting a Guinness World Record there. But there are many other pubs full of character and packed with stories and tales – The Lamb & Flag which appeared frequently in the popular detective series Inspector Morse; the Bear which is claimed to be the oldest pub in Oxford; The Checkers and its typical decoration, comfy sofas and excellent food; The Crown, which used to be visited by Shakespeare when he stopped in Oxford on his way to London.
The weather was on my side all week, so walking around all the tiny alleys and back roads was a priority. I wanted to see everything – the magnificent buildings, the superb colleges with their incredibly beautiful gardens, the libraries and museums, the typical shops and restaurants, the quaint churches and towers. As an avid Harry Potter fan it was really exciting to discover so many places where scenes were filmed – mainly the amazing Christ Church College where you can see Hogwarts Great Hall, Grand Staircase and Dining Hall, but also the cloisters and some of the grounds. And I also learnt that it was exactly in this college that Lewis Carroll wrote one of my favourite books, “Alice in Wonderland”. Lewis Carrol was a Maths teacher and Alice was one of the daughters of the headmaster!
The number of famous people who studied at Oxford University is astonishing – 26 British Prime Ministers; at least 30 international leaders; 50 Noble Prize winners; 120 Olympic medal winners! But there was a British Prime Minister and Nobel Prize winner who didn’t study in Oxford; in fact he was not even a good student in his early days. But he lived in a spectacular palace I had the pleasure to visit – I am talking about Winston Churchill who lived in Blenheim Palace in a picturesque Georgian town called Woodstock about 12 kilometres away from Oxford. Even though I had no time to actually go inside the palace, walking in the grounds and admiring the majestic buildings and the breath-taking sights was well-worth it! Blenheim Palace was the most astounding place I visited during my stay at Oxford.
As the end of the week approached I realised that my “Places to Visit & Things to Do” list was impossible to accomplish. I had managed to go to the Ashmolean Museum (the oldest public museum in the world), the Christ Church and the University Church, the Botanic Gardens, the Castle Quarter and Radcliffe Camera and I had even managed to take a short walk along the canal, go to the covered and open markets and go up Carfax Tower to take some incredible photos of the City, but I ended up not going to Magdalen College or Pitt Rivers Museum (where there is a Genetic Garden with trees that grow tulips and beans) or the Modern Art and Story Museum and neither did I see the Cheshire Cat Tree or the Jabberwock Tree at Christ Church’s amazing park.
I genuinely loved Oxford and I hope I will return again one day!
Thank you Multiway and A.P.P.I. ever so much for providing me with this exceptional opportunity."
A MultiWay apresenta um programa específico para Professores de Inglês.
E se não conseguiste perceber nada do testemunho por estar em Inglês... se calhar o melhor é mesmo começar por um Curso de Inglês para principiantes! Informa-te como, aqui!
All the little doubts that had nagged me for some time before my departure quickly died out when I was picked up at Gatwick airport: flying unaccompanied for the first time was not that bad, the taxi driver was already there for me and we had a lively chat all the way to Oxford and the sun was shining.
When I got to my host family’s home I was welcomed with open arms by my 3 colleagues who came from Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. Now I was just another foreign teacher and I felt like I really had to represent my country as well as I could.
Throughout the week we had twenty-one hours of lessons in which we covered a wide range of topics, such as stereotypes, regionalism, everyday expressions, new words, Multiculturalism, collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms, the British educational system, to name but a few. We also had four hours of guided tours of Oxford.
Oxford is beautifully concentrated, so everywhere you look you are sure to see mesmerising beauty! And there is always so much going on – literature, art, music, history, the lot! I used all the little free time I had making sure I would complete my “Places to Visit & Things to Do” list. I started with a quick visit to Saint Giles Fair, right at the heart of the City – lots of crazy rides, candy-floss, multicultural food stalls, loud music and loads of noisy teenagers. So, not different from anywhere else in the world!
After something like that, only a trip to a nice pub would do the trick, and there are so many outstanding ones around! The Eagle and Child, for example, is filled with history. In fact, that is where the literary group “The Inklings”, of whom the most famous were Tolkien (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit) and C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia, Lion Witch & Wardrobe) met, ate and drank and exchanged ideas. There is also The Turf Tavern, a historic and mysterious pub from the 13th century, where lots of University students meet and where apparently Bill Clinton was seen in his early days inhaling illegal substances! The Turf is also well-known because of a former Australian Prime Minister who drank a yard glass of beer in 11 seconds, setting a Guinness World Record there. But there are many other pubs full of character and packed with stories and tales – The Lamb & Flag which appeared frequently in the popular detective series Inspector Morse; the Bear which is claimed to be the oldest pub in Oxford; The Checkers and its typical decoration, comfy sofas and excellent food; The Crown, which used to be visited by Shakespeare when he stopped in Oxford on his way to London.
The weather was on my side all week, so walking around all the tiny alleys and back roads was a priority. I wanted to see everything – the magnificent buildings, the superb colleges with their incredibly beautiful gardens, the libraries and museums, the typical shops and restaurants, the quaint churches and towers. As an avid Harry Potter fan it was really exciting to discover so many places where scenes were filmed – mainly the amazing Christ Church College where you can see Hogwarts Great Hall, Grand Staircase and Dining Hall, but also the cloisters and some of the grounds. And I also learnt that it was exactly in this college that Lewis Carroll wrote one of my favourite books, “Alice in Wonderland”. Lewis Carrol was a Maths teacher and Alice was one of the daughters of the headmaster!
The number of famous people who studied at Oxford University is astonishing – 26 British Prime Ministers; at least 30 international leaders; 50 Noble Prize winners; 120 Olympic medal winners! But there was a British Prime Minister and Nobel Prize winner who didn’t study in Oxford; in fact he was not even a good student in his early days. But he lived in a spectacular palace I had the pleasure to visit – I am talking about Winston Churchill who lived in Blenheim Palace in a picturesque Georgian town called Woodstock about 12 kilometres away from Oxford. Even though I had no time to actually go inside the palace, walking in the grounds and admiring the majestic buildings and the breath-taking sights was well-worth it! Blenheim Palace was the most astounding place I visited during my stay at Oxford.
I genuinely loved Oxford and I hope I will return again one day!
Thank you Multiway and A.P.P.I. ever so much for providing me with this exceptional opportunity."
A MultiWay apresenta um programa específico para Professores de Inglês.
E se não conseguiste perceber nada do testemunho por estar em Inglês... se calhar o melhor é mesmo começar por um Curso de Inglês para principiantes! Informa-te como, aqui!
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