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

LANGUAGE BIOGRAPHY

MY LANGUAGE LEARNING AIMS

I have always loved English since I love travelling and it is the language that allows you to communicate with people all over the world. Due to this passion, I decided I wanted to become an English teacher hence my language aims are pretty straightforward, I want to be competent in English to the level of proficiency so that I can offer the best of English language experience to my students.

MY LANGUAGE LEARNING HISTORY

I started learning English at school at the age of 4 and ever since I have been immersed in the language not only at school but also outside of school since I have English friends. Before entering university I took the CAE exam and the fact that I passed it encouraged me even more to continue my studies in English. I have always been passionate about English language and this is the main reason why I decided to study English Philology at university.

Besides, I studied Valencian at school and today I have the C1 certificate, or Mitjà, and I am currently taking a course known as capacitació which is something necessary for teachers to work in Valencia.

I have always loved languages so during my Secondary Education I also studied French and Italian and even though I don't speak them as well as English because I don't have the chance to practise them as much I can say that I am able to keep a conversation in both of these languages.

MY MOST SIGNIFICANT LINGUISTIC AND INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCES

As I have previously mentioned, I have always had a special passion and interest for English since I

have very good English friends, thus linguistic and intercultural experiences have always been present and have had a strong influence on me.

Later on, when I was at university I decided to go to London for my Erasmus and it was an incredible experience which I will always remember. Besides, there I met some amazing people with whom I still keep in touch and see, at least, once a year.

Moreover, even though I find Valencian a very interesting language not only because of its history but also because it represents the cultural identity of its citizens, I have to say that I have never been that close to Valencian since non of my parents speak it given that they were born in Madrid but moved to Valencia before I was born. Luckily, I have many Valencian speaking friends with whom I practise my Valencian since I plan to get the C2 certificate.

When it comes to talking about my experience with French and Italian, I am able to keep a conversation in both languages but not with the same fluency as in English since I have to think of the words and the structures I want to use. I believe this is basically due to the fact that I don't have the opportunity to practise these language as often as English or Valencian.

MY CURRENT LANGUAGE LEARNING PRIORITIES

At this moment, one of my main priorities is to become completely fluent in English, at a C2 level hence I have to work in improving my pronunciation as well as learning more vocabulary and expressions to be able to achieve this purpose.