As I had announced in the forums, I had liked some pages on Facebook and then

eventually decided to sign up for them as a member. Choosing one per group, I
did it to Voices of Youth, iEARN, Global School Network and Kidlink. This
way, I had thought of two questions concerning my professional development:
1) I wanted to know if they had discussed how much it compensated to teach
English abroad, mainly concerning the fact that I am not a native speaker and
its not a very well-paid profession and 2) what kind of qualifications they
consider the most important ones, mainly those that I look up to, such as
international ones and post-grad degrees. I went to their discussion forums,
typed the keywords abroad and qualification and, for my surprise, I didnt
find anything. On the other hand, it called my attention for two interesting
debates that lightened up my curiosity on Voices of Youth that resembled a
little bit what I wanted to know. First, it is about the refugee crisis since I wanted
to know about living abroad and second about chasing dreams since I
mentioned about qualifications.

The discussion about the refugees worries me about trying life abroad. I had
always known how xenophobic some people in developed countries are, mainly
in Europe, a continent that has caused me interest and been in my thoughts. I
know the world is being through a critical time since there is war in some
countries, especially in the middle east and, due to its geographical proximity to
Europe, many people have sought asylum there and disastrously have lost their
lives. This way, I reflect about the catastrophically disheartening political
scenario here in Brazil, but its still (I mean, still) not worse than those torn
countries whose people need shelter more than I do. My favorite points in the
discussion are the necessity of treating them as humans, just like the locals are,
although some of the latter say they havent been treated so, which is
profoundly sad and discouraging.

As of dreams, there has been a debate on self-consciousness, self-esteem and

how shaky dreams have to, that is, they have commented on how hard it is for
youngsters to feel poised enough to pursue their dreams in contrast with the
majority of people in the community, composed by young adults (what doesnt
suit me at all since I am a young adult but yet a completely insecure person!),
how important it is to have those dreams but also how they must unbalance us
in order to seek to achieve it. I agree with them to certain extent except when it
comes to insecurity and how stressful they can be. Dreams should keep us
alive, not the contrary.

As of my update on June 20th, I have been through some kind of turbulence

recently. I have just asked to quit my job at a language school in Araraquara
because of some things that happened and that I guess that the environment
wasn`t so healthy anymore to keep working there. Then I will have to spend
some time in my parents` house in Altinpolis, a very small town where I am
not supposed to have any opportunities, but its quite near Ribeiro Preto, a
larger city where I expect to find something. I am quite aware of the economic
crisis we are being through so I dont expect to be hired soon or even to make
more than I have been here on my current job working 40 hours a week, but I
am still optimistic about it since its a big city and I hope there are still people
expecting to learn English there. My plans are taking ECCE, TKT or CAE, I have
seen they will be offered on the same date, so I might have to choose one of
them, but I really want to do by the end of this year.

Concerning my readings in this course, most of them were reviews about

theoretical content already seen at college so many things werent completely
learnt, but I had the opportunity to study better and deeper the theories of
language learning, mainly concerning behaviorism, constructivism and socio-
constructivism, clarifying things a little bit. I also enjoyed the opportunity of
getting to know opportunities for professional development online for free,
which I am definitely prone to be participating regularly.