Current organizers

In mid-2012 I saw a panel in the courtyard of the annex of the José de Alencar Theater, and on it there was a poster about Audience Formation. I didn't know what it was, but since I had already started my theatrical activities, which depend on the public and audience, I thought it should be something good. It was a group that was being formed to study the topic. However, my attention was strongly caught by another information. Being able to read in English was mentioned among the requirements. I thought: "Hum, it's been a while since I don't practice." Moved by the wishful impulse to practice that language and also by the curiosity about what Audience Formation was, I wrote down the email addresses and soon contacted the group organizers: Ricardo Pamplona and Roberta. It is a topic little explored in Brazil, but it has a key importance for any cultural event. And not only that.

 

Months later, in the beginning of 2013, I was talking to Ricardo on our way to one of the meetings, and I told him about some videos I had seen on YouTube about a group in Paris called The Polyglot Club that organized meetings to practice different languages in an way that was open, spontaneous and free of charge. I said: "It would be great to go to Paris to meet this group," so Ricardo interrupted me and said: "Why not doing it here?" "Why not?" In fact, I had forgotten about the possibility of looking for diamonds in our own backyard. Faced with the geniality of the idea, we proposed to ourselves to bring that initiative to Fortaleza. I searched on almost all social medias in order to see if there was already something similar in Fortaleza. Nothing. Then we decided to start the activities.

 

Ricardo had always been a good connoisseur of the city, and suggested that we should schedule the first meeting at Café Vitrola, in Benfica neighborhood. I went there to know the venue and I found it very appropriate for a first meeting. The coffee house was not very big and it used to get crowded on Saturdays, but it was possible to book some tables! We made some posters, spread them all over the city, and then we scanned them and posted them on Facebook too. Friends liked the idea. They suggested events, websites, groups... I had no experience whatsoever with advertising. Hallen, a friend who is an actor and video director, worked as tour guide for Italians in Beira Mar and had a vast and diversified network of people related to languages, so he invited some friends. We scheduled the event for 2 weeks later and started the advertising. On March 23rd, 2013, at 5 PM, at Café Vitrola, we would have our big premiere.

 

When I was a kid and teenager, I was not a big fan of languages. I thought: "Useless... I already speak the language I need in order to communicate with whom I need to communicate. Besides, if necessary, other people can translate it for me." However, during High School, I saw 2 friends talking in English, and that was the first time I saw something like that, and for the first time I felt attracted by those enigmatic, undecipherable, rolled up words from another world. I just kept looking, and tried to figure out what the hell they were saying. Sometimes they talked to me in English, and I could do nothing but be astonished and mesmerized. "How can it be done? How can it be learned?" One of them had lived for 10 years in the USA, and the other one had learned by himself, listening to music. I thought: "His brain must be different, that's the only way... I listen to American music since I was born and I learned nothing!" That indelible moment took me a few years later to decide, undoubtedly, to learn English. Coincidently it was at the same time when my father invited me to study French with him at French Culture House. I had just enrolled in the Energy and Environmental Engineering Course at UFC (Federal University of Ceará), in 2010, in the first class. Therefore, I started learning English by myself, and French in a language course. I searched for websites, materials, videos, and tips all over the Internet... And, bit by bit, I found my way. A website that came in handy was LingQ. Always when I arrived home from my Engineering course, at nighttime, I would go directly to my PC in order to listen to texts read aloud in English. At UFC, I found out that there were English, French and German conversation groups, which were organized by the PETs (Tutorial Education Programs). Later I participated in an isolated initiative of a Spanish group, but it didn't last long, it didn't move forward among the students. I didn't have much interest in learning German... However, I tried as much as possible to participate in all of them... A little time later, the German group died too, because all of us considered German as an impenetrable language. But today it's one of the languages that I study the most. In the English and French groups, I learned the trickery of real communication. The contact with spoken language in spontaneous situations... by discussing several topics.

 

The conversation groups of the CT (Technology Center) at UFC (Ultimate Fi... Federal University of Ceará) certainly were a strong influence for the Polyglot Club Fortaleza that was born on that mild temperature, pleasant climate evening in Benfica neighborhood, on March 23rd, 2013. Aber aller Anfang ist schwer!

 

— Georgos Jurobola, currently lives in Brasília, Federal District, Brazil