Fabiola — Personal Letter

Dear Rick,

I was willing to start this writing course with you, not only because I see you as a good teacher but also because you are the right one to help me to improve my writing abilities. As you know I’m now working as a linguist and to be able to develop my job smoothly I need, first of all, be clear and focused on the communication with my boss. And the main way of doing this is by writing since my boss and the whole team is located in different countries.

I do not consider myself a good English writer and even a good Portuguese writer. For me to become a good writer is a real challenge because I spend all day long in front of a computer so I just write using a tool and I can always get some support from the spellchecker, for instance, which hides my spelling errors. But from the other side I can also learn a lot even using a tool because practicing and researching, in my point of view, is the best way to learn.

And I truly hope that this course will give the guidelines I need to get my writing abilities improved. I’m really interested in practicing and developing the writing processes such as creation, revision and organization. I want to be able to express my thoughts clearly, with structured ideas, producing readable and interesting finished texts. Therefore, my goal this bimester is to start thinking as a writer and only after this achievement I will make sure that my struggle is worthwhile.

Sincerely,

Fabiola

Eliana — Personal Letter

October 18, 2007

Dear Rick,

    I’m very anxious about this course, because I really wanna improve my writing skills, wich I think is not good engouh for an advanced student, so I hope that this course could help me on that.

    I enjoy writing, either in portuguese or english, when I write I always think that I’m doing a good work as I like to write.

 My goals in this course are : to learn how americans write, to improve my vocabulary and my fluency when writing. In order to  achieve these goals I expect to have the help from you in the sense of showing me which are my flaws and giving me the tools to become a better writer. 

Sincerely,

Eliana

Claudia — Personal Letter

Dear Rick,

I believe that this will be a very profitable bimester.  I’m expecting to fine tune my writing skill.  I don’t like to write much because I’m afraid of making many mistakes, but I think that this is a good opportunity to leave the underdog image of my mind.

First, I just write when it is really necessary. I sometimes have to answer e-mails in my job.  What I think that will make the difference in this course is that I believe I will learn how Americans expect us to write. 

Second,  I want to learn not only how to organize my ideas, but also how to use different words. I want to improve in general and I don’t have a specific field that I want to improve.

Finally, I see the content of the course very intensive, your way of teaching very dinamic, and tackling all the fields in general will give me the knowlodge I want

Sincerely,

Cláudia

Grace — Personal Letter

October 18, 2007

 Dear Rick,

   I´m very excited too and I hope we will have a great time learning and developing my writing abilities.

   Today, I used to write only emails and presentations, but I am interested in improving others kinds of writings.  I dont like very much to write, I prefer to comunicate or express my opinions oraly, but I know how important is to be a good writer and I intend to become one.

  I havent set a specific goal for me, but I am going to do soon because it will be the measure of my improvement. There are two areas that I want to improve: form and organization, these areas I have more difficulties

  I am interested in learning how to write formal business letters, if you can help me I will be grateful.

  Sincerely

Grace Perez

Christiano — Personal Letter

October 18, 2007

Dear Rick,

To be honest, I have different feelings right now. I am excited about starting writting classes and I really think that this will be important for my improvement in English. On the other hand, I’m a a little afraid of the course because there are so many structures and a lot of information that scaries me but I ‘ll make an effort to learn a lot.

At the beggining of the course, I’ll make a lot of questions to clarify my doubts and I’ll need your help to solve them.

Then, I hope that I can make a lot of essays without mistakes and with a good structure.

Hopefully, at the end of the course, I’ll be writting as well and I’ll be able to write anything perfectly.

Sincerely,

Christiano

Vanessa — Personal letter

Dear Rick,

 I do not have much experience in writing but I enjoy doing it.When I was younger I used to write poems and short stories.Like I said before I do not have much time

André — Introduction

Hey…my name is André Parisi. I´m 17 and I study in Porto Seguro since I was a child. I studied there all my life but this year is my last year there, then I´ll have to go to the college.

I´m a sports fan. I really love sports and I practiced a lot of diferents sports in my whole life. I used to play water polo since I was 11. It was amazing, but i had to quit this year because i have to enter in a great college and I have to study a lot.

Mah — Personal Letter

October 18th, 2007

Dear Rick,

I’m also really excited about starting  this course! As you may have already noticed, I enjoy writing a lot, since essays until big stories that I write for fun. I rather write in Portuguese than in English but I’ve already written some things in English too.

Bluntly speaking, I don’t think that I’m a good writer at all, either when writing in Portuguese or English, but I think I can improve it by working on my vocabulary, grammar and organization of ideas. At my point of view, for a person to be a good writer, it takes him/her more than just knowing all the structures of a language, the person needs to be inspired, focused on it and try to detach him/herself from everything. And I think that, for this, we just have to practice.

Sincerely,

Marina.

Vanessa — Introduction

Hi everyone!

I am going to write a little about me…..

Well, I am 16 years old, I study at Mobile and I am in the second year of high school.

I am always very busy because I am always studying a lot for school.

On saturday I go to Panamerica that is a school of art and design.

I enjoy to draw and to read.During my free time I am always reading a romance or drawing manga.During the week I go to park to Ibirapuera to walk and  to think about my life.Twice a week I go to my club, Monte Libano to practice ballet….I like very much but I am not very good on it because my hole life I danced jazz that is quite different from ballet.I also enjoy going to the cinema with my friends during the weekend.

Lully — Personal Letter

October 18, 2007

Dear Rick,

I’m excited about this course too. I like to write, but honestly, I’m not too good at it, because I barely have time to practice. Like I said I don’t have much free time so I hardly ever write outside of class. But if I had time, I’d probably write stories.

I don’t have any specific goal, I think that in this corse I’ll improve mainly the organization, form and content of a text. Grammar and vocabulary too, but not as much as those mentioned before. My main problem is, beyond any doubt, the content.

In my oppinion practice is the best way to improve anything. Therefore, in my view practice would be the only way to improve my writing skills.

Truely,

Lucía