Confidence is the key

I completed the English course in Brazil a month before moving to Europe. I believed that I was ready to travel abroad and communicate fluently. However, it was a shock when I moved and realized that I could barely understand what people were saying. The different accents sounded like another language to me. It took me about 2 months to train my ears and get used to it. I tried to learn German and improve my English at the same time, but it didn’t work. At least, it worked to show me that I needed to focus on one language at a time. So I chose to focus on improving my English, finishing what I had already started.

I participated in language exchange meetups, started to study individually at home, and met a person who agreed to do a tandem. These efforts have really improved my English skills, except for one and fundamental thing: confidence. When I realized that I was afraid to open my mouth and make mistakes all the time, I decided to take the next step: go to a country that has English as its mother tongue.

Full immersion

I went to London to study at an English School1. I took a preparation course to obtain the international certification, IELTS (International English Language Testing System) and took extra special classes “Speaking with Confidence”. It was an intensive course of 22.5 hours per week for 2 months (8 weeks). In addition, I chose to live with a family in the first month and with a different family in the second month, in order to expand my experience and have a complete immersion.

Going to London was a milestone in my learning process. I improved in two months what I couldn’t do before. More than advancing to level C1 on the school exit test and achieving the minimum IELTS required for a master’s degree in Europe, I gained the confidence I was looking for and returned to Munich ready to learn the next language: German.


  • Certificate
  • Class

1 EC English is a language centre with 25 schools around the world that offers academic, business and general English courses.