Flora’’''' s Legacy In 1929, Flora was born into a traditional family in a small town called Ibiá, in the state of Minas Gerais. She was the second of five children, the youngest of whom is Adelaide, the principal of CEI – Flora. Flora enjoyed 5 learning and was enthusiastic about her studies. Soon after she finished a high-school level course, which enabled her to teach, she was _______________ a teaching post at a nursery school in Ibiá. She could never have imagined that those years of primary school teaching 10 would provide her with the experience and knowledge needed to come up with her own methodology, which would in turn drastically change her life. In 1952, her family moved to Franca, in the state of São Paulo. _______________, her teaching credential 15 was not recognized in São Paulo, precluding her from teaching there. Meanwhile, she worked as a secretary. It was around this time that she came across a set of records titled “How to Learn English Without a Teacher”, which she purchased right away, even though it cost all 20 her hard-earned savings. Her father bitterly criticized her for spending her savings on what he regarded as a sheer _______________ of money. Even so, at the age of 29, Flora determinedly started to learn English on her own. Some help came along when she met an 25 American lady who needed to learn Portuguese and was willing to teach English in exchange for Portuguese lessons. In her spare time, Flora tutored students who
Book II - Lesson 4
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needed assistance to pass the exam required to get into junior high back then. In 1962, her family ______________ into financial 31 hardship, so they moved to Goiânia in search of new opportunities. Her first job here was for the Railway Station, but she gave private lessons on weekends as well. In 1963, she made a life-altering decision to quit her 35 job at the Railway Station and dedicate herself solely to her teaching career, tutoring neighbors and whomever else needed her help. As her _______________ rate of helping students do well in school steadily increased, she began to earn a name for herself and took on more 40 and more students. Sooner than she could have ever dreamed possible, she found herself teaching three groups a week at her house. In 1964, Flora rented a room in a building _________________ called Carlos Chagas. Later that year, she sent a letter to AFS, an exchange 45 student agency, for her family to be considered as a host family, yet she concealed having done so from her parents. When they were selected, her father recognized all her efforts to learn the language and accepted to host Beth, the exchange student, who became close friends with 50 Flora. A couple of years later, Beth arranged for Flora to audit classes at some primary schools in Towanda, Beth’s hometown in the state of Pennsylvania, where she spent three months receiving _______________ from American teachers. She started a diary to gather all the information she could, besides buying books, tapes 56 and records used by American schools at the time. In 1967, she managed to move her small school, which was comprised of a single room and a blackboard, to a bigger place downtown. She then started ________________ to attract new students to her school by handing out 61 flyers to fellow churchgoers after Sunday mass. In 1971, as the number of classes and students kept growing, she took out a mortgage on a house in Setor Sul, which was where her school began in earnest. By 65 then, the school was known as “Curso Infantil de Inglês”. Flora managed to teach classes as well as run the school. In her classes, she would often walk around the block with her students and describe everything to them in English. Once back inside, 70 everyone would tell a short story, Flora would ask questions about what had been _______________, and
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