Guess now it’s my turn, third proud member of our wonderful Myngle team. (Writing about oneself is never easy, but let’s see how it goes.)

My name is Danilo, I am also from Brazil (born in Brasília), and I’ve recently gotten married. I guess I am a bit of a nomad type of person who shares Marina’s thoughts that home is where one is truly happy, something that geographical boundaries simply cannot dictate.

At age 27 I have never spent more than five years straight without changing cities. So far I’ve moved 6 times between Brasília, Fortaleza and the US. It was at the University of Missouri that I got my degrees in Psychology and Sociology and really started my interest in education, cultures and business.

Languages and Teaching:

My experience with foreign languages began quite early in life by learning English. Since the age of three I started traveling to the US, coming and going for a couple weeks at a time every semester. Later, during my undergraduate studies I had the opportunity to meet people of several different countries and I started helping some friends improve their English. The experience was only for fun, helping others while also learning more about different cultures around the world.

My professional link to languages started when I came back to Brazil. As an instructor and later as supervisor of instruction I had the opportunity to learn more about the art of teaching. It was fascinating to share knowledge with students and show them another world through a new language. My greatest reward is to see the happiness in someone’s eyes when they are finally able to express themselves and experience new things after learning something new, when they return from a trip and tell me they were finally independent to explore places and meet people all by themselves.

Besides teaching students I also spent much of my time teaching instructors. With this opportunity I learned much more about the fields of education, linguistics, neuro-psychology, and language learning theories. Of course I didn’t have to learn all of this to give trainings, I could have just studied the training manuals and taught directly from it. But my curiosity took me a step further so I could actually learn more to teach better. After a couple of weeks in training, people were able to teach languages themselves and help others by multiplying their own knowledge.

Besides these experiences as a teacher, even before my experience as an instructor, I had many professional opportunities to share my knowledge. In every single job I’ve gone through I was the staff member responsible for training programs. Like I mentioned before, I am a ‘curious type’ of person. I always like to analyze, watch, and study about things. Because of this habit, I’ve always been able to learn fast so I was always given the assignment to train new employees and create training materials.

Internet and Technology:

Being a son of a computer analyst, our family always had a computer around. My father’s passion for computers was captivating so we were drawn to them as a fun activity and not something that needed to be learned for survival. The internet for us started in the early 90’s, back then only by sending messages (what is now known as email). Many years ago I also learned how to code html, but that information has now been a bit lost. Instead of coding I was browsing and learning new things in the vast cyber world. Recently my web development skills took me to create solutio360.

I’ve always used computers to help in as many tasks as possible, always trying to discover how personal and professional activities can be done more effectively using the computer. Two years ago I was introduced to online learning technologies and I loved it. Interacting with people and even teaching them a new language thousands of miles away is truly amazing, it eliminates boundaries and creates a new world.

My journey with Myngle:

It was in the middle of last year when I decided to make 2007 a year of many changes. My nomad spirit decided I needed some change so I left my job in December and applied for positions as far away as Japan. It was then, by a very happy coincidence that out of nowhere came an email from Valter through a social networking site. We spoke and later I had the opportunity to speak with Marina to meet Myngle, an exciting project that joined my greatest passions: technology and foreign language instruction. Not many words were needed for me to jump in and start helping, it’s a great project and great people behind it.

So, here I am a blogger, an educator, a techie, a Myngler!

Danilo is a Myngle freelancer

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 12:17 am and is filed under Team. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.