Dear everyone
You may be surprised to see that someone overseas wants to provide you with some feedback about Harry Potter. Well it is exactly the opposite,as you will see.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Gabriela Gaione and I am a teacher of English as a Foreign Language in Uruguay, the country I come from. I have been teaching EFL in highschools both private and Statal for over 15 years now.
The thing is I became interested in Harry Potter for a number of reasons. First there's the fact that my former Phonetics Professor - now a senior colleague at Cerp del Sur- introduced to me to the character in 1999, I must say that he himself, who happens to dislike the character, presented it to us student teachers for the sake of originality- whatever ... Secondly there's my own students. They have told me they are only interested in Harry Potter- and perhaps the 7 Narnia Chronicles translated into Spanish of course, since for a Spanish speaking child JK Rowling's novels can be a bit too difficult.
Anyway, little by little, I started to include the topic in my lessons with very positive results. Now I'm working as a Didactics teacher at Cerp del Sur, an Institution where future teachers read to become professional ones at highschools in my country. I also teach a subject called Language and Culture II, the main topics of the course being Human Rights, Education for Peace, the World of Labour and even Religion. I am interested in conducting a discussion on HP since it provides material catering for the four main topics and it can be studied 'seriously', beyond the children's tale.
It would be of great help if you could correspond with me on this matter since it is a highly controversial issue, academically speaking.It would help me a great deal to have some evidence of interest at a tertiary setting as prestigious as yours.
I look forward to hearing from you
with kind regards,
Gabriela Gaione
