Many academics that choose to study “Letras/Inglês”, at some time before or after graduation,
are inclined to the idea that they need to experience an experience abroad to learn English. In
this way, there is the imaginary that the English learning would be conditioned to the
conviviality with natives, mainly in the United States, that is usually the preferred destination
of those who intend to acquire or to improve the knowledge in English language. Thus, this
work investigates how the beliefs, social representations and the American Dream promote
the English teachers’ identity construction based on the three graduated students’ life
narratives. These graduate students studied “Letras/Inglês” (at Federal University of
Tocantins, Araguaína Campus, in Brazil) and they are living in the USA. This research is
qualitative and bibliographical. We used Paul Thompson's Oral History methodology (1992)
to access these narratives. As a theoretical contribution, we move the concepts of Josso (2007)
about the hinge moment and Moscovici (2003) that deals with the social representations of the
subject and their forms of anchoring and objectification. To treat about beliefs and critical
English-language teaching, we rely on Rajagopalan (2005) and Leite (2018). In view of the
analysis carried out, a table of words was sketched to exemplify the cultivation of certain
discourses involving beliefs and imaginaries employed in the academic environment – the
university – and other collective universes – social groups – that together strengthen the
individual universe of each subject and his / her representations of Being an English teacher,
therefore, these individuals anchor themselves in discursive reverberations (reports of
experience abroad and American Dream, Au Pair programs), images (pictures, books),
cinematographic (films, series) and sensory (well-being).
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