At the end of the noughties I attended a graduation ceremony in the Great Hall at the University of Leeds. There, I was awarded with a Master of Arts degree in Linguistics and English Language Teaching. Just ten years before I had only basic skills in English and was stuck working in a street stall in South America, earning 60 per month. This narrative tells about the adventurous journey learning English and how English empowered me to escape from a social background of mediocrity. Along this journey I learned about Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, English Learning (as a foreign/ second...