What has helped me with English pronunciation was to get some theoretical knowledge about what sounds normally cause problems and why. Like Germans very often have problems pronouncing the English w, because we simply do not have that sound in German. Our letter w is pronounced the same as an English v (and our v as well), German just does not distinguish between v and w. For that reason, we tend not to hear that difference in English and we won't even notice that we sound terribly German because of it. But once I knew that difference existed, I could actively work on hearing the difference and practice producing a decent English w. Similar with th, another sound (or rather sounds, since there is the voiced and voiceless version) that we don't have in German. And the third major thing that always betrays a German speaker to the ears of a native English speaker is the fact that we convert voiced consonants into voiceless ones at the end of a word. Again, it is something we do automatically and if I had not been told that, I probably never would have picked up on the difference. Of course, those are specific German things, but I am sure if you look for it, you will find similar patterns for Portuguese that prevent you from hearing and pronouncing things correctly in English or Japanese. Being aware of those is the first step in correcting your own pronunciation.

I am surprised to hear that there even is a need to ban fireworks on the Galapagos islands. I always imagined those islands being kind of a nature reserve with almost no people living there, only comodo dragons and giant turtles.

That said, I live in Germany and we traditionally do have fireworks for New Year. Fireworks are strongly regulated the rest of the year and you are only allowed to buy and use them with special permission, but for a few days after Christmas they are sold freely and the whole country goes a bit crazy with them. Fireworks not only cause a lot of noise and scare animals, they also contribute to air pollution in a massive way (the fireworks from New Year cause up to 5 % of all the air pollution of the year in the bigger cities) and every year quite a few people are severely injured. So there are many good reasons to ban them or at least regulate fireworks more strictly, but whenever a politician proposes this, there is a massive outcry, because many people really love those fireworks.  That said, there are a few towns and islands that have completely banned the use of fireworks because they prove to be too much of a fire hazard for the traditional thatched roofs used in that area.