American Teaching English in Brazil

Hello! Although you all know me, I thought that I would spend this first post talking about exactly WHAT IT IS that I am doing in relation to Language Teaching.

Upon arriving in Brazil with my Master's degree from Vanderbilt in Latin American Studies in hand, prepared to work on vigorous educational policy reform, I decided to take it easy and relax and teach English instead (which would also provide me with the stellar opportunity to END MY LONG DISTANCE MARRIAGE and make finally live in the same house, together, after almost two years of only visits every other month or so.)

Little did I know that I was opening Pandora's box and would absolutely fall in love with teaching.

I've now changed my career goals bastante and am totally excited about teaching English and am constantly looking for new ways to continue to etch out my own place in the local market, which already has about 5 private language schools, along with mandatory English instruction from the primary through college-prep education. English is a requirement here in Brazil, as all college entrance exams have an English (or sometimes Spanish) section, so for the youth, it is of utmost importance to have control of a foreign language, and most choose English, because, well you know.

I have been lucky as I have been able to continue using my Spanish in the few Spanish classes that I do have, however, I regret to inform you that my Spanish which was at the advanced level, is now Portanhol, due to my constant immersion in Portuguese.

I have found that my favorite lessons are the the most difficult ones (the Three Conditionals and the Perfect Tenses) and LOVE working with pre-college or college level students. I have found that the wealthy business owning women tend to be more of a distraction than the 13 year olds who throw spitballs at the girls that they like and their brothers.

I have also been providing translation services (Portuguese-->English only) to professors and students at one of the local colleges and have successfully translated 2 complete thesis about genotoxicity (wow did I learn a lot about Amazonian fruits!) and have translated numerous abstracts (abstracts are required to be in Portuguese and a foreign language in order to be publishable in Brazil.). To my surprise, one of my clients spoke with the president of the university about me starting up an English course there (since they are lacking one) and after a presentation, I was approved to be able to utilize a classroom free of charge as a test run for a "College Level English Course" to prepare students for international conferences, understanding advanced texts in English and participating in international research collaborations. My propaganda starts in February and needless to say, I am terrified that it is going to bomb, but I am so excited if it takes off! If I can manage 7 students in each of the 3 time slots, I will be able to triple my monthly income. A huge plus.

So, in 2012, my plan is to cut my ties with the language school I was working at in order to free up my time for lesson planning for my MWF classes at the college and for my T/TH private lessons that I will be still keeping up with since they pay so well. I'm also considering trying out a "Coffee Hour" at one of the local cafes here. The whole "socializing at the local cafe" has not taken off here in the interior, but there are numerous establishments that are on the brink of bankruptcy due to the lack of clientele. My plan is to suggest to one of these places some type of collaboration where I can utilize the space for an hour or two on a Thursday or Friday evening for advanced English conversation. I'll probably make some form of punch cards for people to buy more than one session at a time (with a small discount) and provide the coffee shop owner a small percentage of the fees that I charge in addition to allowing him to keep all the profits from the coffee sales. I think that this might take off if I advertise correctly IN the language schools and promote it as "professional development" for their staff and "travel preparation" for those who travel abroad and want a refresher.

As far as language resources, I am in love with using TED.com videos as homework. I assign a different video for each of my students (usually about 5 mins long) as homework and the next week they do a class presentation on the topic that they were assigned. This works their comprehension and presentation skills like crazy! I also utilize VOA News for reading comprehension, new vocabulary and occasionally as listening comprehension for homework. I LOVE to take 30 minutes every other week to work on short dictations using funny stories from Yahoo's Odd News. I read the text in chunks and have each student write what they think they are hearing. After I am done reading, I read it through one more time without pausing, but still kinda slow, and then I let them collaborate in groups to fix their errors. After about 10 minutes, I let each group choose someone to write their version of the text on the board. The results help them to see how MUCH they are understanding and laugh together at their errors. Last semester I used a story about a guy who tried to smuggle a bunch of animals in his pants (snakes, monkeys, etc...) through the airport. Imagine the insanity! Lastly, I like to spend a part of the class EVERY class, on conversation. I bring a list of questions to ask the students or I have them prepare a list of questions that have to do with a certain topic. Friendship, World Peace, Happiness, (the New Age philosopher in me LOVES this part) and I try to get them using their language skills to express their ideas and opinions. At first it is always really hard, but they usually let loose after about 5 minutes. I found that this page from The Internet TESL Journal has TONS of questions related to various topics for when I am in a pinch.

I think that this website is an AWESOME idea and I am looking forward to participating and hearing from all of you. What are your favorite things to teach? What are your frustrations? What sites do you like to use? Let's start inviting our friends to participate and make this site exciting for all!

Feel free to check out my personal blog at www.adventuresintheamazonjpr.blogspot.com!

Abraços!