Volunteering In A Private English School

Last week, I had the pleasure to volunteer speaking at a private English school in Londrina called Instituto Federal Parana. The instructor asked me to come in for a class and talk about American cultural, but also requested that I make a typical “American Dish”. The USA doesn’t really have one well known meal that I could think of, but I offered to make chocolate chip cookies to bring. Instead, the class instructor asked that as a class we make mac and cheese. The first thing that came to mind was- shoot, they don’t have Kraft mac and cheese here. So, we went old fashion. Luckily, I’ve made mac and cheese from scratch before, so I knew how to do it, but I didn’t have the cheeses the recipe called for- I can’t easily obtain Vermont Sharp Cheddar here.

I went to the class expecting maybe ten students, and I instead was welcomed by about twenty-five students, all varying in age from University students to grandparents. Everyone greeted me with a kiss to the cheek, and we headed to the market to buy the groceries. They were so hilarious, bargaining with the instructor to add extra ice cream and guarana to the cart. Once we got back to the school, we headed to the kitchen and all got to work on preparing the food. We ended up making five bags worth of pasta! I tried to involve the students as much as I could in the chopping of cheese, stirring, adding pasta, and the whole process. I definitely didn’t expect that many people, and guesstimating the measurements made it taste a little differently than I hoped, but hopefully they enjoyed it! In return, they made traditional brigadeiro for us all, which was my favorite part. It astounds me how kind, energetic, and talkative the students were, and we all tried to converse in a mix of English and mostly Portugues.

You can check out the school's post about the event and their commentary here (it has more mac and cheese adventure pictures):

http://londrina.ifpr.edu.br/2018/04/06/curso-de-ingles-intermediario-tem-aula-especial-com-professora-americana/