Being A Part of A Community

One of the first things that I did when I got to UEL (the University I work at) was to join a Portugues For Foreign Learners class. I met people from all over the world, but mostly from South America. I am currently taking my second Portugues class, and I have met people from: Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Iran, Hungary, Haiti, and Morocco. In addition, I attend the monthly Intercultural Cafe, which has allowed me to reach out to people studying at UEL from even more countries across the world. 

One of my classmates, Daniela, asked me to participate in a poem reading for one of the Master's classes. She sculpted a video that highlights the differences and beauty that we all bring to UEL with our languages. In the video, we all read the same people, except in a cascading effect in our language. It was really breathtaking to hear the differences in languages. 

From left to right:

Romania- Argentina- Spanish

Brazil- Portugues

Daniela- Venezuela- Spanish

Dominique- Haiti- French

Andrea- Hungary- Hungarian

Me- USA- English

Claire- France- French 

Feira das Profissões na UEL

We had students from high schools all over the country come for UEL's feira das profissões day, which is similar to a university open house. I got to talk to students from all over Brasil and work alongside my students to tell them about our program. I did sneak away for a bit with Thais, one of the professors I work with for the first year oral production class, to take some pictures in the Letras Espanhol room. I'm so lucky and glad to have supportive and wonderful students that enjoy hanging out with me outside of class and call me over to join the Just Dance activities. 

I worked the night shift of the event, between 6-9 pm, and by then the crowds had died down. In order to try to attract the attention of passing by people, we put on Just Dance videos to popular English songs. Depending on the song we attracted some pretty big crowds. I got a bit too into it and jammed out with my students, which resulted in them pointing out just how bad of a dancer I am. To me though, if I can't be who I am in front of them (which is a total goon and crazy goof ball) then how can I ask them to trust me by doing the same. My bad attempt at dance moves was just met by my students encouraging me to continue and calling me over to join. I may have only talked to a hand full of perspective students, but I think we let our personalities shine out to those that we did. 

Settling VS Wandering

I could have chosen to settle down. I could have accepted one of the teaching positions I was offered, and I would have just finished my first year teaching a middle school English class. So many thoughts went through my head when the county English supervisor offered me the contract right at her surprise observation of my class that I student taught. I weighed so many pros and cons after I received my phone call from another county’s English supervisor within twenty-four hours of my interview telling me that I was likely to be offered the job, and promptly received the contract the following day. I had to ask myself- am I ready to settle down yet?

Growing up, I thought that the ideal scenario would include me finding my prince charming at high school and being the stereotypical high school sweethearts, completing a college degree to become a teacher, being proposed to by the end of college, finishing my first year of teaching, getting married, buying a house in a wonderful neighborhood, and starting a family. I thought that I needed this. I thought that I wanted this, and I did until this past year. Now I can’t imagine this reality, which largely is in part due to the fact that most of this timeframe has come and gone and my life has veered so far from this path.

At twenty-three years old I am wandering. Not lost, but still finding my way. I completed my undergraduate bachelor's degree in English with a concentration of Secondary Education and a minor in Art in the Thomas Bellavance Honors College at Salisbury University, which gave me the opportunity to pick the fork in the road. Settling or wandering. I chose Fulbright- I chose Brasil. And although every minute of being here is worth it (value a pena), I still look back and wonder what things would be like if I was still stateside.

Living abroad for nine months in a way puts your life on hold. Before you leave, especially the last few months beforehand, it’s hard to begin anything when you know that soon enough you will be leaving. It feels almost as though you are closed the chapter of a book. Not ending the story, but moving on to a new part, and needing to tie up loose ends. As well, while abroad, you have so many amazing things happening in your current moment but you look back to all of your friends and family who continue on with their lives without you present in the picture. Sometimes I wonder, would you have invited me to that concert too, or would I be sitting on the beach next to you? Thinking like this is silly though, and I try to remind myself to soak in every moment of the time abroad- because who knows if I will ever live in Brasil again.

It’s these thoughts as I look to once again apply for fellowships, but this time for masters funded programs- such as Marshall, Cambridge, Mitchell, and Rhodes. I ask myself where I would want to place myself for at least the next two years to complete a masters, and then I wonder if a doctorate degree is in my future. I’m taking the approach to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, but it’s so nerve-wrecking to think about the future. The first time I heard the term “imposter syndrome”, I finally felt relieved to know that there is a defined term to explain what I’ve felt. Somedays, I stand beside my fellow Fulbright ETAs and wonder- how did I ever get chosen for this? I’m working alongside brilliant (beyond brilliant) graduates who have done everything short of save the world. Yes, I’ve had some accomplishments along the way, which I won’t deny, but it’s very intimidating still. Knowing that Fulbrighters just like them, who are equally as spectacular, applying for the same fellowships makes me so nervous. Some fellowships offer only forty positions each year. So, it’s me versus the super-genius overachiever, and I’m not sure if I would even have a chance. I won’t let that stop me though. Let the essay season begin.

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/

First University Classes Assisted!

My students are beyond amazing and better than I could have ever asked for. You know that they break your expectations of adorableness when a students says, “I’ve seen this on American tv so many times and I knew this was my chance”, and proceeds to hand me an apple. In order to celebrate my student’s first ever class in oral production, I stayed up until midnight and then two hours the next morning baking cookies. Baking without USA measuring cups was a challenged, and I apologized profusely to my students that they probably tasted different than normal. Their faces lit up when they saw the cookies, and my night class went back for seconds.

Every Friday I assist in teaching two sections of oral production for freshman English Education students. Meaning- my students are studying to be English teachers, and I get to help them improve their fluency and confidence in the language. There are four of us Fulbrighters at UEL, and each of us is assigned a grade level for the course. The freshman class is the largest, meaning that I get to work with about 40 students between two classes. The classes are set up as 1.75 hour chunks, and there is an afternoon and night session (2 pm and 7:15 pm).

It’s interesting how many of my students stated that their reason for choosing the major is because they either 1. Loved English and have studied it a lot of their life or 2. Want to learn English. In a way, this is similar to a lot of English Education majors I met in my program who started the degree track because of their love for English, but eventually switched out of the Education track.

Our first class we spent some time doing icebreakers and getting to know you questions, which helped me to gage the students’ personalities and English levels. They are so spunky, and I was so impressed by the level of humor that they’re already able to include in their responses. My night class had a running joke about being single and loving cats, and we decided that blind dates are definitely necessary to set up almost the whole class haha!

I am a bit nervous about working with two different professors for the class. Both classes are based on the same syllabus, except my afternoon professor seems to want to incorporate a lot of texts, and my night professor is keen to follow a certain textbook. It does make me worried that I might get strung out from lesson planning two different curriculum. As well, I haven’t received an answer yet as to how I’ll fit into the class- whether it be creating an opening activity, or just adding to what the professor creates. I’m hoping that the next few weeks will help to lay that out.

My students are working on their biography and autobiography unit, which leaves a lot of wiggle room for activities like- headbanz, coffee house speed dating, classmate bingo, and other small activities that can be infused to introduce more adjectives and descriptive vocabulary. I’m hoping to plan a lot of group activities to get them up and talking. As well, I’ve begun collecting information on my students to gage their levels, goals, and backgrounds, and I hope to incorporate a variety of multiple intelligences in my activity so that I can collect feedback about how they best learned oral production skills.

It may be a lot of work, and things still may not be set up, but I love it. My students make it worth it everyday. My goal is to show my students how great their abilities already are, to improve their confidence, and show them that as they’re learning English- I’m learning Portuguese. It’s a joint process. I made sure the first day to emphasize that I’m not there to judge them. When I shared some of my recent mistakes (for example louca-crazy for louça-dishes) they laughed. I can’t wait to share more laughs and jokes with my students as we learn.