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. 

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.

Firsts For Everything- Portuguese, Teaching, Brigadeiro, Running, and More!

Today marks one month and two days since arriving in Brasil, and my Portuguese confidence still feels as basic and low as when I arrived here, BUT a lot of things have changed since I’ve arrived here. This post commemorates and celebrates a lot of the “firsts” that I’ve experienced in the last few weeks.

Running a 10k- Since arriving in Brasil, I decided to motivate myself to keep healthy by running around the lake everyday and signed up for a 10k race that will be held in Londrina on April 22nd! I got so enthusiastic in my training that within my first week of signing up I bumped my running distance from 5k to 7k and then 10k within the week. My legs were definitely feeling the pain the next few days. Each lap around the lake is about 2.5k, so I simply needed to lap the lake four times. Also, Kathryn, my Fulbright buddy who I traveled before orientation with, signed up for the Bem Corrido run in Londrina so that she can come visit my placement city.

Getting rejected by the federal police- they say that on average it takes about three attempts to finish all the paperwork correctly when working with the federal police. Due to staying in Londrina for an extended amount of time, I need to check in the police, pay a fee, and make sure that they have my information. Unfortunately, this needs to be done within 3 months of arriving in my city, and the process can be tricky. Recently, the laws changed and the time frame extended from 30 days to 90 days, which is lucky for us, but there is also still confusion surrounding the new laws and it seems like every police station has different rules for what they require. For example, some of my friends have been turned down because their mother’s middle initial, not full middle name, was listed on the birth certificate. Or, the mother’s maiden name was listed instead of her current last name, and they need to schedule a visit to a consulate to do extra steps. For some things in Brasil, it really does seem like a process can depend on who is helping you that day. As a result, my appointment is May 25th, and I need to go in that morning with all of my documents and hope that they’re correct!

Making Brigadeiro- One of the very popular and famous desserts to Brasil is surprisingly so easy to make. Now that I learned how to make it, it’s dangerous, and I want to make it everyday! The recipe is as follows: melt butter in a pot, add condensed milk ( enough to match however much you want to make), stir this together and add a large portion of chocolate powder, stir on low for about 15 minutes and until it pulls from the bottom as you stir, and then let it cool! I have my roommate Bea to thank for teaching me. It’s especially amazing with fruit dipped in it.

Speaking in Portuguese in front of a group- orientation week began on Tuesday and all of the Letras students gathered together to hear from the professors. Our “project”- the Fulbright ETAs each spoke a little bit about ourselves and who we would teach… but in Portuguese. The other three ETAs and proficient in Portuguese, but then there is me. I was so incredibly nervous, but I wanted to make the most of it that I could, and I think my love for public speaking helped with that. I got up there and started telling them that I had never taken a Portuguese class prior to coming to Brasil, but that I was in a class now at UEL. When I said this they started cheering, and I said “estou nervosa” and they started clapping and laughing. I think being able to connect with my first year students in the fact that we are all learning a new language together is really important. Them seeing that I’m struggling through, but trying, is important. If I want them to take one thing away from working with me it’s to push aside fear of being wrong and go for it. Hopefully I can be a good model for them in my attempts to learn and showcase that it’s ok to make mistakes, and that it’s part of the learning process.

Lastly, I had my very first time teaching a university class!- In the past year I realized that I possibly want to work my way up to a career in post secondary education, and the chance to work with university level students right now is an INCREDIBLE opportunity to dip my feet in the water. Lara, Bennie, Kayla, and I co-taught two three hour long class sessions for all of the course level letras students. We had a bigger turnout than I expected, and half the students at each session were mine! We did an activity with watching a video, analyzing it, and then talking about our own homes. I loved hearing more about the students’ experiences they are bringing, especially with students coming from scattered places in Brasil like Bahia and Curitiba. I felt like I really connected with some of my students, and seeing them excited made me realize that the experience is all coming together. My class schedule is currently set that I assist in the Oral Comprehension Class for freshman every Friday from 2-4 and 7-9 pm. With the Easter holiday this next weekend, I won’t actually start working with my classes until April 6th, but they were asking me when they would get to see me in class, and it hit me really hard. I.am.so.excited.