Another day, another two shifts of school. We started today at a private (Catholic) school, with a preschool - 12 system. The school has very nice facilities and enthusiastic learners, but it really didn't have significantly smaller class sizes. On the way to school we noticed that our cab driver had a tv loaded, I think so he wouldn't ever miss a minute of soccer!
A fun fact I'll bet you never knew: Natal had a huge U.S. military base during World War 2, since it was the closest point in the Atlantic to Africa. This sleepy fishing village changed forever after 10,000 American men landed. For our visit the students had researched and prepared Power Point presentations. Foreign influence helped develop this into a city of more than a million people, and a popular tourist site. However, several groups spoke about the rise in prostitution, illegitimate children, and the breakdown of the traditional Latin family structure.
Day Ten: What do you think?
Class control is so hard with this many students! Class size: 48!
After class we played tourist and went downtown to see some of the buildings from Natal's colonial days. The first picture is the mayor's office, and the second is a church that is from the mid-1700's.
Francisli told us that students had been looking forward to our visit for weeks, and they had so many questions to ask. When the moment arrived, however, of course it was intimidating to ask questions in another language. The questions that we started with were easy (Do you like our city? Does it snow where you live? Does your family own a car? Do you think Justin Bieber is hot?) but as we got more comfortable the questions got deeper, and all of a sudden, as the person representing our country, I was the nervous one. Here are a few questions. What do you think? How would you answer these?
- We studied about racism in the United States, and the segregation laws that ended over 50 years ago (Brazil never segregated races). If the law has ended racism, why do you still have problems like what we saw in St. Louis?
- Health care is available for everyone in Brazil. Why are there so many problems with health care in the United States?
- Brazil hasn't been in a war for over 100 years (and that was a border dispute). Why is America in wars all of the time?
- Do you think that America deserves some of the terrorism attacks, since America invades other countries?
Second shift was night school. The activity was asking students to describe local fruits with adjectives using the five senses (in English). This is the group with ages from late teens to students my age, but classroom control is not easier. I think adults are much more hesitant to try new things, and use jokes as a way to avoid difficult situations.