TEFL - YOU CAN'T GIVE IT AWAY

Sometimes we are in situations where it is inadvisable to let out a crass, reflexive guffaw when something strikes us as particularly jocular or ludicrous, and the TEFL classroom is often just such a setting. We know it’s wrong to show reactions of mirth when students make mistakes or inadvertently utter balderdash, but sometimes the undisguisable absurdity of their declarations simply overwhelms us.

I recently taught two young ladies who I assumed were a pair of rollicking wenches studying English just for the sheer, unbridled revelry it bestowed, given their collapse into initially charming bouts of adolescent giggling every time I asked them a question in English. After several rounds of blushing and tittering in response to my attempts at addressing them with simple questions, I reverted to chatting to them in Portuguese. “So, what do you do?” I asked them. “We’re teachers,” they replied, stifling a chuckle. “Really? That’s interesting,” I responded, “what do you teach?” “English!” they replied, veritably shrieking with the unmasked comedy of the situation. How we all laughed!

The fact that we were all left with tears rolling down our cheeks was a poignant reflection of the tragi-comic nature of Brazilian state school education. There was nothing ironic about their pronouncements, they really were secondary school teachers of English. How? is another, infinitely more pertinent question. A whole generation of youngsters is growing up with its future clouded by the utter inefficiency and incompetence of an education system which remains underfinanced, poorly remunerated and prepared to admit anybody willing to accept the obvious privations to which teaching subjects them. Moves are afoot in some circles to try to reverse this steady and headlong decline, so far with mixed results.

A couple of months ago I went to the British Council offices in São Paulo with my friend Bert. (To be honest, I felt I was being very gracious since they had recently ignored my application to become a Projects Officer, which from what I could gather primarily involves messing about on a computer and arranging cars to drive around the city and pick people up - ideal for the budding procrastinator. They probably thought I was simply too good, and that soon I’d be replacing the person who hired me*. There’s a lot of that about over here.)

Incidentally, if you ever visit their São Paulo offices, check out the fourth-floor restaurant, a very reasonable and surprisingly sumptuous all-you-can-eat buffet. Bert took it as a personal gastronomic challenge, eating two main courses and two desserts, but he’s double my size, and I’m British and polite. I could see him agonising about having a third dish of profiteroles, but our meeting was about to start and I had to drag him away before things got ugly. There’s also a fake pub on the ground floor, where you can buy half a draught Guinness for a week’s wages and get misty-eyed about home.

The reason for our intrepid journey into the heart of the metropolis was to hear a talk about a program they’re implementing here in Brazil for state school teachers called English Teacher’s Portfolio (ETP). It’s a 100-hour course to help state school teachers of English improve their language skills, all available entirely for free via the Internet. It’s actually a very good course, in my opinion - the materials are online for teachers to access, print out and study, and there are recordings of Brazilian teachers moaning in English about their salaries, working conditions, etc, giving the course a candid authenticity not usually found in TEFL materials. Added to this is the “teaching tips” section, which affords teachers some creative ideas for livening up their classroom experiences – a condensed, no-frills TEFL course, if you will. So impressed have I been that I have become a volunteer “mentor”, a person who oversees monthly meetings and gives feedback on the course to the participants. (I ask little in return other than the naming of one of the town’s thoroughfares after me – and not some dank cul-de-sac, I’ve made it clear I want a tree-lined boulevard.)

I met with the Department of Education at the local Prefeitura and they embraced the project wholeheartedly. Sixteen teachers initially signed up, and we arranged that they would try to complete two units of the course per month. After a month the first meeting took place. Of the sixteen original applicants, ten had already given up. Of the remaining six, only one had successfully completed all the portfolio tasks. If Brazil is to ever to free itself of the shackles of underinvestment and skewed priorities that keep this giant, potential-filled nation pinned down like Gulliver in Lilliput, attitudes towards education really have to change.

TEFL – sadly, you really can’t give it away.

* - !