Escolas e Inglês e Português, oh my!

Olá! I’m Laura Hamrick, the one (and only!) education intern for the first session of the Atlantis Project. Everyone else has done a pretty good job of talking about the things we’ve been up to as a group, so I’m going to talk more about my experiences so far at the Escola Tomás do Borba, the K-12 school that I’ll be working at for six weeks. So far I’ve met the English teachers, met some of the kids, and started to understand how the school works. My role is twofold – I’ll be assisting the teachers in their lessons by working with the students individually and presenting to their classes, and I’ll also be serving as the recruitment point person for the second session’s English camp.

On Tuesday (after our ritual pastry and a café com leite at the Cafe Alianca) Singer and I met up with a woman at the regional board of education who took us out to the school. The school is awesome. It’s only three years old, and is apparently one of the best schools in Portugal. One whole wing is a conservatory devoted to music and dance, so I’m hoping to get a chance to go play cello with the kids. They also have a sick recreational building that I would also not mind trying out. So far I’ve just sat in on 10^th and 12^th grade classes and started getting to know the teachers, so I can figure out how to best work with them and their students. I’m hoping to work with all grades, since they start teaching English in elementary school. Since I’m the only education intern, I can pretty much determine my own schedule and activities, given my interests.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know the teachers especially. Elsa, the woman I’m mainly working with, grew up in Zimbabwe and is really, really great. Then there’s a biology teacher from Brazil who I’ve talked to about everything from evolution to the international politics of oil prices.

Tomorrow should be fun, since I’m going to be talking to Ana’s fifth grade class. She just wants me to show up and have them practice asking questions and holding a conversation with me, which is probably one of the more useful things that I will be able to help the students with. Unfortunately, that’s already something I know how to do, so I’m hoping to also work with Ana and the other teachers to learn how teachers go about planning lessons, managing classrooms, etc.

One of my other main goals for this trip is to learn Português. So far, I’ve learned how to add accents in Mìcrosöft Wõrd, so I think I'm well on my way to fluency. And with that, I think I will use one of the few phrases I do know...

Boa noite!

Laura