Volunteer in Brazil: The Blog

Hi everyone I have been here in Brazil for exactly three weeks now and have only just managed to access this blog but I think we have got it now.

I was not at all sure what to expect when I arrived here but the first thing I got was a really warm welcome from Beth who was standing at the airport with a sign with my name on it.  I was very pleased to see her as I was not sure what I was going to do if she was not there because my Portugese was and still is no good at all.  On my first afternoon I came to the project just to meet the children who all made a great effort to greet me in English and to tell me their names, which I forgot almost immediatly.  They were all very friendly and full of life.  I tried to help them with the project of drawing cards which they are doing with St Marys in Chipping.  There is one small boy of about 8 years who is the most fantastic artist for one so young.  All the other children were asking him to draw their cards.

Since then I have been attempting twice a week to teach English to these children while trying to learn Portugese from them and from Beth.  Some of them show a certain apptitude for the subject while others do not seem to get it at all. I suppose that is much like any class anywhere in the world.  Before teaching my first class I was really worried because I don´t think I am a natural at teaching but the children make it so easy because on the whole they really want to try and understand.  I find one of things hardest to overcome is the fact that they pronounce the letter R as H and cannot seem to get the right sound because it is not one they are used to.  Teaching the names for various parts of a house was fun because we now all have ´hoofs´ instead of ´roofs´.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 04:19 am and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.