Zeb CP#4

   Wednesday afternoon I met with Simone for a conversation partner meeting. She is from Brazil and teaches English, Portuguese and several other subjects in a public school. She mentioned some of the difficulties in teaching English as a non-native speaker who learned the language in her own country.

    It was rather interesting to note the directness, and at times bluntness (at least from my cultural perspective) that is sometimes present in a non-native English speaker. When I asked Simone to give a brief description of her country she wondered if I wanted to hear the good or the bad. I replied that in order to have a realistic perspective I thought that both were necessary. She then proceeded to describe some of the general things about Brazil (the climate, details about the city where she lives and her work in general). She wondered if I knew anything about soccer and carnival, two things that are very 'Brazilian'. I replied that I did know that soccer is very popular in Brazil, but I didn't know anything about carnival. It turns out that these are two things about her country/culture that Simone hates. She said that as a teacher she is sort of looked down on as a rather unimportant person and is on the lower end of the pay scale, whereas a soccer player who might not even be able to read and write is viewed as a national hero and earns ridiculous amounts of money, all for just playing a game. Carnival is an event where for several days people just go wild with drinking, partying, lawlessness and at times vandalism and destruction of property.

    Simone went on to further highlight some of the negative aspects of being a teacher in Brazil: if one passes a certain test (which she has done) consisting of elements of language ability, knowledge, teaching ability and several other skill sets that person cannot be fired from their job unless they commit a serious crime such as murder. I asked if such a situation contributed to having people in the system who shouldn't be. I don't know why, but she sort of beat around the bush, but ended up pretty much confirming that by saying “Lets put it this way: everyone has a bad day from time to time and does things that they shouldn't, but they can't be fired for it”. Another thing she mentioned was the hours she must put in: I asked her how many, but she didn't know right off hand. It is five mornings a week, three afternoons and two or three evenings. The best I could tell it was somewhere around forty hours per week. She is supposed to earn a large bonus for some kind of extra work she does, but because of corruption she doesn't get everything that she should. She also said “I heard that in the US you pay a tax rate of around 7%. In Brazil we pay 40%”.

    A question that Simone asked me was “Why do you want to be a teacher?” She says that she will soon be getting out of teaching and going into law or something similar, where she will be more highly respected, put in about half the hours that she currently works, but make twice as much money.