The adventures of Marcos and Maria: ELT material for low income communities

Three years ago I was stuck at home for two weeks following minor surgery. Two weeks during which I couldn't leave the house, couldn't cook and couldn't really get off the sofa. After quickly gaining and overcoming an addiction to Project Runway, I was still left twiddling my thumbs. At the time I was helping out a local NGO, teaching English classes to a group of adults with low literacy levels in Portuguese and also to a group of mixed ability and mixed age children. I was struggling to adapt ready made materials to the students' realities and was constantly surprised with new learning barriers, many of which I believed stemmed from the education they received in the home and at school. The problems Brazilians face daily in terms of infrastructure and access to quality educuation are well documented and it wouldn't be unfair to say that reading and literature are not present in many low income households. As a self-confessed bookworm and ELT professional, I refuse to let that pass. I'm that aunt/cousin/godmother who gives every child a book for their birthday/Christmas present! For me, the power and potential of reading is indescribable. 

Therefore, during my period of confinement I started thinking about how I could make my social project more meaningful and more relevant to the children's lives and realities. And thus, The Adventures of Marcos and Maria was born! As aventuras de Marcos e Maria (in Portuguese) grew from an idea about travelling cousins, who find a magic phone manual with the power to transport them to different English-speaking cities around the world, into a series of educational material that has been designed for use with children from low-income communities in Latin America. Thinking about the multiple aims of a social project, I designed the material to combine English language teaching with discussions about citizenship and activities designed to improve interest in reading in Portuguese/Spanish.  Rather than a traditionally structure English course, I wanted the material to motivate students’ interest in education and learning and to form more socially aware young citizens with a clearer view of their role in society.

All of the characters and themes have been designed and created to reflect the reality of young people living in low-income communities, through the physical features of the characters, family structure and issues addressed in the material. 

Only being able to work on the material in my free time meant that it took a while to get off the ground. However, I'm very pleased to report that a grant proposal was accepted last year which has meant that I have been able to print and start using the material with 60 children in an NGO in Duque de Caxias, Brazil. I hope to write further blog posts about the successes (or areas for improvement) of using this multidisciplinary material with students in a low income community.