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. 

New beginnings, new projects..

Last Thursday (17^th May 2012) I carried out the 1a Oficina de Introdução Ao Inglês (first introduction to Learning English workshop) in Saracuruna, Duque de Caxias. The workshop was really a taster class as way of finding out the level of interest and main age groups of interested students ahead of a new project I will be implementing in August this year.

Saracuruna, in a typically Brazilian un-politically correct fashion, is classed as a “bairro pobre” (a poor neighbourhood), which, although not affected by the same negative stereotypes or dominated by drug trafficking, suffers similar social and financial problems as the arguably more famous favelas. I will be working in partnership with ONG Espaço Cidadania & Cultura which provides free of charge school support (Maths and Portuguese) for children and sewing and arts and crafts classes for women. The NGO was opened five years ago by a local resident as a way of providing women- many of whom have incomplete education and are financially dependent on their husbands- with the tools to make a small income.

I am currently developing a project for children which promotes citizenship through learning English as a foreign language, as well as a Basic English course for adults with the objective of increasing their self-esteem and employability.

Despite little advertising Thursday’s session attracted around 10 adults and 20 children. In the children’s session I taught the numbers 1 to 10 and a few free time activities with I like and I don’t like. I had been expecting children aged from seven to fifteen years (quite a wide and complicated age range) but in the end the majority were aged between seven and ten. This is a much easier range and meant I could play a few childhood games, such as duck, duck, goose (though in this case “apple, apple, chocolate” to fit with the vocabulary I had taught them!).

With the adults I did a very simple explanation of basic greetings and introductions. The majority had only completed “ensino fundamental” (up to around 13 years old) so I tried to make it as communicative as possible, with lots of practice in pairs and repetition so as not to overwhelm them with worksheets.

All in all I really enjoyed the session and am looking forward to the next one in June which I hope will have even more keen participants.