We Dream in English

I wrote a post a while back about the rather circuitous route I have taken to get where I am. The conclusion I drew was that staying open to new experiences and opportunities has led me to a much better place than I could have planned for (with the bonus of enjoying the journey along the way). My Peace Corps experience so far has simply been a continuation of that theme: instead of coming in with an agenda, I have tried to listen to what the people around me need or want and if I can help, I will. [With one notable exception, which has led to the project that was furthest off-target, but that is a subject for another post]. Nine months into my service here, this approach means that I spend most of my time focused on English and that the most enjoyable and rewarding part of my experience here is my English Club. I never would have met this amazing, inspiring (and hilarious) group of young people if I hadn’t stayed open to responding to the wants and needs of my community.

Peace Corp is a balancing act. Sometimes literally.

English was not the original plan. I applied to the Peace Corps wanting to work in small business development. In fact, when I first got here, I found myself resenting that everyone met I assumed I was an English teacher. I have a Math degree! I have an MBA! I worked hard to be qualified to do more than just teach English! I resented that everyone wanted to speak to me in English – sometimes because my Portuguese was not very good, but usually just because they wanted to practice their English. I was determined to immerse myself in Portuguese as much as I could. But then, as I was making the Communications schedule for the first semester, we needed an English teacher, and the English Coordinator asked if I could teach this one section. Now, I am not trained in teaching English, have no experience teaching any kind of language and wasn’t really excited about the idea. But, I am a language nerd. I have always been interested how languages work. [Mom, I will pay you $100 if you can read this next sentence without rolling your eyes]. My dad and I can spend hours discussing the fine points of a single word or phrase. And if English teachers were what the school needed, I figured, why not give it a try.

Once I was teaching English, I understood much better the challenge that students faced trying to learn the language in an environment that offered little-to-no chance to practice what they were learning outside the classroom. As I spent more time talking with my students, I came to appreciate how much learning English meant to some of them and recognized that although it hadn’t been my plan coming in, teaching English was an opportunity to work with them on something that could make a real difference in their lives. Mozambique’s official language is Portuguese, but it is surrounded by countries that speak English: South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Tanzania all have English as an official language and all have more developed economies than Mozambique, meaning that many job opportunities can depend on a student’s level of English. Nevermind the glut of international NGO’s and burgeoning mineral sector driving Mozambique’s own economic growth through foreign aid and investment.

My wonderful first English class.

So, first semester I taught English and Business Management to the same two turmas, or groups of students. It worked out well: one day I was struggling along in Portuguese, but the next we were on my territory in English class. I think it helped make them more comfortable speaking in English class and more understanding of my attempts with Portuguese. And once I got comfortable with it, teaching English was fun! My students were a really funny bunch and really got into acting out charades to learn present continuous or overreacting to lines of dialogue so their classmates could guess the emotion. Some students really didn’t care about learning English; they just wanted to get through the class so they didn’t have to take it again, but others recognized that English could be the key to a number of opportunities and were hungry to learn it.

One of my strongest students fell into this second category. UCM is expensive and many students here come from the upper strata of Chimoio’s population, the sons and daughters of successful business people who went to the better secondary schools around and may have attended English lessons at outside language schools. Not so for this guy. He had grown up an orphan, spending time on the street before he came under the care of an orphanage and later, Brazilian missionaries in a small town a few hours south of Chimoio. He was incredibly smart, and equally determined. He spoke nearly perfect English, even though he had spent his whole life here in Manica Province. This is quite a difficult feat, considering that in Mozambique, just learning to speak Portuguese well can be a challenge for kids growing up outside of the city.

This student approached me after class one day with an idea. He and his best friend had spent the previous eight or so years practicing English together. They both knew that they would never learn with only a couple of hours in the classroom each week, with teachers who did not speak very well themselves and without the opportunity to use what they were learning outside of school. So they spoke with each other. They each read books and discussed them together. They listened to the news on BBC radio and talked about what they heard. Now, my student explained, he and his friend wanted to get a group together; a group of likeminded students who all wanted to improve their English, in order to practice together.

Co-conspirators: the English Club founders.

I was open to the idea, but I told him that it would need to be student-driven. I would be happy to secure a room, to attend meetings and to support them however I could, but it would be their club. He brought his partner in crime, now studying to be an English teacher at the Universidade Pedagógica in Chimoio, to meet me and we started planning. I was also teaching management that semester, so I decided to use this as an opportunity to put the class work into practice with my student.

We sat down and I asked my student what the objectives of the English Club would be, expecting to hear, “Well, to practice English…” But, no, his goals were much loftier: “To break down the barriers between students at different universities who want the same things.” “To make people feel like they are the protagonists in their lives.” I asked, “And to learn English, right?” “Yeah! Of course!” he said, “But we want this to be more than that! There are students at UP and students at UCM who all want to get better at English, but don’t know how to connect. This club will bring them together!” And he explained how many students feel discouraged because English is hard to learn, but also because opportunities can be hard to come by here. He wanted them to know that by working hard, they could learn English, but also that they could realize other dreams. I should have known then that this group would be something special.

We finished writing out our goals and mapped out the first steps to getting the club up and running. We agreed that he and his friend would go to various classes and let students know that the English Club would be meeting Saturday mornings at 9:00 and that all were welcome, regardless of proficiency. I said I would find a video to share about why English is so important for students in a country like Mozambique and that would get them excited. When the day of the first meeting came, about 25 students showed up and we were a little overwhelmed! The co-founding students explained their idea of what the club would be and shared what they called "their crazy dream": to one day study in America. It turned out that most of the students who had come for the first meeting had the same dream.

After a few weeks, the attendees shrank to a smaller group of about eight or nine regulars who were really passionate about the club. Up until the end of the first semester, we met weekly, coming up with little activities to keep people talking – getting-to-know-you activities about how members like to learn English, listening to music and trying to fill in the blanks in the lyrics. I started a Facebook page for the club and we have been sharing interesting articles about learning English, as well as information about meetings. Our motto: We Dream in English!

English Club: the early weeks.

As the semester wrapped up, we revisited our goals and added a few, including community outreach to secondary schools. We also brainstormed activities and analyzed which would help us reach the most goals. We settled on theater as the best method to accomplish the most simultaneously: it would help practice all four skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening), would attract new members, we could include positive themes about how to live your life, and we could perform it throughout the community to reach more students.

We finished our first semester with a lunch at my house where I cooked “American food” – chili and garlic bread, although it was definitely a Mozambican-ized version of chili, due to the ingredients available – and we played games in English. A couple of other PCVs were in town that weekend and helped with the cooking and, of course, eating. I think the highlight for most of the students was the chance to try blueberries for the first time. One had just read about them, but mentioned that he didn’t think you could find them in Mozambique. My mother had recently sent a bag of dried blueberries to add to my oatmeal, so I brought out a bowlful to share with the students. They were still talking about the blueberries when we started planning our second semester kick-off party six weeks later!

Just as my student had hoped, the English Club has provided an opportunity for students from various schools in Chimoio to come together and practice English on their own terms – no lessons, no homework, we do what the students want to do in a relaxed atmosphere. My role has been to link them up with opportunities (one member referred to me as their “bridge”). Once I realized what a fantastic group of kids I had, I started looking for chances to show them off. The first one came in the form of a visit from the US Embassy in Maputo. We here at UCM have been working with the Public Affairs section of the Embassy to launch an American Corner this fall, basically a library and cultural center, full of English-language materials. The woman I had been communicating with came to see the space along with the director of the cultural center in Maputo. I made sure that they had a chance to sit down and talk with the core group of the English Club, both because I think they will be the first group to really start using the center, and because I wanted the Embassy to know that there is a group of super bright, motivated students here in Chimoio who also speak English very well. (The Embassy folks were appropriately impressed with the students).

The US Embassy visits

Since then, we have had a chance to meet with a Peace Corps director and a group of regional leaders of Rotary International. The students were really taken with the idea of forming a Rotary youth group. The Rotary folks came to our semester launch party and spoke for a good half hour about the importance of community service. Mind you, this is a group of 20ish-year-olds in a developing country. As I mentioned, a couple come from particularly challenging backgrounds and have had to work incredibly hard to get where they are. But they listened eagerly, chiming in with questions or stories about people in their lives they wish they could help. I offered to take any who were interested to the local club’s meeting the following Thursday, expecting two, maybe three to follow through. When Thursday came along, eight met me at UCM to walk over to the meeting!

They sat through the rather dry opening formalities before having an opportunity to introduce themselves and hear more about the work Rotary does in Chimoio. They asked some great questions about the work of the club, the relationship between the club and a potential youth group, and the steps to starting their own group. As we walked out, I gathered them on the sidewalk to discuss what we would do moving forward. They were almost jumping up and down with excitement over the possibilities of starting community service projects! They were brimming with ideas, but also thinking strategically. For example, the club was working on a child malnutrition program, but needed to hire experts to help manage their food and powdered milk donations because they didn’t have the required knowledge to distribute them properly. Two of the English Club members are studying Food Science and thought they might be able to help, but decided not to mention anything until they had a better understanding of the work. They didn’t want to over-promise and under-deliver.

Kicking off our second semester.

Even though teaching can be challenging and I get homesick sometimes, every time I leave an English Club meeting, I feel like doing a little dance. The students just energize me beyond belief. I have started calling one of the co-founders “our Tony Robbins” because he gives such great motivating talks. We are working on our theater piece to present at the Peace Corps English Theater competition next month. The students have written the whole thing themselves and it is good! I think I mentioned how funny the students are. They are taking over managing rehearsals and I think the whole things will go really well. A few students have really started coming out as natural leaders. Once the theater is done, we are going to start planning English lessons for the little children of some UCM professors. Some of the members are also continuing to learn more about Rotary and will probably be starting their own group soon.

Each week, we have a few more students show up and now we have members from UP, UCM, a seminary and a few different secondary schools throughout the city. Our Facebook page picks up new followers each week. The members hang out together outside of meetings and share their books, magazines, websites and strategies for learning English. They talk openly about their dreams of studying abroad and are excited about all the test-preparation materials that will arrive with the opening of the American Corner. The founding pair are well on their way to accomplishing their goals of bringing the English-loving community of Chimoio together, creating new friendships and helping everyone to feel like they control their own destinies. I am just happy I get to tag along for the ride!