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UPCOMING FREE ACTIVITIES
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Course for Spanish as a Foreign Language teachers
January 24, 2015
Eulalia Ceo de Carvalho

Spanish teachers in Brazil: my experience with the Spanish teachers course.


I want to start this blog by talking about the marvelous experience I had this year with the course. The feeling of being able to connect with a completely active form of learning and an active form of teaching my pupils was phenomenal.

I lived in India for two years and a half which was a unique experience in my life and a very important period because I learnt about what it means to “integrate” “to reeducate” and to show understanding in foreign education. I also learnt the true meaning of “serving” others. I have experienced many different things including the happiness of the pupils speaking the language of my grandfather in the school´s corridors, the merriment of the surprise parties put on by our Spanish and Mexican friends and of course the support and attention delivered by the course team.


It was a difficult year for me because I had to accept this job outside Spain and to begin this course at short notice. I had to overcome a lot of trials and expend a lot of energy but in reality, now, as I look back on the past I can see  how crucially important my effort and the support of my teacher were in enabling me to keep going. Today my life has changed thanks to this course. I am working in Brazil and I really want to give my secondary school students the best possible experience.

I am a firm believer in the communicative method and in letting my Brazilian pupils freely express themselves but I know that when it comes to teaching Spanish in a country like Brazil, literature is not studied in-depth at a secondary school level.
 
Several things could explain this: there may not time in the schedule for literary studies,
the Brazilian Spanish teachers may give greater appreciation to studying language and
less to studying culture or in Brazil at the moment there may not be a tradition of studying Spanish literature at a pre-university level. In any case, this has resulted in a shortfall in the language and cultural teaching received by Brazilian Spanish students which should be addressed in the coming years.  I therefore hope that people will listen to my desire to implement Spanish literary studies into the high school because it will open up a range of possibilities for new activities, change the class dynamics and allow the pupils to develop their cultural awareness.

As I mentioned in my final report all my pupils love Spanish and they want to learn it not only so that they can take the university entrance exams but also so that they can get to know a culture which is like the sand by the sea; you find it on every beach  but sometimes it is coarse and other times it is softer but it is all washed away by the magnificent sea of knowledge. This is how I perceive and get across to my students the greatness of knowing how to speak a second language.

I am working practically on an activity with my own Spanish students,  I am looking at the Spanish and Latin American poetic language resources which can be used in this activity, I am fostering meaningful learning and as a starting point I am repeatedly using certain structures which already exist in the students´ L1/mother tongue ( Portuguese) which has evolved due to new knowledge: grammatical problems, lexical aspects, as well as aspects of rhythm and intonation. An aspect of rhythm and intonation which stands out is the metre(or  rhythmic structure of verses) in poems.

 At the same time,  the activities based on poems have been created to develop the students’ oral and written proficiency, taking into consideration some of the requirements my colleagues and I have to fulfill when teaching Spanish as a foreign language.


Finally, we are going to continue on the learning journey towards improvement  and the creation of new talented students who will create a better society and a more human and loving world. In this new world and society all of us will be able to speak a new language from our hearts and not with our minds. Furthermore, using the spark which is inside each one of us we will be capable of really passing on the essence of our souls(what we really believe in) and at the same time  that of our spirits with the same harmony as the rest of the world

I want to end by encouraging all those people who are doing this course. At the end of the journey we always have several opportunities available. Remember that life brings us several unique moments each time we let our dreams become a reality. My dream has become a reality. Has yours?

Kind regards,

Eulália Céo

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