Just for show

Pra inglês ver (just for show)

A friend from high school had invited me to see him acting in this play called “Pra inglês ver” (Just for show) a pun to the importance given to the fluency in the English language in the corporate world in Brazil. Specially here in São Paulo, the biggest city in South America, where many companies have their offices. Here, many of these companies demand some of their employees to speak English or on the other hand, someone who´s looking for a job must speak the language in order to work for the best companies.
Mario and I had met after a long time of not even seeing each other in our hometown, Santos, in the state of São Paulo (where also São Paulo city is located). I was very happy to know that he had pursued his dream of being an actor fulfilling it. He was writing texts for comedy programs with a well known comedy director. The image of Mario in the classroom playing a bookmaker in our customs party was so vivid I could see myself looking at him and laughing. He was like that: funny and creative.
Another friend from our classroom came to São Paulo to attend the play. We studied translator and interpreter and Mario became a lawyer and afterwards, an actor and writer. Marceli is an agronomy engineer and I, before and after working as a bilingual secretary, decided on teaching English. A profession which I can use my spontaneity, creativity and pro-activeness, also that I can do either in Brazil or abroad, as I taught in France and Italy. A field where I should have also learned Psychology to understand some students and find the best way to reach them and pass the message. A few of them are complicated and it´s kind of frustrating when I can´t reach them in order to teach them.
When the play started I was already laughing because I could see myself as well as a few of my students in the characters. Any English teacher here in Brazil would feel the same. We have to teach people of high positions, sometimes, who hate English and are not willing to learn anything about the language, and were sent by their superiors to start speaking in usually short time.
“Pra inglês ver” starts with the teacher and the students who were coming into the room one by one. They were all speaking English with the subtitles in Portuguese on a screen hanging as a white board. The first student was the weakest one, though the funniest, then a good one, but with a strong accent. The girls came in after, being the sexy one who had lived in London therefore was fluent in English, and the wife of a director who was always making sure she was saying the correct word. The last student knew a single word in English and who would play smart, knowing everything in the company….that was my friend.
As I said, they started speaking English but then suddenly changed to Portuguese, making the same mistakes, same strong accent and the more interesting and funnier thing: they were speaking Portuguese as you speak English: same structure, word order. I found that the great shot of this play. Loved it, original, funny.
And for me it was like a game, trying to understand what they were talking in English because they didn´t use the proper Portuguese sometimes…so nice.
During the class we could see that group class in a company can be dangerous regarding the subject that may arise during class, people can get angry and so on. Fortunately this never happened to me, but many times I could see myself in that teacher.
Still the strongest feature in my classes is the psychological one. In one of my last classes my student, a Director of medical insurance sales department, after spending more than ½ hour with his boss during class time, asked me when he came back: “Teacher, I need your psychologist side now, please.” Of course, my dear, whenever you need it. This is one of the easiest side. I really enjoy my profession and know how hard it can be for a person, who has to speak a language they either don´t like or have much difficulty in, to have a promotion, because directors have to speak English, their jobs may be in jeopardy etc.
Enjoyable was to the see the funny part of this whole situation through the words of a creative and funny person, also an English teacher, who decided to put on paper, anonymously, what she had been through in years teaching in-company. Her experiences for sure were beyond those 90 minutes of acting.
Experiences that make us grow, learn with our students, with every situation, with the people we get to know in the companies, schools, other teachers; sharing with whoever crosses our path in this wonderful, fun and difficult, why not, world of phrasal verbs, idioms, present perfect, different rhythm and pronunciation. Differences that add to our own improvement as a person sharing life in knowledge, fun and creativity.