| I have two
American sisters, Andrea and Marsha and an American brother, Keith. I
had no doubt that I was and still am a part of their family as they are
a part of mine. My Brazilian and American families are all the same to
me, and they have both always given me love and encouragement.” says Susi,
with a smile on her face realizing how lucky she is to have two wonderful
families. Every year Susi and Luis take their children. Rafael 9
and Gabriela 3, to spend the Christmas holidays in Michigan with her American
family. They spend over a month in the USA. They enjoy soaking up American
culture and lifestyle in addition to buying new materials for the school.
The children speak English like American children. Rafael, an bright, chess
playing, personable 9 year old says he could eat a dozen Krispy Kreme
donuts a day while he is in the States. “I have been to the United States
9 times”, he proudly tells me. I think I’m speaking to an American child
when I speak to him. Not only have the children been coming to the United
States every year since they were born, but the family only speaks English
at home in Brazil. They also watch American movies and television. “Friends”
is a particular favorite of Rafael’s. Rafael continues in his rapid fire
English “I learned English with my mom and dad because they always spoke
English with me since I was a little baby. When my mom, dad and my little
sister are together in our house we only speak English. If someone else
arrives, we drop English and speak Portuguese. We don’t want people to
think we are snobs”.
“Our school
wasn’t the first in my town, but it was the first English school with an
emphasis on conversation”, Susi tells me. “Our method attracts many
students, and we now have the largest number of any school in the area.
We have approximately 250 students, and we are growing very fast.” But
it wasn’t always like this. Susi thinks back to when her school was in
her mom’s kitchen. They used a partition, and while her mom was banging
the pots and pans on one side of the kitchen, Susi was teaching English
on the other side. The good smells that wafted over from the kitchen side
to the school side of the partition were inspiration sometimes for
teaching and learning English cooking terms! When Susi returned from her
year as an exchange student in Michigan, people started asking her to teach
them English. “I rented an empty garage, got some furniture and started
my school” , added Susi. In the second semester, Susi had to move her school
to her mom’s kitchen because the rent was too high at the garage. She began
having more students, and after she married Luis, he convinced her to leave
her mother’s kitchen. So “Susi’s School” as it was then known moved from
the kitchen to Susi’s small house next to her parents, and she continued
getting more students. Luis, a big friendly bear of a man with a twinkle
in his blue eyes was working as an engineer. But in 1992, he was laid off
from his job along with 4,000 other employees of his company due to the
economic crisis in Brazil. After much indecision,they decided to go to
the USA, so Luis could improve his English and become a teacher at the
school, too. Luis was a little doubtful about this venture. “I wasn’t too
keen at the time and didn’t care that much for English, but Susi and another
relative convinced me to do it. We sold almost everything we had, a huge
aquarium, and even my bike and my bow and arrows so we could pay for the
ticket to the USA and for my English course at Michigan State University”
he reminisces. Susi also took English courses at Michigan State. Luis joined
Susi as a teacher at the school when they returned to Brazil in 1993.
Though their former students had all gone to new schools, when word got
around that Susi and Luis were back in town, all the former students came
back. Luis, a quintessential technology whiz, bought a computer and proceeded
to computerize their school. Their little school was now on its way.
In 2000 they moved into the building they are in now.
“Why the
name Michigan”? I ask Susi. “Is this in honor of your American family
who live in Michigan or because you studied at Michigan State University?”,
None of these things she tells me. Michigan was the name of the school
where she studied English as a teenager in Brazil. It was located
in Campinas, a city close to Capivari. She studied there before going
to Michigan, USA as an exchange student! The owner of the school in Campinas
named his school after Michigan State University because he had studied
there. Now I’m beginning to think there’s something really really scary
in all these “Michigans” in Susi’s life. Years later, the Michigan School
in Campinas was sold to a franchise group. Susi became involved with this
franchise, and changed her school’s name from Susi’s School to Michigan.
Well, my head is kind of spinning now with all these “Michgans”. I wonder
to myself what the odds are of finding schools with the name “Michigan”
in small towns in the interior of Brazil. I also wonder if somehow, certain
place names are connected to our destinies.
“I love the
English language and I love teaching it”, says Maria Cecília Schmidt
Maluf, one of the popular teachers at Michigan who has studied English
in Princeton, New Jersey and has close connections with the USA. She is
popular with the students because of her dedication and creativity. Because
she loves and is so good with children, she teaches most of the children’s
classes. Maria Cecília, who also directed the school’s Christmas
play last year, tells me that when the children’s attention starts flagging,
she gets up and sings and dances and runs around the room, plays crazy
games or anything else it takes “Their attention is engaged pretty
fast when I do that”, she says. Susi says “this is typical of our
teachers. They are highly creative. This is one of the criteria I look
for when I hire teachers” All of the teachers at Michigan are Brazilians
who have studied in English speaking countries. Besides Susi, Luis and
Maria Cecília, there is Regiane, a very pretty relative of
Susi’s who worked as a nanny for an American family before becoming a teacher.
Regiane teaches beginners, intermediate and advanced students, and says
the big challenge is always teaching real beginners using only English.
As conversational English is the goal in Michigan School, even the beginners
are taught only in English. Marcia, the other teacher, is the clown. She
is known for her jokes, and as well as amusing her students, Susi says
Marcia always keeps the teachers meetings quite lively. She has studied
English in Canada and the USA. When I ask Marcia how she keeps up with
her English here in Brazil, she says “I like watching Seinfeld”! Here in
Capivari, you can watch American TV, CNN, all the programs and sitcoms
through Direct TV, which is a cable TV service.
“Why does
the Michigan method work so well, so much better than other methods”?
I ask Luis. He explains, “At Michigan, the methodology motivates students
to think directly in English without translating from Portuguese. Students
have a tendency to translate from Portuguese to English, and other methods
encourage this. When students think in Portuguese before speaking English,
they will want to use expressions and structures in English that only make
sense in Portuguese. Therefore we do not use translation” A typical class
at Michigan will see the teachers miming and acting a lot in class so that
the students understand the vocabulary without having to translate it.
The students start to think in English pretty fast this way. Creativity
and imagination are hallmarks of Michigan teachers, and depending on the
topic to be learned in each lesson, the teacher will talk about that topic
in such a way as to relate it to the students’ everyday experience. Although
the method stresses speaking, the students also learn to read, write, and
use grammar correctly. As a correlation to all of this, there is a computer
lab with specialized software.
The students
certainly agree that this method works well. Luciano Pacheco, a 51 year
old pediatrician, who is a longtime student at the school and whose wife
and daughters have also studied at the school, said he heard about Michigan
School and it’s focus on conversation 9 years ago. He says after studying
for just three years at Michigan “I went to a conference in Washington,
DC where I was able to converse in English with my colleagues from all
over the world. I also went three times to New York, and once to London.
I was able to speak English well in the hotels, restaurants, malls and
stores. It’s a great school with great teachers,and I don’t intend to stop
studying at this school” Mayra Schincariol, who is 25, has been studying
at Michigan for two years and likes the teachers, the language lab and
software. Sabrina Lamamoto said “I’m 16 years old and have been studying
at Michigan School for 5 years. I need English for my career, and Michigan’s
is the best method for learning to speak”.
All is not
always sweetness and light though at Michigan School. Some students bring
their problems to school with them, and the teachers wind up being psychologists,
as well as English teachers. One of Luis’s students decided to come to
his English class one day instead of committing suicide! “He was very depressed
and told me his personal problems. I knew something was wrong
as soon as he entered the classroom because he seemed very tense and nervous.
As luck would have it, none of the other students showed up to class that
day. So, I talked to him for hours, prayed with him, and told him
to get counseling”, Luis remembers. Luis didn’t see him for a while after
that, and then one day the student showed up to class with a big smile
on his face. Luis was amazed. He thanked Luis for saving his life. Luis
has never stopped wondering about that fateful day. Why hadn’t the other
students come to class? Just a coincidence? Or more than this?
Yes, everyone
knows Susi, and they know Luis, too. And in both of their capable hands,
the state of English teaching is in good shape in Capivari. When the people
of the city go into that office with the huge American flag, they’ll continue
to find a little bit of the USA, its language and culture there. They’ll
find dedicated people having fun doing what they love. They’ll find everyone,
students, teachers and staff speaking English. They might even see young
Rafael who will greet them with one of his signature expressions or say
to them as they leave “See you in a while crocodile” or “goodbye piece
of pie”.
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