Among the more than 170 thousand teachers who work in the classrooms of more than 5,000 state schools in São Paulo, 188 are foreigners. They teach in basic education, from the 1st to the 9th year of Elementary School and from the 1st to the 3rd year of High School, in addition to Youth and Adult Education (EJA) – but also in the 150 Language Study Centers (CELs) in São Paulo. The 5 most frequent countries of origin are Portugal, with 27 teachers, Japan, with 24, Chile, with 19, Argentina, with 14 and Angola, with 12.
Professor Bernarda del Carmen Silva Carmona is Chilean and teaches Spanish at the CEL of the Peixoto Gomide State School, in Itapetininga. Born in Santiago, he has lived in Brazil for 3 decades. Before arriving in the country, she worked as an executive secretary at a Chilean multinational in the oil sector. Coming to Brazil, according to her, was unexpected: “I came for the holidays and ended up staying”.
Graduated in Spanish and English and also in Portuguese, Bernarda began her teaching career in private schools, but dreamed of an opportunity in public education. “I always worked in private schools and wanted to have a chance in the State”these.
In addition to the language, the teacher brings cultural aspects of the Hispanic world to the classroom, such as “geographical location of countries, tourist attractions, writers, painters, gastronomy, typical dances, curiosities and Hispanic literature”including Nobel Prize-winning authors such as his fellow countryman Pablo Neruda (1904-1973).
Bernarda fondly remembers remarkable experiences with her Brazilian students: “I have students who aced the Enem in Spanish.”
For her, learning a foreign language is essential because Brazil borders Hispanic countries and the job market values knowledge of another language.
Where are they
In the capital, there are 58 foreign teachers. In the interior of the State, the regional teaching unit with the most foreign teachers is São José dos Campos, with 6 teachers born outside Brazil.
This is the case of Japanese Noriko Adachi Akama. She started teaching in 1984 and is now a Japanese teacher at the CEL at Escola Estadual Major Aviador José Mariotto Ferreira. Choosing this career came from an unexpected request: “A student asked me, because she knew I knew Japanese, if I wanted to teach. This gave me an immense desire to teach my native language”.
She says she believes that teaching goes beyond grammar. “I believe that teaching a language is much more than transmitting rules: it is opening doors to a new way of seeing the world”. Therefore, adapt the content to the students’ universe: “I use music, films, series and themes from youth. I also highly value orality and affectivity, because learning a language is also about being moved by it”.
Noriko Adachi Akama, Japanese teacher at CEL at Escola Estadual Major Aviador José Mariotto Ferreira
With information from .
