English School Update

Written Tuesday February 24, 2007, 3:15 PM.

Join me as I look at the belly-button of amerInglês.

I would love to just say that the English business is going well, and all that. It is unstable. December was a good month. January was pretty bad, but bearable. And February has been pins and needles. We aren't starving or anything; we have food and are (so far) able to pay the bills.

The problem we ran into (some of this is deduction, and some is information from students) is sort of two pronged: Christmas came, and people had to pay bills in January. And, in late January, or early February is when all the other schools start their year.

While I don't have very many younger students, I have a lot of parents of younger students, who pay for school, books, and other supplies for their children. Some of them also have other things to do in life. One student is also studying for the college entrance exams, and no longer has time to come to class.

Many have complimented me on my teaching ability, so I am not considering that as one of the reasons they are leaving (though one or two may not have liked learning English very well...). The number of students per week has dropped to around 5.

A new class starts next Monday with 12 students (possibly more). That gives me hope, which I need at this point.

Technorati Tags: ameringls, education, english, job, Job, language, languages, Life, Life In Brazil, Living Outside the US, english school, school

This Week's Update

There have been a few questions recently about how the English School (amerInglês) is going. Here is an update:
Its going well.

What... that wasn't enough? Okay.

After tonight's class, I have the next two weeks off. Well, that is sort of a figure of speech, as this project does not really get taken care of without me.

The students seem to be continuing to enjoy the classes, though it seems that December has taken its toll on attendance. We have been consistently adding students, and even though we have lost a couple we have more than we started with.

One of the things I am constantly challenged with is not having a space that is just for the school. We are seeing that it would greatly benefit from having its own building, and that is a dream we may not see the fruition of until a few years down the road.

We have many ideas about what amerInglês will look like in the future. Its not something we really want to just abandon, but at the same time, we know that we cannot live here for an extended time at the moment.

Maybe saying those things will create more questions than they answer. Ask away. Now on to the rest of life.

We are now at nine weeks with the pregnancy, and all that goes with the first trimester. Nádya is counting down to the three-month mark—she has been drinking a lot of coconut milk lately.

I posted the big news of this week yesterday, but did not send out an email about it, as I knew I would be writing again today. Here is the link to that post.

The pastor of my church at home has, as a mutual agreement with the elders resigned. He is leaving at the end of December. This is not as a result of some sort of sin, or anything. Its just a transition due to a huge combination of circumstances that I am not going to go into here. I took this pretty hard at first, but I know that God has good things in store for Evangel.


If you have questions about anything, we would love to hear them. I know people read these things, but I don't always know what you are most interested in knowing about.

Technorati Tags: abandon, evangel, circumstances, elders, fruition, counting down, figure of speech, email, coconut milk, Our Activities, pregnancy, taken care, Our Story, teach english, first trimester, consistently, live here, constantly

Full Weekend

Since I started having classes on Saturdays, the weekends have flown by even faster than ever. If you have ever taught on a regular basis, you probably know that being responsible for one hour worth of curriculum, class control, and knowing the answers to random questions can be taxing. My classes are two hours long, and I have three of them every Saturday.

I am not saying that I don't enjoy it. I do! I am saying that I am quite finished by the time the end of the last class rolls around.

This past weekend was quite full, and interesting, so I thought I would share some highlights in this post.

Saturday marked the end of Lesson 1 in the course, so the students had a test. After they took the test, there was still some time left in my first class, so I asked if they had any questions. One of the students had a song on his cell phone that he wanted me to write out the words. I asked what band it was. “Whitecross,” he said. I was not sure whether to be stunned, or just laugh out loud.



At one time I had three CD's, and two of them were from Whitecross. I now have many more than three CD's, and I don't know what happened to my Whitecross albums. It was quite a trip down memory lane, though. The song he wanted me to transcribe was “In The Kingdom.” Evidently, he had been at a show they did in Rio de Janeiro (and so was another student in the same class!), so it was a trip down memory lane for us all–except for Nicholas, who is about 14. I think he liked the music, though. Wasn't '80s hair metal great?

As I mentioned, I gave a test Saturday, and my students did pretty well. Of eleven students, six scored above 96%, the lowest score was 75%.

Sunday was the election runoff, and while Nádya went to vote I indulged myself in a Stock Car Brasil race. It was an interesting race in that it took place in Buenos Aries, Argentina–and it had just rained. Every lap, or so one car would go off the track and get stuck in the dirt. Then caution would be called... Yeah it was not the best race I have ever watched, but it was an auto race, so I “had” to watch it.

The things that made the race interesting are the differences from NASCAR. The cars are slower, but the track is not an oval (oval=boring). They ran the race, even with the track pretty much drenched; there were several near-accidents from hydroplaning.

Other differences I noticed were that the doors on these cars open, unlike NASCAR, and the pit crew seems to just wear matching street-clothes. I think I have only watched two of these races, so I want to watch a few more to see if I like it or not. If you are interested in more about this, let me know.

Sometime in the past week I updated my profile for this site. Have a visit, and let me know what you think (I already know that the age is incorrect.).

Oh, and if you are interested in the election outcome, Lula will continue as President of Brazil.

Directions Home

The big news this week is that we are actively looking for a place to call “our own.” We now have enough coming in every month to consider this, due to the school income (I will get to that in a moment).

It is, in a way, counter to our plans up to this point, but not completely. We have been planning to move to the States when possible. We still do plan that move, just maybe a little later than we wanted. I sort of promised my students that I would be teaching them for a year; And we are still living in her parent's house.

We need a place to call our own. So, we are exploring the possibilities here, which include renting or buying an apartment, or buying a house. There is a house not to far away that is selling for R$50,000 (about US$24,000), and there are also apartments in the R$60,000 to 70,000 range. Sizes, shapes and colors vary (though, that ugly green seems to be a theme for us). Where in the USA could one purchase a house for US$24,000? What kind of house would it be?

We have a tour scheduled for Thursday, which is a State holiday, to see the house.

In some ways, we don't need more debt (my school loans are sort of eating us alive). But if we are going to be here another year, we need our own house.

So, what I am asking for is prayer. For wisdom, and guidance.

This whole process has been pretty un-planned, especially since Nádya's visa process changed under our feet. I know I have friends and family that want to see me again someday, and to meet my wife. I wish it were easier. I guess that is what makes life so tough; it keeps changing under your feet.

People ask me “When are you coming?” I wish I knew, or could give a good answer, but the truth is that there are so many unknowns that we can only guess. We hope to make it for my brother's wedding next year, but we don't know if that will work out.

amerInglês classes went quite well Saturday. I had my first experience with students not doing their homework–now I understand why my teachers were so grumpy when I did not do my homework.

There was one student, though, who liked the material so much that he stayed up until 2 AM listening to the CD a couple of times. I am glad he enjoyed it, and could hear the difference in his English, but am a bit concerned that he could burn out if he does that all the time.

We had a few more students sign up this past weekend, and have potential to start another class (during the week) sometime soon. I really hope that happens.



Weather here has been in the low 100's F. Usually topping out around 105º F during the day, but the last two days have been cooler and cloudy. Weather.com says it is “only” supposed to get up to 94º F today, and possibly rain. What a relief!

Post Number Eighty-One

We have not fallen off the face of the earth, or anything. I have been in a bit of a funk lately, and not really felt like writing. We have also been working hard at getting the school going.

It looks like we have at least 12 students, and possibly more will sign up soon. I think what that comes down to is that people want to know if this is going to be a good school or not. There are some students who would like classes during the week so much that they are going to try to get others to sign up with them. I have no problem with working more than one day per week... :D

It was very exciting to see the students interacting with the material, and seeing that they can speak English. I had three two-hour classes on Saturday, with 4, 1, and 7 students respectively. I was more nervous with the one student, than with the groups–which was odd.

My impression from the students faces was that they had syllabus shock (the feeling one gets when a college professor hands out the class roadmap with all the assignments). But at the same time they seemed to be excited about the class, even though we had a lot of that “administrative” stuff to take care of in the first class.

After the last class, I found out that one of my students teaches teachers how to teach; She said that I was an excellent teacher. I also received other compliments about my teaching style. This was kind of odd to me, as I have no background or training in teaching–aside from a class or two in college that touched on the subject. It also makes me nervous, because now I have expectations to meet.

The weather has changed here in Teresina: It is supposed to be 105º F today. If the past couple of days are any indication, it might even be hotter. If you want to visit us, please do, but I recommend waiting until February or March for a bit cooler weather.



Just for fun, I thought I would show you this image, which demonstrates the sunrise and sunset times through the year in Teresina. If you want to compare it to your city, the website can be found here. [If the image does not show up, try looking up Teresina at the website.]

Nádya is still enjoying her new job, and we are getting into somewhat of a routine with life again.

I guess I better quit writing here and start getting my lesson plan together.

How are you?

Weekend!

If you were not aware, it is Friday, which means that the weekend is here. This week I am really excited about that for two reasons.

First, Nádya started a new job this week. Yeah, the last one died because the boss wanted a lot more than she was willing to pay for. Things like not having a desk/workspace of her own were also factors.

So, I am excited because she does not have to work tomorrow, and she has been working all week. I have kinda missed having her around.

The new job is at a urology clinic doing the same things she was doing before (insurance billing). I visited the place once, and it has a fountain in the lobby. That would be unremarkable, but it is of an urchin... well, he is urinating in a pool. I almost laughed out loud when I walked in the door.

Second, school starts in only a couple of weeks, which means that I will have "a job." I am still going about my preparations, and so forth, but I think it will seem more real when I have a few students looking back at me wondering what I will say, and have them do next.

amerInglês Update

In case you missed the last couple of posts that mention this, I am starting an English school here in Teresina.
I seem, however, to have failed at explaining a few things about how schools work here; its different than there in the USA. The public education system is not very good here, according to all accounts I have heard. It is far better to go to a private institution to get one's basic education.

There are also a great many schools which only teach languages, the primary language taught being English. I have joined these ranks. You may remember that I have applied at several schools of this type before. The available hours and the pay have not been all that attractive to me, and for some reason none of the schools have followed through with hiring me.

So, I started my own school. We have contacted several churches that are very excited to host the classes in their buildings. Not just “sort of” excited, or “mildly excited,” either. My initial goal was to have three classes every Saturday; there may be four. And, there is interest in having some classes during the week!

It is not just the “churched people” that I am looking to have as students, though, so we hung a banner to advertise to the world that we exist (along with getting some business cards to hand out). We are getting people calling every day interested in signing up.

Classes start the 7th of October. I hope I am ready by then. :-) ;-)

The News of Now

So when I set out to start an English school, I was kind of thinking start small, and see where it goes. That plan has been revised–and not by human hands.

We went to a church the other day, and asked if we could use a room; the pastor was so pleased with this that he offered every room they have. We now have a place to teach–free. He suggested that we get a banner to hang in a certain place to advertise. I had no idea how much that would cost, but I knew it was money we don't have.

Today we went to a store that makes such banners: Free. He wanted advertising space on our sign, but the rest was free.

It has been incredible to see the Lord's provision in these ways. There are so many other little things that have happened, as well. I wish I could think of them all so that I could write them down for you. Alas, I have been trying to keep up with it all, so have not had a chance to do that.

I am excited to share with you the next things that happen. We will try to keep you better informed in the near future, but we do expect to be quite busy in the coming weeks.

Here is a 30 second video I made for promoting the school.

A New Venture

Sorry for the long wait for a post. I have been busy with building a website in Portuguese (!) and its been quite an effort.
The site is very simple, and its purpose is to let people in Teresina know that I am an English teacher. I am no web guru, either, Google made this one pretty easy (and FREE!).

Anyway here is a link to myEnglish school. Let me know what you think.

I will try and get a post together about Hérika's birthday, and some of our other activities tomorrow sometime.