Now that we're in between semesters, nearly everyone is on break. Classes are out of session, and most folks are traveling. Before our travels, some of my fellow grantees and I decided to volunteer at an English Immersion camp for runners-up of the Youth Ambassador program, teaching about American sports (my favorite theme!) while sneaking in some English language instruction.
A bit about the students: as I understand it, the Youth Ambassador program offers motivated high schoolers from limited income situations a chance to spend a year studying in the US. It's extremely competitive, and there are tons of qualified applicants. Since not all applicants are selected, the US Embassy invites some of the runners-up to a regional week-long English immersion camp—all expenses paid. It's a chance of a lifetime for many of them, and according to some, the best week of their lives.
We passed the week with a lesson or two in the morning and/or afternoon, each a kind of crash course in a certain American sport: football, baseball, basketball, extreme sports, and soccer. Yep—we taught Brazilians about soccer. It wasn't my idea, and frankly, I was just grateful someone finally decided that extreme sports would be a more interesting lesson than the originally-slated golf. So I went with it. We teachers had spent the last couple weeks collaborating on top-notch lesson plans, and though there were plenty of last-minute (ahem) curveballs, they all went rather smoothly. The lesson plan over which I had the most control was the one on extreme sports, during which students learned to slackline and to say things like "Gnarly spin, bro!" In both areas, they did me proud.
The week was also sprinkled with cultural events, like watching the US/Belgium World Cup match, learning some hip-hop dance, eating hamburgers literally every day, and ultimately, attending the aforementioned Fourth of July celebration. I was constantly unsettled about how one-way the "exchange" of culture tends to be between the US and Brazil. On the whole (and with exceptions), Brazil (among many other countries) has a kind of obsessive-but-unrequited fascination with US culture, which the US meets with nearly complete disregard. (Disagree? Can you name a Brazilian film, TV show, musician, or song? Can you name the president? I haven't met a Brazilian who can't answer all of these about the US.) But, in spite of all of the inevitable cultural misgivings I had, I was proud to be an American who intentionally demonstrated a genuine interest in the lives of students. For several students, we were the first foreigners they had ever spoken to, and I was grateful to have such a careful influence in their self-perception as well as their perception of Americans.
The improvement in many students' conversational competence over the span of the week was palpable, both to us and to them. I was adamant about adjusting perceptions about a "correct" pronunciation as one that best resembles my own—since I'm a native English speaker, the thinking goes, I should be the model. While that flies for most any language imaginable, English is a special case. It no longer belongs to "native" speakers, who are now outnumbered by non-native speakers—3 to 1. What matters is mutual understanding, which isn't at all to say that pronunciation is irrelevant. If someone says, "Wanna grab a bit to eat?" there is no confusion about the meaning of the sentence, so pronunciation is relatively unimportant in this case. However, sometimes, it's a little more delicate, as the tour guide classically demonstrated while proclaiming of the local coastline that "Brazil has the most beautiful bitches in the world."
Pronunciational concerns notwithstanding (or, in some cases, withstanding), I was glad I spent the firstfruits of my break period hanging out with Brazilian teenagers and feeling generally very American. But now, it's my turn to travel! Let's see how I handle three-plus weeks of nonstop movement and action. Bring on the discomfort, the confusion, the uncertainty. Bring on the streets and voices and smells of new food. The trails and sands and sunshine. Bring on the all-here-right-now.