I Spit Verbs and Cry Conjunctions

(Photo: View from my roof out over my backyard)









My coffee table books are titled 'Understanding and Using English Grammar', and 'Grammar Games: Cognitive, Affective Activities for EFL Students' (My coffee table doubles as a desk and triples as a dining table).
Laying in bed at night I've taken to silently conjugating verbs in the simple present to help me fall asleep... 'IamyouareheissheiswearetheyareIgoyougohegoeswego...'
At school, in the street, and at the market I am known as 'Teacha', or the more formal (and Portuguese) 'o senhor professor' (which always causes me to giggle a little inwardly).
At any time of day (and into the night) it is likely that a student will approach me with a piece of paper crumpled in their hand, which they will ceremoniously present to me. I unfold it to find 'what is girfred' scrawled in just legible handwriting. To which I reply 'a girlfriend' is a 'namorada', to which they respond with a small grin and a knowing nod, or maybe even a hoot and a high five to a friend.
If I were to speak say 10,000 words in a day, it is likely that 4,000 of them are repetitions of 'Good morning/afternoon/evening', 'how are you', and 'where are you going?' (the basic English dialogue that all of Mossuril is now in on).
I have become an English language machine.
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Which is funny to me, because I never really meant to. I've heard people say 'you are what you do' (which in this case is better than 'you are what you eat' because that would make me a scrawny, boney fish), but over the last two years it never completely dawned on me that I was applying, signing on, and training (two times each) 'to be' a teacher of the English language. You see what attracted me to joining the Peace Corps and to ultimately living in Chad and Mozambique was the opportunity to live in a place, with people, and as part of a community that was in many ways quite different from what I had always known. I was also attracted by the opportunity to be able to provide a service to this community... but at no point along the way (meaning the last 24 years) did I think to myself, 'I am going to go forth and educate people about the subtleties and quirky irregularities of my mother-tongue. The truth is, like the majority of speaking beings in this world (I would suppose), I've never paid particular attention to the complex structures constantly spewing from my mouth; I just went on spewing them.
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But this has become me... in a very real way that now constitutes my lived reality. I spend hours each day sitting on my own, reading and writing lessons plans about the English language. I teach multiple English classes each day to children, teenagers, peers, and adults alike. Between my school classes (including night school for older students), English club (extra-curricular for the language nerds), and my community English class (open to all members of the community), I have about 350 students... which in a small town like Mossuril constitutes a significant portion of the population. To most of these people my prinicipal identity is conjugater of all verbs irregular, and pronouncer of all words funny sounding.
It's like I have a real job.
It's like I'm a high school English teacher.
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So what does this reality look like? This real job of mine...
I'm teaching English to all students in 8th grade. The grade is split into 'turmas' (or classes) of about 50 students each, and I have 5 turmas total (4 of the turmas meet in the afternoons between 12:30 and 5:30, and the other meets at night from 5:45 to 10:45). Each turma meets 3 times a week for English class, so in all I teach 15 class periods a week. The 8th grade is in principal the third year that these students have been learning English, but 'on the ground' (or 'at the blackboard') it turns out most students don't know much English at all... so we've been starting from 'Good morning, how are you, I am fine...' (that dialogue I mentioned earlier). Each turma has a very different feel since they have been organized by age... for the most part with the youngest turma (15 to being the strongest students and the oldest turma (at night) finding class to be the most challenging. But all told, across the board students are incredibly enthusiastic about school in general and learning English specifically... making stepping into the classroom, for the most part, a complete joy.
After school I have started an English club which meets for one hour, twice a week. The objectives of this club are first, to provide students who want it another space and time to speak and practice their English; second, to do activities that we don't really have time (or enough time) for in class (for example, listening to music, reading magazines, playing games, etc.); third, to discuss topics that are of special importance to the community, such as HIV and AIDS, youth leadership, and issues of gender inequality; and fourth, to give students access to resources such as dictionaries and grammar books that I have in my personal library. This club has so far also been met with a lot of enthusiasm, with turn outs of 60+ students to each meeting so far.
And with Jorge, I have organized a community English class that meets twice a week that anybody and everybody who wants to can attend. We have two classes, one for beginners and the other for more advanced students.
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It's been a lot of English all of a sudden... but I've been enjoying it... mostly because my students and the community have been enjoying it. It's all just getting started and we have a long way to go, but I think it'll be good.

Remember, the past participle of 'to eat' is irregular (eaten),
Zach