BEING AN ENGLISH TEACHER

in Rio is like the inside of an ostrich egg—one big yoke.

Let me crack the shell for you.

The vast vast vast majority of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) jobs in Rio de Janeiro are one-to-one business English classes. My students are engineers and systems analysts for oil companies. Their international bloodsucking employers need them to speak English like the rest of the office, so they pay a language company to send a native English speaker (me) to teach 2 or 3 days a week.

So what’s the problem? Doesn’t this system benefit everyone? Ideally, yes. But this is what actually happens:

Fernando Fernandez is Alex’s English student. Fernando Fernandez works long days. Days filled with deadlines and reports. Days filled with angry managers. Days filled with stress. Does Fernando Fernandez want to spend an hour-and-a-half beating his brain into a pulp over which modal auxiliary to use or how the present perfect progressive tense is formed? Probably not. Would Fernando Fernandez rather spend that time yoking around with an American? You bet your bottom Real.

Don’t the companies monitor what’s being taught?

The extent of accountability in my class is a sign-in sheet. Aside from that scribble of an initial, what happens in that classroom is between that student and me. But first there needs to be an unspoken agreement. Some signal saying, “Neither of us wants to be here, so let’s take advantage of this time and just hang out.” This is even the case with my more serious students. Once this pact is mutually understood, nobody really does all that much of anything.

Everybody wins. Okay, except maybe the oil companies. But they’re used to winning. Plus, by not providing proper English lessons to these companies, I’m being patriotic. I’m hindering the progression of foreign energy. So I guess I’m doing my part. Go USA!