RATO WEEK 7: Mastering Portuguese and other challenges
Hello,
I’m writing this down as I’m procrastinating on my greatest challenge this week: the recording of the podcast.
Honestly, since I literally have no filter when talking, I can see this going two ways: I will either give very short and curt answers and I’ll struggle to keep the conversation going or I won’t shut up. Either way it’s gonna be….interesting (for lack of a better word).
Beside the initial part of this article (that I started writing at the beginning of the week), I’m really happy with all I’ve done in the past few days.
Tuesday we started class again with Herminia and we went over a few useful phrases and words (numbers, colors, family members, etc..). In the afternoon (or rather when the first part of this report dates back), I spent my time mainly stressing about the recording of the podcast (as you already might have guessed), having already completed my second manual (this time on Google Forms) both in english and portuguese. This time though in translating my work I actively tried to use only my brain and a dictionary, instead of relying on a translating program, and since then I feel like my portuguese skills have taken a significant step forward.
Wednesday Giulia and I woke up at 6:00 to go assisting a session na Escola Secundária J.Alfonso titled O que é que queres ser quando fores grande? (question I have no answer to as well). Our job was to help set up the items for the lesson, present ourself and answer a few questions in portuguese, and then give a quick speech on our role as international volunteers with the ESC.
After we ran to our next stop, PRR Cucena: sessão na Cucena, that was essentially a lesson on using sheets on LibreOffice. Here I really took a step with my portuguese speaking by forming actual phrases. The lady I was assisting, Ana, wanted to know how to move the text at the center of a cell and, not without a few struggles, I managed to put together what probably was an incredibly un-grammatical phrase. Until now I didn’t really try to speak without just repeating pre-made expressions I saw in class but with actual phrases I created, and since then I feel like something in my approach to the language changed and I am much more brave with talking. (I consider this a big conquest since for this to happen when I was studying english in high school it took way more time)
Thursday after class with all the other volunteers, I had another round of O que é que queres ser quando fores grande? in the same school, this time with Martins. And once again I found myself enjoying something I would have never guessed: teaching. I would have never guessed that I would enjoy speaking in front of a bunch of high school kids but here I am. So ironically, while trying to help other people in finding a possible path, I found something about myself and I admit that I’m afraid to consider what that might entail from now on.
Friday was no exception, since we (us 5 volunteers) had a tour of Almada with Laura and Francisco, who, after a coffee and a pastel de nata, took us to the beautiful garden of Casa da Cerca and showed us a couple of viewpoints from which admire Lisbon.
In the evening, I accompanied Nuno once again to Q. Da Princesa to give a lesson on tables in LibreOffice, but this time the new volunteer tagged along. And once again, encouraged by my previous successes, I experimented with my broken portuguese.
