Portuguese Dual Immersion Video for My Students :)

Eu fiz um vídeo para meus alunos na escola! Pelos últimos dois anos, eu ensinei português na escola pública aqui em Utah. Meus alunos são todos Americanos (na verdade, tenho uns 4 que seus pais são Brasileiros) que querem aprender a língua portuguesa! No começo do ano é bem difícil pois eles não falam português e eu preciso usar muitos gestos e gravuras para eles entender o que eu estou dizendo. Mas ao passar alguns meses, eles conseguem entender muito bem e falar somente em português também! É bem impressionante, e realmente é o melhor emprego que tem, na minha opinião! Eu adoro ser professora e ver como eles aprendem. 

Eu amo meus alunos muito! Eu não vou ser uma professora mais, mas eu vou visitar eles na semana que vem e eu queria fazer esse vídeo para mostrar meu apartamento para eles e apresentar Lydia. :)

For the last two years I have had the best job ever!!! I've taught first grade Portuguese dual immersion, which means I am a regular first grade teacher to American students, but I only ever speak Portuguese to them. So at the beginning of the year for them to understand what I'm saying, I have to act everything out. You have to be very expressive and use lots of pictures and objects to help them understand what you're teaching. Then after a few months, they pick it up and ONLY speak Portuguese in class! It's SO amazing and I am so proud of my students for working so hard and being so awesome.

The sate of Utah is a leader right now in second-language acquisition education in public schools. People come from all over the world to observe school being taught in a second language and to learn how they can do the same thing in their schools. There are dual-immersion schools all across the state and it's growing every year. All you need to do is decide which of the offered languages you wold like your child to speak, find out what school teaches it, and sign up your 1st grader! :D There is often a waiting list though, it's so popular.

There are Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Portuguese, German and soon to be Russian-teaching schools in Utah. Students spend half of the day learning in English, and the other half of the day learning in the "target language." I have 56 students split into two groups that I teach in the morning and in the afternoon. I teach them math, science, social studies, P.E. and of course, Portuguese. They keep learning the language in school until their senior year of high school so that by the time they graduate, they only need two university classes to receive a minor in that language! It's pretty much the greatest thing ever.

Click here if you want to learn more: http://www.utahdli.org/

It is SUCH an amazing job when you see how incredibly quickly your students learn. It's not easy at first, but they get it so fast and it becomes a breeze for them. Not only that, they become your dearest friends and you grow to love them SO MUCH! The last few weeks I taught them, they would ask every day how my baby Lydia was doing and they would say, "Oi Lydia!" while waving to my pregnant belly. :) When I came to school on her due date (May 12) my students were so surprised to see me! We had this conversation (remember, it's ALL in Portuguese; it's the best when they learn how to joke around in Portuguese):

Students: Professora Steed! You're still here?!

Me: Yep...

Students: But why? Today is Lydia's birthday!

Me: I know! I have no idea why she isn't here yet! I think she just wants to stay inside forever!

Students: Or she's sleeping! Haha! It's her birthday and she's sleeping through the party!

(I laugh my head off)

Me: I think you're right!

I love those kids! They're the best. I'm on maternity leave right now so my friend Amanda Monteiro is teaching them and I'm SO thankful for her! She will finish teaching them for the rest of this year (there are two more weeks in the school year because I teach in a year-round school) and I won't be returning to teach. I will miss it SO much--the class plays we did like Macaco Branco, playing sharks and lifeguards or duck, duck, sploosh during P.E., sitting in the cafeteria with my students to eat lunch with them, especially on Fridays when we get pizza, playing hide-and-go-seek at recess with my class and most of all seeing them grow. It's awesome when they finally realize that they can speak the language so well, and they say, "Thank you so much, Professora Steed, for teaching us Portuguese!"

So I'm going to go visit them the last week of school, but I told them I would also make them a little video showing them my apartment and introducing them to Lydia. It's all in Portuguese, of course, but you can watch if you want anyway. :)

Here are some of the Portuguese teachers! I love them all so much!!!