Clinton Central School Corporation recently welcomed an esteemed woman from Brazil as she participated in a Bilateral Educator Exchange program to gain experiences and knowledge that she may bring back to her students at her language school.
Ingried Maria Weber visited Clinton Central on Monday and Tuesday this week as a member of a Bilateral Educator Exchange program to experience the opportunities, differences and similarities of United States and Indiana institutions compared to those available in Brazil and other areas of the world that Weber has experienced.
Weber was invited to Clinton Central through the exchange program to experience the lives of two teachers where she follows their routines at home and inside the school to observe how the classrooms operate. Weber added that since her visit, she has been to four schools during her trip, including elementary, middle and high schools, and she paid a special visit to Indiana University in Kokomo to observe their classrooms and gain an understanding about how public colleges and universities operate in the United States as many of her students have aspirations to work or study in the United States.
“The public university and the schools where I have been to, they are all public, and they look to me as if they were private,” Weber said. “In Brazil, we don’t have all these facilities.”
Weber was invited to speak with Mrs. Amanda Weaver’s third grade class about Brazil and her experiences, which the children expressed their excitement and joy while discussing the subject with her. Weber also experienced the singing styles of Mr. Alex Jackson’s choir class as they performed a piece they have practiced for the Solo and Ensemble competition this weekend, which acts as a student-conducted piece.
Jackson’s class performs for Ingried Weber:
Following the performance of the ensemble piece, Weber aided the class with pronunciations of the lyrics in “Quando Quilaria!,” which is a piece that the choir is set to perform in the future.
Weber acts as the Bilingual Executive Secretariat of Cliff Idiomas e Robótica in the city of Estância Velha, which is located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Weber boasts a resume that includes a postgraduate degree in advanced English studies, pedagogical training for teachers, advanced level certification from Cambridge and other qualifications that set her on a track toward establishing a language school in Brazil.
Since 1993, the school has taught English, Spanish and robotics to strive toward making a difference in the lives of children, teenagers and adults. The school mainly focuses on children beginning at ages seven or eight years old as they are able to read and write through the teenage years and into adulthood. Weber added that some of the children are enrolled as young as four or five years old to be immersed in the bilingual experience from a very young age, and many adults return to the school later to brush up on their English, which stands as the most popular subject in the school.
Weber stated that English tends to be the most sought-after language to learn at her school due to its universal status, and many young adults and teenagers choose to study English due to their desire to finish high school in an United States school or Europe, to improve their language abilities in their job in Brazil or to prepare for a transition into another career in an English-speaking country.
“Several of our students, they are now working in other countries, and they are very successful because they can speak English, especially,” Weber said. “We teach Spanish too, but fewer students study Spanish.”
The school also provides an interesting curriculum surrounding robotics as it continues to grow in Brazil. Weber added that her husband is an electronic engineer and lost his job in the pandemic and suggested the launch of the robotics program within the school. Weber stated that in the private schools, robotics teams study robotics and participate in competitions in Brazil and sometimes internationally, and she wanted her school to provide the same opportunities.
“I think it’s fantastic because it helps develop the children’s brains more,” Weber said. “It’s so important because they have a problem, and they have to find the solution to that problem. They have to have a sense of so many things, measurements, size and height, and they have to use their hands for that and their brain, and they have to work in a team.”
Following her visit at Clinton Central, Weber commented about how she looked forward to spending today, Wednesday, Feb. 5 in Kokomo once again to visit with another school and experience more of the life of institutions in Indiana. Weber added that one of the main takeaways she has experienced is the politeness, welcoming and punctuality of Hoosiers, which is a note that she expects to take back to her students.
“I’m learning so much from all of you,” Weber said. “It’s so different from Brazil, and it’s a fantastic experience that I will share with so many people when I go back to Brazil. The places that I visited are great, and I’m so positively impressed with everything. Politeness–this is something I will certainly take with me and try to tell to my students that it’s so important to be polite and punctual. This is different from Brazil. We are more flexible, but in certain moments its so important to be punctual.”
Weber concluded her statements with an invitation for teachers across the world to experience the institutions in other countries, especially those where students may roam following learning another language, such as English.
“This program is a wonderful program for English teachers who have the desire, the objective, the dream–for me it’s a dream coming true–to know what classes are like, what schools are like in the United States,” Weber said. “It’s a unique experience, and I recommend any teacher from Brazil or other places who can do this, it is such a nice opportunity.”
Weber will return to Brazil later this week and will resume her courses with her students, enlightened by the experiences she gained while in Indiana.