Brazil: Volunteer English Teaching in Latin America | Gap Year | Overseas | Work | Children | Projects Abroad

Brazil: Volunteer English Teaching

• Placement locations: Niteroi
• Types of schools: Kindergarten, Secondary, Community Centres
• Age of students: 5 - 17
• Class sizes: 5 - 15 in Kindergarten; 20 - 30 in Schools and Community Centres
• Role: Teacher or teaching assistant (English, French)
• Extra-curricular roles: Sports, Music
• Accommodation: Host families
• Price: From £1795
• What’s included? Food, accommodation, transfers, insurance, personal webpage, induction and orientation, 24/7 support, social activities
• What’s not included? Flights, visa costs, spending money
• Length of placement: From one month
• Start dates: Flexible

As a volunteer, teaching English in Brazil will give you an amazing new perspective on this incredible country. You can gain invaluable development work experience without any previous qualifications, and you are not required to have undergone TEFL training.

Whether you are coming to volunteering during your gap year, career break or an extended holiday, you will have a role to play in one of the community centres and schools that we work with, and you will be able to make a real difference.

Brazil's economy is currently experiencing something of an economic boom, but the financial prosperity is failing to filter down through society, with an estimated 55 million Brazilians still living under the poverty line.

For Brazil's children, one possibility for a better future lies in the learning of the English language, which can allow them access to so many areas of future employment. In a Portuguese-speaking country, on a Spanish-speaking continent, there has never in the past been a great deal of importance placed on learning English, but more recently this has changed, as globalisation has taken effect. Unfortunately the better English tuition tends to come at a price which has restricted it to those who can afford it. As a Projects Abroad volunteer you can help to address this imbalance.

Teach English Language in Schools and Community Centres with Projects Abroad

Projects Abroad Brazil is based in Niteroi in the State of Rio de Janeiro. Here we work in schools and community centres with children who have varying levels of English. They will all have had some English language teaching in the past, but often it will have been with teachers who did not have particularly good standards of English themselves. Consequently they may have a poor grasp of the grammar and structure, and are not able to speak the language.

This is where our volunteers come in. By running lessons in English and making them fun and inclusive you can really help to develop the pupils' confidence. They are sure to be interested in you and your life as a foreigner, and you can take advantage of this to get them talking to yourself and each other.

In most schools and community centres you will begin as a classroom assistant, supporting the teacher in lessons. However, as you get to know the children better and start to grow in confidence you will want to take on more responsibility. If you have any other interests - such as art, music, drama or sport there will be opportunities to incorporate this into your classes too.

In one community centre Projects Abroad volunteers are responsible for organising and teaching English lessons to students in the evenings. Volunteers spend their afternoons working together planning lessons, in preparation for the classes. This is an extremely beneficial placement as the students that attend are extremely eager to learn and benefit greatly from our volunteers.

Volunteers have the option whether to combine various teaching projects, or to focus solely on one. This can be discussed with the team in Brazil once you have applied.

Volunteering on a Teaching Project in Brazil

Whatever your skills, as a volunteer in Brazil you will make an important contribution by improving students' spoken English and giving them the confidence that comes from being able to communicate with a native speaker. The impact you have on the lives of your students will be obvious and long-lasting, but you will also be part of a much larger volunteer network, which is making a really positive contribution to the wider community. It will be an experience you never forget!

The schools in Brazil have their main holidays from mid-December to mid-February, with a shorter holiday in July. Volunteers are able to travel or enjoy the festivities with their host family over the Christmas period, then from the second week of January we organise a variety of holiday programmes. These include working at the Projects Abroad run holiday school, working at a local care centre, coaching sports and painting an orphanage.

You can also join a Music Teaching Project in Brazil, where you will teach music to children and young adults in a cultural centre.