Director's Blog

It is easy to underestimate the size of a city. Even when you have spent the last few days trecking around, it is still sometimes easy to think the city is a a lot smaller than it actually is, just because certain things appear more familiar. Today we decided to walk from Vila Madalena to Escola Lourenço Castanho and it took us about an hour and half to do so. We were able to shoot as we strolled, capturing some footage of one of the busiest streets in the city. However, time was of the essence and we had to run to Escola Lourenço Castanho in order to get there for break time.

The school runs on a similar programme to most in the UK in that there is a scheduled 15 minute break in the morning. The only difference with this school is that everybody accumilates in the central outdoor concorse to discuss their lessons while listening to the rock music that pours from huge speakers all around the room. We were able to film some of the students we interviewed last week as they spoke to their peers and conversed in English. It certainly made a change from what we filmed at Juan Uribe School, but it turns out some of the students at Lourenço Castanho had studied there when they were younger.

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Juan Uribe is a school in Sao Paulo where children aged 2 to 13 acquire English through playing games, storytelling, puppeteering and creative projects. The school is also unique in that the students talk about how they perceive their own processes in acquiring the language. Joel and I spent the day filming at the school, which allowed us to interview both the students and the staff about the importance of learning English from such a young age. We were also lucky enough to be able to interview a parent who had been sending her child to the school from the age of 1 year and 10 months. The child had already acquired an excellent grasp of English and was continuing to progress during her time at the school.

Choosing to enrole children on English courses at such a young age must have pluses as well as minuses in terms of the learner’s education and this is what I was able to explore while filming at the school.

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Joel and I returned to Sao Paulo on Monday evening and set about planning the rest of our time in this fascinating city. A lot of time was spent thinking about how we can go about documenting the vastness of Sao Paulo without simply gathering footage of skyscrapers and traffic jams. The central problem with our plan was that 90% of the people we have met here advised us to exercise extreme caution when walking in Sao Paulo. Joel and I have both been told on numerous occasions by local people that filming in the city centre and even on the outskirts is a serious ´no no´, particularly as we are a crew of two and stand out as tourists. I am not sure as to how we are going to go about filming in Sao Paulo but I always value the opinions of the local people…

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The Learning English Video Project hits Baleia Beach!

Since we had interviewed her brother in Shanghai, Delane kindly offered for The Learning English Video Project crew to travel just north of Sao Paulo and spend the Brazilian Independence Holiday with her family at their beach house. Delane picked Joel and me up from Vila Madelena at 07:30. She had told us to stay inside the gates of our hostel as it may not have been safe to wait outside, which seemed a little strange at the time, but we were keen to meet her and to see what the Brazilian coast line has to offer. We were then given a quick tour of the city before we met with Delane´s parents at their apartment in the centre of Sao Paulo; they were keen on making us feel welcome in their home city and practicing their English at the same time.

The journey from Sao Paulo to Baleia Beach took about two and a half hours. During that time, we got very well acquainted with the family and the versatile Brazilian countryside; from the sweeping grandeur of expensive apartment blocks, to the awkwardly balanced favelas shooting up plush green hillsides.

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I woke up at 6:00 a.m. after a ten hour sleep. The time difference from Shanghai meant that my body was telling me it was time to go to sleep but the receptionist at the hostel was telling me that it was time for breakfast. I have just decided to go with the flow and stay awake for as long as possible. We only have one opportunity to film here in Brazil and so after recharging our body batteries this once, we can not afford to do this again.

Like Shanghai, Sao Paulo is a huge city. Vila Madalena, the area in which we are staying, is full of Bohemian culture and boasts scores of art galleries and graffiti areas. I was hoping that today we would be able to shoot some of the surrounding area but the rain was unrelenting. I ended up taking a few shots from inside the hostel but the sky was extremely dark and sinister looking! Read the rest of this post »

I am sorry to say that I have missed a few days on the blog post but hope to be able to update a little later. We are currently staying at a beach house on the Brazilian coast with Denis’ family. Joel and I met Denis for the first time in Shanghai when we interviewed him for The Learning English Video Project. Denis is from Sao Paulo, and when he learned that we were coming here to film, he contacted his family and they met us for the first time yesterday morning. We are just about to set up some interviews with our ‘host family’ and find out about the importance of young children learning English in Sao Paulo!

The fact that we are living with the family of a gentleman we met while filming in China is a wild coincidence and further proof that the world is only as big as you make it!

All the best,

Daniel.

After arriving in Leitao and getting settled in, Joel and I made our way to the first school that we will be working with. I am particularly keen on getting some information on how and why Brazilian parents are eager for their children to learn English at a young age. We are therefore collaborating with Juan Uribe at his school for young learners in Sao Paulo. Juan has over 100 students between the ages of 2 and 13 at his school and we will be interviewing his staff and some of the students parents next week to find out more about how the younger generation are learning English here.

We met some of the teachers at the school, most of whom are from Sao Paulo, and then with Juan himself. Everybody seems extremely enthusiastic about The Learning English Video Project and so we made arrangements to set up some interviews next week.

Joel and I decided to walk back to our hostel, which took us about an hour. Sao Paulo is supposedly a bigger place than Shanghai in terms of population, but it seems to be a lot more laid back. No sooner were we back at the hostel than it began to rain extremely heavily… so much so that we were stuck in our lodgings for the remainder of the evening - a great opportunity to catch up on some sleep after our journey.

Tomorrow we will visit a private school in the city centre before taking in a taste of the Brazilian bohemian culture we have been promised here in Sampa! This is certainly going to be an exciting finale to the trip - be sure to keep checking EnglishClub.com for more updates!

Best Wishes,

Daniel.