Professora de inglês de dia, pesquisadora a noite

This second week of Mulheres Mil was just as busy as the first. On Wednesday we had our first English class. Amber and I had prepared a lesson plan for the class and a course syllabus. This is my first time teaching a course but I'm thankful Amber has had some experience. I based my teaching style off all the French and Spanish classes I have taken in the past few years. Whether it be speaking slowly, using perfect diction, or repeating phrases in both languages, such small adjustments when teaching does help in learning a language. Most of the women had never taken an English course in their lives, much less imagined they would ever get the opportunity to learn another language. During this first class, the women were just as eager to learn as we were to teach. They wrote down everything we wrote on the board. We made them repeat words, syllable by syllable. It was great class, I look forward to seeing these women progress in the course. 

Kyla, who works at Niagara College as a Project Specialist, had asked us 4 interns in Brazil for some information on Mulheres Mil. The proposal she had written for a $50,000 IDRC grant had been shortlisted and she needed to submit a second proposal with more details about the program. I could only remember one class in university where we had spent some time learning about proposal writing. Since landing this internship, I had been craving gaining some experience writing proposals. This was the perfect opportunity to get the experience I wanted. I have to admit, it was certainly a challenge trying to coordinate our busy schedule with the girls in Manaus.With the suggestions we gave Kyla, the final version of the proposal was submitted this past Friday. Although I had a few late nights (or should I say early mornings), the end product was worth it. Now we wait for the grant to be approved...

In order to get more information for the proposal, Amber and I had set up an appointment with Julio, who currently works as a English Professor. He had worked with Mulheres Mil during the pilot stage and the first 2 years of the MM project. He is currently writing his Masters thesis on where these women are today. Out of 62 women, he had only been able to reach 31. I know, 50% is certainly not a lot but it's something. In exchange for his insight, he had asked us to help him analyze his data, which was still in survey format. That's when I remembered a course I took back in 2008, PSCI 2702: Quantitative Research Method in Poitical Science. The most memorable thing about the class wasn't just the American professor and his awkward, yet somewhat funny jokes (Note: not the professor mentioned on this PDF) but learning how to use SPSS. 

SPSS is a computer application that assists in statistical analysis. Julio hadn't heard of this program hence I offered to set it up for him. It has been 3 years since I had even looked at SPSS, so youtube videos have been helping me re-familiarize with some old terms and procedures like CHI-square and T-tests. I will be meeting with Julio this coming Monday to transfer his survey results into a dataset. Through SPSS, I hope to analyze whether there is a correlation between some aspects of these women's lives and their success in either securing a job or attaining a higher education after completing the MM project.