Practical school studies 2 in German at Porto Seguro in Valinhos - Janneke Schneider

Experience report SPS 2 in German - at Porto Seguro in Valinhos
1. Preparations for the 4-week internship in Brazil:
Right at the beginning of the 2019 summer semester, in mid-April, I had the idea of doing my SPS2 in German at a German school abroad. So, together with my flatmate, who is studying the same subjects as me, I went to an information event organized by the International Office, where a few things were discussed and explained about shorter internships abroad as part of the SPS2. We were advised there to read reports on Moodle from students who had already completed their SPS abroad. It has to be said that the university hardly helps you find schools abroad and you have to plan everything organizationally yourself. My flatmate and I decided that we would prefer to do the SPS 2 together at a school abroad. First of all, I wrote a letter of motivation explaining why I really wanted to do the internship abroad. I researched German schools abroad on the website www.lehrer-weltweit.de/schulen/. On the site you can find information about the schools and also the websites of the schools, which you can then use to find out who you can send your application to. At first we were planning to go to a school in Europe and therefore only sent applications to European schools. But then, to be on the safe side, we applied to lots of different schools around the world. Many schools were immediately eliminated because they only offered longer internships of 6 weeks or more, or sometimes only 3 months or more, or because the application period was already over. We planned to do the internship for 4 weeks in March 2020 and always wrote this period in our application. I can recommend everyone to apply to schools as early as possible (at least a year in advance, if not even earlier), as most internships are filled very quickly - especially at schools in Europe, you don't stand a chance if you apply at short notice. It was the same with us. We received one rejection after another. Then, in May, I received a reply from the German school in Valinhos (Brazil). I had actually applied for the first unit of the school in Sao Paulo and was then asked in the email whether I would also be interested in an internship in the second unit in Valinhos. Valinhos? I had never heard of it before, so I googled the city and the school and quickly realized that I would accept. Valinhos is a city with around 130,000 inhabitants, which is about an hour from Sao Paulo and around 20 minutes from Campinas, a city with over a million inhabitants. When my flatmate received the same message from the school as me, everything was perfect and we could hardly believe our luck. The next step in my preparations was to find out about the possibilities of a scholarship. We were eligible for either the Shosta scholarship or the DAAD scholarship. So I applied for both. You have to pay particular attention to the application period. In the end, I was accepted by Shosta with a grant of 600 euros. After all, the money almost covered the flight costs. We also booked our return flights to Sao Paulo directly after we had received the internship confirmation from the school in Valinhos. The flight provider Sta-Travel had by far the cheapest flights, because there is a discount for students if you show an international student ID card at the airport. If you didn't already have one, you could easily book it through Sta-Travel for 15 euros. Before my trip to Brazil, I only had to get vaccinated against yellow fever, as I already had the rest of the vaccinations from my semester abroad in Bali. I didn't have to apply for a visa for the 4 weeks in Brazil. The school in Valinhos even offers interns the opportunity to stay with a host family for the duration of their internship. If a suitable family can be found, accommodation is usually provided in families with children from the elementary school, with whom German is then increasingly spoken at home. However, my flatmate and I decided against a host family because the news that a family had been found came too late for us. One month before the internship started, we had already booked accommodation via AirBnB, which I can recommend to anyone going to Valinhos! In the winter semester 2019/2020, I then attended the SPS accompanying seminar and was able to choose one of the three seminars on offer, as interns abroad do not have to be supervised by the SPS supervisors during the semester and only have to actively participate in the weekly accompanying seminar. During the semester break at the end of February 2020, we set off for Brazil...
The 4-week internship at Porto Seguro in Valinhos: When we arrived at the airport in Sao Paulo, we were kindly picked up by the school secretary's husband. This made things a lot easier for us, as we neither knew the Portuguese language nor did we want to be mugged on our first day. We had heard from friends that crime is very high there and that tourists in particular are mugged in cabs. We were then driven to our internship supervisor and greeted very nicely. He even drove us to the supermarket so that we could do some shopping for the next few days. In Brazil, supermarkets are always open from Monday to Sunday. He then drove us to our AirBnB accommodation and translated the instructions from the landlady. The accommodation was super nice and on a huge plot with a pool. We walked to school every morning in about 35 minutes. You could always order an Uber for the equivalent of one euro, but we were always happy to walk. Just before the school, we passed a chain restaurant that was always busy. There was everything from a bakery with homemade cakes and pastries to an ice cream parlor and a pizzeria with a lunch buffet. You could pay everywhere with a Visa card. Porto Seguro is an excellent official German school abroad and private school in Brazil and is well-known throughout Brazil. The school has a Curriculum A (Brazilian part) and a German-speaking part (= Curriculum B). The B part is much smaller than the Brazilian part and there are grades 1-4 (elementary school), 5-8 (middle school), 9-11 (upper school) and finally grade 12 (Abitur class). Overall, the classes are always very small, which allows for individual and differentiated teaching. During our time at the school, we spent around 5-7 hours a day observing German lessons and were present in every year group. The first lesson starts at 7:00 and the first half-hour break only begins after the 4th lesson at 10:00. Lessons usually start about 5 minutes late as there are no breaks between lessons and pupils and teachers have to change rooms. There are usually differentiated classes in which German lessons take place depending on the language level. German books are also available in differentiated editions. The school day usually ends after the 7th period at 12:45 p.m. However, remedial lessons and homework supervision are also offered every afternoon. The upper school also has additional afternoon lessons. After school, we always walked back to our accommodation and cooked together in our huge kitchen or sipped a coconut by our pool. The families who send their children to Porto Seguro are almost all very wealthy, which is why you don't see much of life in the favelas and poverty in Valinhos. In addition, every teacher there told us that there is actually no crime in Valinhos, which reassured us a lot and which is why we dared to take an Uber to Campinas or a shopping mall at the weekend more and more often.
Conclusion: Do I recommend an internship at the school? In answer to the question of whether I would recommend an internship at Porto Seguro, I can clearly say: YES! I really would recommend the school to anyone. In retrospect, I would even say that I was lucky that I first received a rejection from the school in Sao Paulo and then an acceptance from the school in Valinhos. I liked everything in Valinhos so much, including the nature and the friendly, helpful people, that I am really thinking about working as a teacher at the school for three years. I couldn't imagine a better school for a longer period of service abroad. I was never disappointed at the school - on the contrary. I was often surprised at how nice and helpful everyone was to us. From the very beginning, we were made to feel very welcome by all our colleagues and were directly involved in the lessons. I also believe that no other school has such a good internship supervisor, who really takes care of every problem and is always on hand with help and advice. It's also really interesting to see how lessons are run at a German school abroad and how language problems are dealt with. If I were to go to the school again, I would definitely do a Portuguese language course beforehand, as this can help in many situations in and outside of school. In conclusion, I can say that my time at the school was an eventful and instructive time that I wouldn't want to have missed and for which I am very grateful. I think that I can now differentiate German lessons much better than before.