Recently, faculty and staff of the Bilingual Education Program met with government representatives of Pernambuco, a state in northeastern Brazil, to discuss possibilities of a partnership.
Pernambuco’s state government is seeking to improve education in English as a second language as well as math and science to help build capacity in the scientific arena.
“We need to train teaching English as a second language and teaching science and math. It’s very, very important,” said Aronita Rosenblatt of the University of Pernambuco, one of the representatives.
“We feel that the gap or what that keeps us from advancing more is the lack of English knowledge, because in science you can’t go very far if you don’t speak English. It’s an international language in science,” she added.