Meet your Fulbrighter
English, as a second language: Paulo Hadi Manuel’s story
Paulo Hadi Manuel (35), is an Angolan of Uige Province in the Northern region, from a town called Nagage. Manuel is married with two young daughters, both toddlers at four years and 4-months old. He is now a graduate Fulbright sponsored student, studying for his Education degree majoring in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Manuel says that his desire to teach TESOL was inspired back in 2011, when he travelled to and was invited to teach English in some provinces in his home country. This is where he met numerous young people who wanted to learn English and on the other hand, he noticed that there was a shortage of English teachers.
He explains that although English is spoken as a ‘foreign’ language in his country, it has become “trendy” to speak it, “In Angola we have a few local languages but Portuguese, Kimbundu and Kikongo are the main languages. Majority of the people in my home province, Uige, speak Kikongo.” Portuguese, he explains is their ‘colonization heritage’, Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975. One of the benefits he believes his country will enjoy by speaking English is the “academic advantage.” “I recall a time when I had an assignment I had to complete back home. I searched on Google and found all the information I needed but I could not use it because I could not understand nor speak English. Speaking the language gives you more access to information.”
Angola produces oil and mines diamonds among other minerals, this has resulted in the establishment of multinational companies, he says. “Good jobs are found working with multinationals in the oil and diamond industry. However these global companies require that you speak English. So knowing the language broadens your employment opportunities.” Most importantly he believes Angola will be able to reinforce its economic and trading ties with countries in his region, who use English as the official language such as Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe. As a result he aims to start an English teaching training program when he goes back home, a program he says will device ways to teach as many people as possible.
His ultimate desire is to establish his own English teaching school. “I would like Angola to be a country that gives value to its ethnic languages. I also want English to be spoken widely. In my ideal world an Angolan should be able to speak one ethnic language, Portuguese and English.” Language is a means of communication, explains Manuel, and the more languages one knows the wider their scope becomes. “I am also currently learning Spanish which luckily for me shares a similar dialect to Portuguese. Being bilingual has also been proved to have cognitive benefits,” he says.
Language is also strongly linked to identity. His four-year-old daughter currently speaks Portuguese at home and his wife also speaks mainly Portuguese and a local dialect. In regards to this conflict his says, “We want our daughters to identify as an Angolan Portuguese speaker. We will start teaching them English when they are five-years-old, to give them a chance to identify with their culture.” He misses home, “The food, the people, the dancing” but he also enjoys being in Fayetteville. “Fayetteville is a very quiet, peaceful and ever green place. It offers a great study atmosphere. I have yet to see or experience anything that can impact negatively my study here,” says Manuel.
Contributor: Boitshepo Balozwi, a Fulbright grantee from Botswana