Volunteer Sharing Program at Continental Guarulhos

Hello, my name is Gabriela and I am a teacher in the Volunteer Sharing Program in Guarulhos, Brazil. This program is about employees at Continental, who offer their time to teach any knowledge the coworkers, such as tips on Excel, Sign language, Financials, and in my case: English.

Everybody can take part into the classes, it’s only necessary to have an agreement with corresponding manager about the time you’re going to join the class. Through a test and interview the students are divided by levels: basic, inter 1, inter 2 and advanced.

The local HR selects the teachers based on the experience. They give us the teacher’s book and each one is designated to prepare the class accordingly with corresponding level. I’m from Brazil, so our natural language is Portuguese, which is not similar to English, but my parents always encouraged me to learn and improve this skill. Beyond the regular classes at school, when I was 7 I started studying twice a week at an English school.

When I was 17 years old, I finished all the levels at the English school and got a CEFR Cambridge certification. Then, I continued practicing while I was traveling, watching movies, listening songs, reading articles and books. Today, I’m grateful to had never stopped studying, because now I’m working in a position that needs this skill, besides that I can help my colleagues at work, also my little brother.

Today, I have 11 students, and the classes happen on Monday and Wednesday after lunch. I always try to prepare something different, further than the regular book, like a game, a famous song, news, an interview or similar. Through this practice, they can listen another accents, words and ways of speaking.

But is mistaken who thinks that Sharing Program consists of one-sided learning, just convey knowledge to another person. Be part of this makes you see that, either for the student, or the teacher, you are going to learn and realize that the apprenticeship is continuous. We can always improve our vocabulary and accent because it is a foreign language, so it is not natural.

The experience of sharing with our colleagues helps to know each other better, beyond the work space and it promotes greater synergy between us. I’m happy to be part of Continental   and because of this to join the Sharing Program.

This article was written by our employee.