Welcome to Mateus Braz! This is his first semester teaching Portuguese to UGA students as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FTLA) in the Department of Romance Languages. Mateus shares his reflections on his journey to become a teacher:
 

While my mom was preparing her classes, I would walk into her room, half asleep, and ask her “Mom, where’s Pwato?” I didn’t know who Plato was then, but I surely enjoyed sitting on top of his works and keeping my mom company. Looking back, I guess I was always meant for the classroom. 
Growing up, books and comics kept me company. From the start, reading was the most important thing in the world to me. During my teenage years, whenever somebody asked me what I wanted to do for a living, I said: “Anything that allows me to pay for books.” So when the time came to choose a major, English just made sense. I would be able to study the thing I love most, learn more about its inner workings and become a specialist just like my parents. That said, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about teaching. At the start, it felt like maybe I was at the wrong place. I tried studying law for a year, then returned to English. 

Then, the pandemic struck, and I finished my undergrad during it. At some point, I started teaching English, and realized it wasn’t so bad. From that point on, I was a teacher, and that’s what I’ve been doing since. Soon, I started teaching Portuguese as an additional language to foreign businessmen and eventually got a job at an international school in Brazil as a teaching assistant. Meanwhile, I got a master’s degree in literature, in order to one day become a higher education professor. My love for reading keeps the flame alive.

Finally, when a friend of mine told me about the Fulbright grant, I jumped at it. It was another opportunity to teach in a brand new environment, to a new demographic. Even though my goal is to become a research professor, I consider this classroom life invaluable. People often say that many professors struggle to successfully bring their knowledge to a real classroom environment. I want to avoid that common pitfall and become a well-rounded instructor. Learning to capture your audience, tailor your teaching, and deal with unexpected events: These are all crucial skills that shouldn’t be undervalued. I believe this is another crucial step in my teaching journey, a journey that never truly ends. As in any other career, we are ever improving, ever curious. 

So far, my journey at UGA has been amazing. The campus is beautiful, the students are engaged, and Athens is pretty fun. Here’s to an amazing academic year!