Panel SA: Teaching English with black culture attracts interest from companies, says businessman

Born in 2008, when the first experiences of quotas in public universities began to train black students for the job market, the English school Ebony English helped them to fulfill the language requirement required in the companies’ internship programs, according to founder Rodrigo Faustino.

Today, after going through the digital transformation of the pandemic, Ebony sees growth in business demand for its English courses, which have a methodology focused on black culture.

“In recent years, the corporate market, which was small for us, has grown a lot. Companies, especially technology companies, who have a more open mind, started looking for us”, he says.

In this year of reviewing the Quota Law, Faustino says that the reality of black people has changed in Brazil, but it is not complete.

“Stopping this would be a setback”, says the businessman.

What has changed at school in recent years? When the school was born, in 2008, we were discussing affirmative action, increasing the black population in colleges, which was just the first barrier to be overcome. But I arrived at the internship, and one of the requirements to enter was English. It is still so today.

For a population that comes, mostly from public schools, this is another barrier. When Ebony emerged, it was to meet this demand from the black population, to have a better level of English and be able to access the internship.

Over the years, things have changed. We have improved in terms of diversity and access. The school saw English for black culture as a business, which can grow and progress. In recent years, the corporate market, which was small for us, has grown a lot. Companies, especially tech, that are more open-minded, started looking for us.

And our vision has also changed for the individual student, to open doors for partnerships and work.

At the end of last year, I was in Dubai and I realized how we miss opportunities on the African continent. I’m talking about exchanges, culture, entrepreneurship among young people from Brazil and Africa. Today, Ebony is also a hub.

Does this preparation for such business opportunities also involve studying pronunciations that go beyond British and American English? We have the phonetics issue. Nigerian English is different from American and Canadian English. In the IT area, there are a lot of people from India, for example. It is naturalizing and understanding that it is part of the culture.

Another strong differential of ours is teaching English with black culture. For example, to use music in the course, English schools brought Michael Jackson at most. I love Beatles and Metallica, but try to put an Aretha Franklin, an Ella Fitzgerald. Bringing these issues into teaching connects.

We created a very strong pedagogical material, we researched, made references, made contacts with the embassies to offer the history of the countries.

Ebony doesn’t have only black students. And they also connect by studying with the history of Nelson Mandela from a South African reference.

How was the transition to digital and expansion? We started in 2008 with face-to-face classes in a small room in downtown São Paulo. In 2013, we started thinking about online, but still very little. In 2017, we designed the platform we have today. And the pandemic changed everything, it brought the possibility of growth.

By 2019, 90% of students were based in São Paulo. Today, about 45% are from other states. And we have three students outside Brazil. There is a student from a quilombola community in Tocantins, from an indigenous community in Goiás.

This brings the possibility for people from different places to meet each other. It’s not just an English school and to connect people like this we need online.

like mr. said, Ebony started in the context of affirmative action, and this year it has a revision of the Quota Law in higher education. How are you seeing this? Maintenance is very important to us. It is something that changed the reality in Brazil, but it is a reality that is not complete.

We resolve quotas in universities, but the issue of basic education, access, has not yet been resolved. To talk about the end, we need to solve the base. Stopping it would be a step backwards.

In education, being very optimistic, it would take about 50 years to solve the problem in Brazil.

In addition to the cultural aspect that you bring to the classroom, does the news also enter? Are cases like the Moïse murder discussed among the students? We take it because it’s something that affects us directly. We are not decontextualized from history. The murder of Marielle, the musician Evaldo Rosa with 80 shots, Ágatha, George Floyd in the United States. All these facts are connected by racism. They died because of their skin color.

Last year we invited an American teenager to tell her version of the George Floyd protest period. It was remarkable for them and for her. It’s so much pain. She cried in the middle of class. And you felt this pain. We end up having the opportunity to discuss these topics in the classroom. But it is not easy.

It’s not easy to talk about Moise. It recalls the case of American Rodney King, from 1992, who was beaten by the police.

X-ray

In 2008, he founded the Ebony English School and is currently the company’s vice president of business strategy. He studied engineering at Fatec (Faculty of Technology of São Paulo)

Joana Cunha with Andressa Motter and Ana Paula Branco