“Isn’t it a lot easier in English?”, asks Hikmat Daoud Hanna to student Hudson Franklin Novak, about the differences between possessive pronouns in English and Portuguese. In the large room of the Paraná Public Library, in Curitiba, Hikmat is recognized by a family, who takes pictures of the class: “You can continue, we don’t want to disturb you”.
In early March, a post on social media by photographer Francielle Machoski in which the 88-year-old Iraqi offered classes at the Largo da Ordem fair, in the capital of Paraná, went viral. On their posters, phrases like “Teaching English for free” or “Free English reinforcement” were read.
The repercussion transformed the lives of both: Francielle paused her professional life to attend to everyone who seeks the teacher, who does not have a cell phone.
In less than a month, the Instagram profile created by her for Hikmat is close to 25,000 followers. “Some publications reached 8,000 views. It has good organic engagement and always lots of messages of affection”, she says.
A devotee of Our Lady, “Seu Henrique” — a nickname derived from the abbreviation “Hik” — found in the Parable of Talents the inspiration to teach English for free. The biblical passage teaches that one should not waste available resources and that there are ways to multiply them.
He says that he had students in many places: from state schools to neighborhood associations and churches in Bahia — where he lived for 15 years, until the end of 2021 — and in Paraná.
Hudson Franklin was one of the first interested in the classes offered on the square. The meetings take place in preparation for the proficiency test that the master’s student in bioethics will take in a year and a half.
It’s not the first time Hudson has sought to master the English language. “I had experiences with other teachers, including paid ones, but I didn’t identify myself. He makes me relive everything in a different way, it’s like a chat”, he says.
“Henrique” says he created a method to fix grammatical rules, which would allow the construction of sentences in a more natural way. The rule is to teach for one hour, once a week. It guarantees that, if the student puts in the effort, he is able to converse in English in no more than four months.
The retiree is well aware of the difficulties encountered in crossing the language barrier. He learned English while still in Baghdad, where he was born, overcoming the differences between the Latin alphabet and the Arabic writing system, his mother tongue.
In his youth, he studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Rome. “The teacher spoke in Latin for 45 minutes and I couldn’t understand anything, disappointed,” he recalls. But once he understood the basics of Latin languages, it became easier to take a chance on French, Spanish and, 20 years later, Portuguese, when he came to Brazil in 1970.
Hikmat now has five students a week. It doesn’t even charge for the trip to their house, made by bus. With the success on social networks, Francielle created an online form for those interested in the classes. According to her, registrations passed the 2,000 mark, which motivated the creation of a YouTube channel to expand the audience.
“We receive many messages from people who dream of the opportunity to learn English, but live in other cities”, says the photographer. The first online class went live at the end of March and had 2,500 views in two weeks.
The professor was noticed in the networks by personalities such as the singer Vanessa da Mata and the journalist Patrícia Poeta, but the recognition extended to the real world. In addition to being approached for photos and conversations, he was honored by the Curitiba City Council for his contributions in the area of education.
The teacher and the photographer now plan to make some dreams come true. Crowdfunding was created so that he can move out of the apartment he shares with his ex-wife and have a place to receive students. They are also negotiating the publication of three books written by the professor — two of them are handwritten dictionaries with more than 9,000 entries, one Portuguese-Arabic and one Italian-Arabic.
His spare time, which has been scarce in the last month, “Henrique” spends reading, writing and doing volunteer work at Mesa Solidária, a municipal program for popular meals. For those who want to find it, the tip is to look for Largo da Ordem and its surroundings, always on Sundays.
