From India to the United States to Ecuador, Nilofer Bharwani has harnessed her multilingual skill set to teach English and Spanish to students from a variety of backgrounds and linguistic communities. Growing up in India, Nilofer was surrounded and fascinated by individuals who could communicate through a multitude of languages, including her grandmother, who spoke four languages. Nilofer’s grandmother wasn’t just a language expert — she also taught several subjects, including English, mathematics, science and religious education. Unsurprisingly, her grandmother inspired Nilofer to pursue a career in teaching with a specialty in language instruction.
Nilofer immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of nine, later earning her first college degrees in Spanish and Sociology from the University of Florida. Continuing her education, Nilofer graduated with a double Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics and Spanish Literature from the University of South Florida.
Since January 2017, Nilofer has been teaching English in Ecuador through the U.S. Peace Corps. As a teacher trainer, Nilofer spends her days both assisting Ecuadorian teachers and instructing students directly. The experience, she said, is incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. “As a volunteer teacher, you are treated with a lot of compassion and dignity by the local teachers and community members. They are willing to accept you, teach you, help you, and provide you with all the resources they can find,” she said.
That doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Her school often has limited Internet access, no air conditioning and large class sizes of forty students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The challenges, however, have helped enhance teachers’ creativity when it comes to lesson planning and keeping students engaged, Nilofer said. She added that most of her students already find English to be “cool,” so teachers often use that “cool factor” to their advantage, bringing pop culture, politics and other topics into the classroom to keep students engaged.
Still, it took Nilofer several years to gain the courage to teach abroad for an extended period, but she advises others to never give up on their dreams. “Keep practicing your art until you are ready to go, and the right opportunity will knock at your door,” she said.
After her two-year Peace Corps service, Nilofer hopes to continue teaching, contributing her skills toward teacher training and curriculum development at the University of Central Asia. It would be her way of serving the Imam through the AKDN, she said.
