Brazilian pupils learn English by correcting celebrities' tweets

Published July 12, 2013 10:46pm

A Brazilian school is using celebrities to help its pupils learn English, but with a twist: it's the kids correcting the stars.

The Red Balloon school had children correct grammatical errors in tweets by stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

"New experiment of Red Balloon, to show Brazilian kids can speak English better than native speaker celebrities on Twitter!" the school said in a YouTube video showing its "Celeb Grammar Cops."

In the video posted last June 10, the school said the experiment had children aged 8 to 13 checking their favorite celebrities' tweets.

The school said it decided to do something about the potential threat of social media to encourage bad grammar - it had the children reply to the celebrities.

"The kids would tweet back at the celebrities, explaining politely what was wrong in their tweets," Buzzfeed.com reported.

Buzzfeed added these pupils appear "definitely the most polite correctors of grammar on the Internet, that’s for sure."

Some samples of the interactions between stars and the young grammar cops as compiled by Buzzfeed include:

1. Sylvester Stallone:

Hi, @TheSlyStallone I'm Theo, I’m 8 and I’m from Brazil. Look, you wrote “need” but it’s “needs”.Love the Expendables pic.twitter.com/2Lqxg0KsyX

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 12, 2013

2. Rihanna:

Hi @rihanna! I love your songs. My name is Carolina. I'm 11 years old. It's not to she, it's to her. bye bye . pic.twitter.com/JR8GtPW156

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 12, 2013

3. Daniel Radcliffe:

@DanieIRadcIiffe Dear Harry Potter, I'm Gabriel, from Brazil. Your tweet has 2 mistakes: "it has been" and "amazing". pic.twitter.com/OqwojktYv7

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 22, 2013

4. Kim Kardashian:

@KimKardashian, you're beautiful. I'm Ana Beatriz from Brazil, I'm 8. Look, you wrote Were, but it's "we're". Kisses. pic.twitter.com/warKOfU1FX

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 12, 2013

5. Paris Hilton:

@ParisHilton! I'm Marcus from Brazil. I'm 11 years old. May I help you? It's not loves it, it's love it. Kisses. pic.twitter.com/XC6GZ9DOHb

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 16, 2013

Even young star Justin Bieber wasn't spared:

Hi, @justinbieber! My name is Maria, I'm 9 and I'm a fan from Brazil. Watch out: it's "we're here" not "we here". : ) pic.twitter.com/hJ2b1u8MsS

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 22, 2013

And as for actor Charlie Sheen's tweet:

@charliesheen I'm Rafael from Brazil. Big fan. But man, use your "brain", not your "brane": ) Your show is great! pic.twitter.com/NUMOB29Xnf

— Red Balloon (@redballoonBR) April 15, 2013

— TJD, GMA News

Tags: twitter, sylvesterstallone, rihanna, danielradcliffe, kimkardashian