The Integration of Foreign Students in the Portuguese School of the 1st Cycle of Basic Education: the Case of a School Grouping in the Municipality of Viseu

The present study aims to understand whether the foreign students who have different nationalities but the Portuguese are integrated into the school of the 1st Cycle of Basic Education. With this purpose, a descriptive and phenomenological research was conducted, making use of documental analysis, as well as semi-structured interviews and sociometric tests. These two data collecting tools were applied to students attending from the 1st to the 4th school years, in three 1st Cycle of Basic Education schools, within a school grouping in Viseu. The data obtained through the interviews allow us to conclude that foreign students, in general, feel integrated both in the school and in the class they belong to. However, the analysis of the results of the sociometric tests reveals other data, allowing us to conclude that one of the students is neither integrated in the school, nor in the class he is part of.

Feeding students’ creativity with language arts: a project developed at ESEV (2013-15)

Children live at a time when the rapid turnover of information and the ongoing changes in the technological, social, cultural, political and economic spheres make it more difficult for teachers to prepare lessons that enhance students’ interest and motivation. There is so much to be learnt outside of the classroom’s four walls that traditional methods of teaching may not be the most effective way to teach today’s learners. When it comes to classes of Portuguese language, teachers are faced with the challenge of teaching culture, literature, grammar and skills such as reading, writing and speaking in a way that involves students as active participants, that is, in a way that engages while also instructing. It means that several strategies need to be adopted, from games to the use of new technologies or, among others, an interdisciplinary approach with maths, (social) sciences and arts, for instance. In an attempt to motivate gifted and talented children that were attending elementary school in a small town near Viseu, in Portugal, The School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu was asked to be part of a project in 2013, in a collaborative partnership that proved successful and that was re-enacted in 2015. It is in light of the above that, in this paper, we aim to: a) describe the support that the School of Education provided to these participants, children who were between six and fourteen, by presenting Portuguese language activities that intended to stimulate creative thinking and artistic production; and b) discuss the results of the project, by analysing the students’ productions across verbal and visual modes (ie. script writing and dubbing an excerpt of an animation film, interviews, news reports, drawings, the creation and recitation of poems…). Future activities are on the table, meaning that the School of Education’s commitment to feeding the students’ creativity has shown promising results. Creativity in Portuguese classes is not a guarantee of success but it certainly is food for thought.