O latim, uma língua morta?: uma metáfora em análise: o olhar da lingüística aplicada e suas implicações para o ensino

The focus of this research is the teaching of the Latin language. Due to the fact that its teaching has been facing a growing crisis in the last four decades, which currently persists, we ponder about external and internal causes of its decline, aiming at pointing out an alternative that enable us to find a way out of this situation. So, our research questions mainly concern how the teaching of Latin is viewed amongst the academic society, also investigating if it has kept up with the development of the scientific reflection about human language and the new approaches on language teaching. Furthermore, we analyse the contribution that the study of Latin can provide to the academic formation of language teachers and try to identify the areas of knowledge that can contribute to a reshaping of its teaching. Based on these guidelines, we have established as the goals of this research: 1) to reflect about the current situation of the teaching of Latin and the causes of its decline; 2) to determine its social representation among teachers and students of the Language Courses, as a way of defining the role it fulfills in the academic formation of teachers; 3) to accomplish an exploratory study of some handbooks that show alternative proposals on how to teach Latin, in order to detect their adequacy to current times and to the goals of the academic study of languages; 4) to offer an alternative proposal on how to teach Latin that takes into account the principles of Applied Linguistics, considering the socio-historical and cultural aspects of the language, enabling it to meet the requirements set by modern times. This research is divided into two parts. The first part presents the theoretical framework. We map the studies about Latin teaching inside and outside Brazil and argue against the concept of Latin being a dead language, presenting arguments set on changing this view. Then we describe and comment the notions of literacy, genre and culture, which helped us understand the reasons for the decline of the teaching of Latin and to point out suitable ways to overcome the crisis. The second part is dedicated to reflecting on the literacy practices in Latin teaching. We began by examining the answers to the questionnaires given to students and teachers about the view of Latin in the Language Courses; then we reflect on the teaching-learning of Latin as an academic literacy practice followed by an analysis of the didactic material used in teaching Latin. Finally, we suggest an approach of the familiar letter genre in ancient Rome as a means of teaching Latin in a contextualized way

O jornal televisivo e o ensino/aprendizagem integrado de português língua materna e francês língua estrangeira

Pour beaucoup de chercheurs, il y a une crise à l école et dans l enseignement/apprentissage des langues qui est provoquée par un enseignement cloisonné et décontextualisé de la réalité. Dans ce type d enseignement/apprentissage, le livre scolaire a une présence si hégémonique qu il est la source quasi exclusive du discours pédagogique et on ne fait que très rarement usage des langages du quotidien des apprenants. Le langage télévisuel est un de ces langages qui pourraient être utilisé pour ciliter enseignement/apprentissage d une langue vivante, variée et en situation, car il permet l exploration de tous les composants de la compétence de communication. En même temps, ce langage pourrait servir à sensibiliser les apprenants à une éducation aux médias. Le journal télévisé peut favoriser un enseignement/apprentissage intégré de la langue maternelle et de la langue étrangère, grâce à son format, similaire dans plusieurs cultures, et à son importance en tant que reflet des valeurs socioculturels des sociétés. Ces qualités sont très favorables pour stimuler le transfert des compétences entre la langue maternelle et la langue étrangère, pour qu on puisse enseigner et apprendre une langue, et connaître une culture. Le journal télévisé est vu comme une source d information et son analyse en classe peut contribuer à la formation d un apprenent/citoyen actualisé, critique et conscient des problèmes et des répresentations des sociétés

Uma solução para geração automática de trilhas em língua brasileira de sinais em conteúdos multimídia

Deaf people have serious difficulties to access information. The support for sign languages is rarely addressed in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Furthermore, in scientific literature, there is a lack of works related to machine translation for sign languages in real-time and open-domain scenarios, such as TV. To minimize these problems, in this work, we propose a solution for automatic generation of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) video tracks into captioned digital multimedia contents. These tracks are generated from a real-time machine translation strategy, which performs the translation from a Brazilian Portuguese subtitle stream (e.g., a movie subtitle or a closed caption stream). Furthermore, the proposed solution is open-domain and has a set of mechanisms that exploit human computation to generate and maintain their linguistic constructions. Some implementations of the proposed solution were developed for digital TV, Web and Digital Cinema platforms, and a set of experiments with deaf users was developed to evaluate the main aspects of the solution. The results showed that the proposed solution is efficient and able to generate and embed LIBRAS tracks in real-time scenarios and is a practical and feasible alternative to reduce barriers of deaf to access information, especially when human interpreters are not available

A estratégia didática de resolução de problemas na formação de professores de química

In this work it is presented a research developed in the initial training of teachers of the chemistry graduation course at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). The intervention was realized in two classes in the context of a discipline in the curricular structure with nineteen undergraduate students of chemistry. The study utilizes characteristics of the qualitative approach and uses observation, questionnaires, interviews and examination papers. The experiment involved a sequence of activities fundamented on the Problem Solving (PS) teaching strategy to approach chemical concepts. The proposal was planned and organized according to the theoretical presupposition of the work developed by the authors of the Science Education in PS, of teaching experience and from the initial hypotheses of the research. The goal was that the future teachers could experience the strategy and advance to the new meanings. The themes addressed in the activities were the difference between exercises and problems, exercises turning into problems, the steps of problem solving and some implications of the teaching strategy for the work of the teacher. The results showed evidence that through a process of collective reflection, and from the difficulties experienced in the strategy practice, the undergraduates are introduced to new perspectives of reflection and action of teaching practice, and understanding some benefits of innovative proposals for the teaching of chemistry. It also showed that, although this theme is approached, in some moments of the graduation, the future teachers don‟t know when or how to realize activities in this perspective. From the aspects that rose in research we highlighted the difficulties in the problem solving steps, the use of the strategy in school and the knowledge and skills of the teacher for planning activities in Problem Solving

A prática de correção textual por professoras de língua portuguesa do ensino médio

Cette recherche analyse les pratiques de correction de textes de l'enseignement du 1, 2 et 3 ème niveau. Nous avons parti de discutions avec les professeurs de Langue Portugaise des troisièmes annèes d‟une école appartenant au enseignement publique, située à la ville d‟Assu RN. L'étude a les postulats théoriques de Cruz (2007), Dellagnelo (1998), Oliveira (2005), Pécora (1999), Ruiz (2001), Serafini (1989), et d‟autres. La méthodologie est de nature qualitative et d‟interpretation, dont le matériel a été constitué à partir des rapports des enseignants professionnels, ainsi que les 92 textes recueillies entre juillet et août 2008. Les dés montrent que la correction se configure comme un travail pratique, qui vise à aider les étudiants à améliorer leur écriture. Les professeurs font la correction d‟une forme mélangée, c'est-à-dire dans le texte apparaissent les corrections orthographiques, lexicales, etc., mais la prédominance de la correction est par rapport aux idées, pour le contenu du texte. Dans ce sens, les professeurs se rendent compte du valeur et de la hiérarchisation des idées discutées par les élèves, les reconnaître comme l'organisation de la sémantique et la séquence du texte. Tous les autres aspects (structurelles, grammaticaux) sont importants, cependant, en général, dans la pratique de correction des études, l‟exposition les idées occupent une place importante. Les marques de correction apparaissent sous la forme de petits billets, qui apprécie également toutes les étapes de l'écriture de texte

Representações de professores de língua inglesa de Natal-RN: um estudo sistêmico-funcional

Teaching and learning representations have been more and more investigated in the Brazilian applied linguistics field, as it allows the understanding of the teachers representations and how they conceive the learning process. This practice facilitates the planning of actions to improve the educational system. This study aims at identifying, interpreting and discussing some representations related to the identity and professional view of English as a foreign language teachers in different school contexts of Natal-RN. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research is Halliday s Systemic- Functional Linguistics (1994; HALLIDAY; MATHIESSEN, 2004; EGGINS, 1994, among others). Our goal was to reveal the teachers representations embedded in their language, mainly through the ideational metafunction, as language is the tool we use to express ourselves about the external world (events, qualities, things, etc) and the internal world (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc). The research corpus is made of 21 teacher narratives, generated from a questionnaire sent to the teachers, who were divided in two groups: Group 1 (public schools teachers) and Group 2 (private schools and English course teachers). Most of the participants seemed to be satisfied with their professional choice. Many of them see the job as a challenge and an opportunity to transmit knowledge. All of them affirmed that the English teacher is a professional, for different reasons; however, the low professional appreciation was a recurrent aspect among the studied narratives. When asked about where they work, the private school teachers seemed to be more satisfied with the teaching-learning process than the ones from the public schools. We believe that the data analyzed in this study is important to show how some English teachers from Natal-RN see their profession. The results might be used in continuing education courses as food-for-thought in group discussions, as it is extremely important to emphasize and stimulate this practice

A (não) assunção da responsabilidade enunciativa em livros didáticos de língua portuguesa dos 4º e 5º anos

Portuguese textbook has been the focus of many investigations, nevertheless, the theme still has much to be discussed, reflected and broadened. This conviction mobilized us to perform this research, seeking to answer three questions: (1) how does the author of the textbook induce the student to give his opinion in comprehension questions of text in Portuguese textbook of 4th and 5thgrade? Which enunciative links are used by the author of the textbook in comprehension questions of text concerning to the assumption of enunciative responsability? And (3) Which enunciative links are used by the author of the textbook in comprehension questions of text concerning to the non assumption of enunciative responsability? In this direction, we define as objective to id entify, describe, analyze and interpret how the (non) assumption of enunciative responsibility materializes itself in Portuguese textbooks. The theme is echoed in the guidelines of the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais PCN (1998; 2001), who assume that all education committed to citizenship need to create conditions in order the student can develop his discursive competence" (BRAZIL, 1998, p. 23). This assertion of PCN (1998; 2001) is closely related to our research object, and therefore, it has corroborated to the accomplishment of this study. So, we analyze the comprehension questions of the texts that are elaborated by the authors of Portuguese textbooks of the 4th and 5th grade, used at public schools in the city of Natal-RN in 2010. As a theoretical basis, we have considered the postulates of Textual Analysis of Discourses ATD and Enunciative Linguistics. Our research was mainly based on the studies of Adam (2011), Nølke (1994; 2001; 2006; 2009; 2013), Nølke, Fløttum e Norén (2004) Rabatel (2004; 2005; 2008; 2009), Guentchéva (1994; 1996). Our data analysis revealed that the authors of Portuguese textbooks explore the reading comprehension, inducing students to answer questions that may be categorized like: (1) induction to the assumption of enunciative responsibility, (2) induction for non assumption the enunciative responsibility, (3) orientation for the study of vocabulary and grammar and (4) orientation of extra themes. The results from the comparison of the books of 4th and 5th grade of the two analyzed collections, we observed through the links of (non) responsability Nølke (1994; 2001; 2006; 2009; 2013), Nølke, Fløttum e Norén (2004), which in 79% of the questions, the authors induce the decoding of a content objectively inscribed in the text. In this sense, the notion of understanding a text is compromised, since it is limited to copying contents or transcription exercises, failing to consider the interactive use of language, or rather, failing to expand the student's knowledge in the (re)construction of the text of the meanings. This shows that there is a lack in the deal with the text that includes the textual discursive resources in the reading activities in Portuguese textbooks. We recall, in this direction, the works of Marcuschi (2005), Antunes (2003, 2005), and Bunzen Rojo (2008), among others authors who contributed greatly to orient the choice of Portuguese textbooks. Finally, we believe that the study about the enunciative responsibility phenomenon in Portuguese texto oks offers, above all, instruments in order to the interlocutors identify the elements present in the enunciation and the effects that these elements bring to the (re) construction of the meanings in texts that they read and write in the classroom.