English collocations extracted from a corpus of university learners and its contribution to a language teaching pedagogy

Taking into consideration the relevance of foreign language teaching and the learning of collocations (ALTENBERG; EEG-OLOFSSON, 1990; FONTENELLE, 1994; MEUNIER; GRANGER, 2008), this paper aims at showing results of an investigation on whether the teaching of collocations should be implicit or explicit to the Brazilian university students. Furthermore, the research has the purpose of presenting some collocational aspects from a corpus of the written language learners made up of intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced university students' argumentative essays at a public university in Brazil. With the help of WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2007), it was possible to raise students' most frequent collocational choices and patterns, the most/least used type of collocations, the influence of the mother tongue on their choices, among other aspects. With the purpose of motivating and involving students in classroom research, it was also introduced The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), created by Mark Davies. By doing so, students could compare their collocational choices with the patterns found in the online corpus, extract more collocational patterns and, consequently, be aware of the potential of corpora for the foreign learning process, specifically for raising language awareness, with focus on prefabricated chunks.

Subtitling as a pedagogical tool for language teaching in journalism

This study was designed to present and discuss some results produced by a research involving the use of English subtitles of some news videos from the webiste Reuters.com (http://www.reuters.com) with pedagogical reasons in a Brazilian context (Academic English for Journalism). We have developed the research during two semesters at UNESP (Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho). The professor in charge of the study has chosen the students of Journalism as the audience to whom the videos were presented. The assumptions of many theorists and experts in Audiovisual Translation were adopted as our Theoretical Sources. The first step of the study was the assessment of the syllabus of each course. This was very helpful as a guidance in order to choose the most relevant and interesting videos for students. After the evaluation of academic and professional interests, we chose some videos to insert appropriate subtitles, according to some strategies suggested by Panayota Georgakopoulou and Henrik Gottlieb. Finally we presented the videos during the English classes. At the first time, they were presented without subtitles just to notice the comprehension level of the students. After that, the videos were presented with English subtitles. As we first assumed, the students haven’t had the whole comprehension of specific details during the first presentation, they have just used their previous knowledge and the visual aids to help them in a superficial understanding of the news. As the subtitles appear, the process of communication was finally accomplished.

Cultura, linguagem e ensino da língua estrangeira: um estudo acerca desta inter-relação

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Aquisição/aprendizagem de LE: subjetividade e deslocamentos identitários

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A interação verbal na língua-alvo e a proficiência oral na prática de sala de aula: (re) definindo o perfil de uma professora de língua inglesa da escola pública

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Atividade epilinguística em sala de aula: as interpretações naturais feitas pelos alunos

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

A descrição de idiomatismos nominais: proposta fraseográfica português-espanhol

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A auto-avaliação em um contexto de ensino-aprendizagem de línguas em tandem via chat

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Polissemia em phrasal verbs: uma concepção semântico-cognitiva de análise e aplicação didática

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

A abordagem do voseo em materiais didáticos brasileiros de ensino do espanhol como língua estrangeira

This work discusses the importance of the language varieties in the Spanish language to the process of teaching and learning Spanish as a foreign language (ELE), focusing on the approach, ie, how to deal with the phenomenon voseo in Brazilian textbooks. It presents a brief historical overview on the arising of this language and its implementation in Latin America. From an educational approach that values a good development of communicative competence, it’s driven to a presentation of the Spanish schoolbooks selected by PNLD for the year 2012, as well as an observation of activities that demonstrate the phenomenon called voseo, in other words, the use of the variety of the pronoun vos instead of tú for the treatment of the second person. Given the vast range of Spanish courses as a foreign language for high school students, and the growing interest of young people in learning a second language, this study addresses the importance of developing the communicative competence of a foreign language

Competences in the classroom in the perspectives of foreign language teachers

In this article we raise some considerations about teachers’ competences, from the perspective of teachers in the Brazilian public sector. The theoretical framework includes articles by Paulo Freire (2001), Philippe Perrenoud (2012), Edgar Morin (2003) and Maurice Tardif (2002) and, based on these authors, we reflect upon issues concerning teachers’ competences taking answers provided by the Brazilian language teachers as a departing point. In a teachers’ course, followed by the same teachers, we posed the main question in our study: Which competences are necessary for a teacher to be considered a good professional at present? From the answers given individually and group discussions we proceeded to a comparative analysis with the adopted framework, and other issues concerning teachers’ competences were considered as well. All the participants mentioned the same two competences, the use of technology and sound knowledge of the course content, and other competences were pointed out by the various teachers as well. Such procedure, besides providing data for our study, also helped as a self-reflexive activity for the teachers involved, about their own professional performance. Given the issues raised in the theoretical texts and the answers provided by the teachers, we expect to revisit the competences necessary for foreign language teacher efficient performance.

Como o ensino vê a variação?

Thinking about the correlations between linguistic variation and education is both necessary and urgent if we wish to make language teaching more appropriate, fairer and more meaningful. I take, on one hand, already well-established concepts derived from research on language: the variable nature of language (in space, time, situations) and the intrinsic relationship between this variation and social structure, the communicative needs of speakers, the needs and desires that speakers have to build their social identity. On the other hand, we found out that the teaching of Portuguese language has usually been based on a vision that assumes the language as a static reality. I propose to contrast the two components of this issue, to reveal where, and if, any relationship has been established, and where it is to be built. In the first instance, I seek to evaluate the bond – how one speaks about change when this issue comes to be focused; in the second, I seek the reasons for absence - ignorance or indifference?

Considerações sobre sessões de Teletandem como gênero discursivo: breve estudo e exemplificação

The reflex of social and cultural changes in discursive practices can indicate that language has a fundamental role in transforming the society and attempts of defining the directions of changes must include new forms of language practices. One of these forms concerns to computer media in teaching-learning process, showing how technology and culture interact in a significant way to interfere in language uses. In this context, it has been developed in UNESP/Assis linked to the Center for Language and Teacher Development the project Teletandem Brasil: Foreign Languages for All as a new practice of language teachinglearning through technological resources. The present paper aims to present a description of the teletandem sessions as a discursive gender according to the Bakhtin’s gender theory. The data was collected during the second semester of 2010, in sessions of interaction with an American university. The considerations are directed by the following questions: (a) how are the statements of a session discursively organized; (b) what kind of relationship the partners have with their mother language when they teach it as a foreign language, in this context. The analysis allowed us to conclude that: (a) the sessions can characterize a hybrid and secondary gender in this specific area of human activity, even the partners still find difficulties in this gender domain; (b) the teletandem sessions constitute an important instrument for the critical language awareness between the partners.

Relação poder-saber e formas de resistência em documentos educacionais governamentais sobre ensino de língua estrangeira

Considerando o discurso político-educacional como meio de manifestação de poder, este artigo tem como objetivo propor reflexões acerca da relação poder-saber em documentos educacionais de diferentes esferas governamentais, nos quais se apresentam eventuais formas de resistência. Para verificar como se dá essa relação, serão analisadas as Orientações Curriculares para o Ensino Médio: Linguagens, Códigos e suas Tecnologias, documento elaborado pela Secretaria de Educação Básica (SEB) e a Proposta Curricular do Estado de São Paulo: Língua Estrangeira Moderna - Inglês, da Secretaria da Educação de São Paulo (SEE), publicadas em 2006 e 2008, respectivamente. Para tanto, o arcabouço teórico será embasado em conceitos sobre a relação poder-saber, formas de resistência e regimes de verdade amplamente discutidos por Foucault (1971, 2008), Pêcheux (1990), Mascia (2002), Bertoldo (2003), Coracini (2003), Gregolin (2004), Orlandi (2006), Veiga-Neto (2007), Possenti (2007) e Amarante (2009). Por meio da análise desses documentos, notou-se a presença de traços argumentativos que contribuem para o estabelecimento de um regime de verdade, perpassado por relações de poder-saber. Além disso, os resultados obtidos apontam para polêmicas existentes entre as Orientações Curriculares Nacionais e a Proposta Curricular do Estado de São Paulo no que concerne aos pressupostos teóricos e orientações práticas para o ensino e aprendizagem de línguas.

A autoavaliação da aprendizagem de inglês como língua estrangeira em um ambiente tandem a distância

Este trabalho visa discutir as características do processo de autoavaliação da aprendizagem de inglês como língua estrangeira em um contexto tandem a distancia. Trata-se, mais especificamente, da apresentação de uma pesquisa na qual se analisam os dados coletados no ambiente teletandem (TELLES, 2005) por uma brasileira (aprendiz de inglês), durante suas interações via chat com dois parceiros norteamericanos (aprendizes de português). A análise enfoca as metas e estratégias de aprendizagem em relação aos parâmetros e critérios adotados pela brasileira em seu processo de autoavaliação.