Teaching Crossroads: 11th IPB Erasmus Week

In the wake of the latest news regarding IPB’s award for best Polytechnic Institute in Portugal, we would like to congratulate the IPB community who has always striven for the quality of the institution within the national and international academic milieu. We are, undoubtedly, bowled over by the 1st place in the national context (out of the 27 national institutions under evaluation) and the 7th position in the international scope. In fact, it is worth mentioning that the IPB has won this award, three years in a row, being in a leading position in the ranking promoted and sponsored by the European Union. This year’s edition has selected and evaluated over 1300 world higher education institutions. Teaching Crossroads intends thus to give a watershed contribution to the IPB’s successful and most valued pathway. Numbers indicate that Teaching Crossroads has had over 2550 downloads since it first came out. But let’s cut to the chase. Once again, we are delighted to present the 5th number of Teaching Crossroads. This wholly calculated and well-sustained editorial adventure started in 2012 when the first number of Teaching Crossroads first saw the light. This year’s publication includes the areas of Human Geography/anthropology, Information Technology and Forensics and Language and culture, focusing on minority languages. Alongside this, as in the two last previous numbers, we’ve included the specific area for International mobility, Intensive Programmes and Erasmus+ Mobility of Individuals, being the latter financed by the European Union within the Erasmus+ Programme, whereas the former is sponsored uniquely by the foreign partner institution, in this case, Lillebaelt Academy in Denmark. These types of programmes convey very positive and overarching ideas, resonant in cross-cultural and educational benefits, valuable for all the involved partners. We would very kindheartedly like to thank the authors for having contributed with much enlightening and serious articles on a wide array of areas. Pablo M. Orduna Pórtus’s article focuses on border culture and heritage management. The author’s study is placed on two borderlands of the Iberian Peninsula: Roncal Valley (Navarre) and Riverbanks of Douro. Going beyond the linear or physical conception of the border, the author centres his study on the metaphysical and symbolic ideas of the frontier that sustain his anthropological analysis. Michal Popdora manages to find evidence for his proposal of a new conception of teaching Image Processing, based on the student-centered approach. A hands-on experience on a Project-based Learning methodology sustains the teaching project. Grounded on “a forensic-flavored style”, using the author’s own words, he shows how students can become engaged in a highly effective learning process. Cláudia Martins is already a confirmed habitué of this publication, as in every Erasmus Week she delivers a lecture on Portuguese language and culture to visiting teaching and non-teaching staff. This time, the author decided to delve into a Portugal’s official language, Mirandese, spoken in a small designated area in the northeastern part of Portugal, Miranda do Douro and its surrounding area. The author gives account of some thought-provoking facts about the language, from the origin and the survival of the language, however still a minority language, up to the moment when it was acknowledged Portugal’s second official language, together with the challenges that nowadays faces. Luís Frölen Ribeiro, João Eduardo Ribeiro, Carlos Casimiro Costa, António Duarte, Carlos Andrade from the Polytechnic Institute and Arne Svinth, John Madsen, Morten Thomsen, Kent Smidstrup, Carsten John Jacobsen from the Lillebaelt Academy, in Denmark, participate in a joint project which they describe, outlining the main goals and gains of the project. To overcome teaching difficulties regarding the engineering degrees, a 12-ECTS joint course from Lillebaelt Academy and Polytechnic Institute of Bragança was created based on the Danish model. The course Product Development and Industrial Processing was hence created. Rui Pedro Lopes presents an insightful and acute account of the Internationalization programmes in Higher Education in Europe. At one go, the author describes his own experience as a visiting lecturer, within the Erasmus+ programme, to Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy, in a Master’s degree in computer science, bringing to light a personal reflection on the goals and benefits of the mobility for both students and teachers. Finally, the author puts forth some suggestions that would improve the whole mobility process. We sincerely hope to have stimulated you to keep on reading, upholding the belief that these texts can represent valuable sources for both teachers and students in their research work.

Emptying the bell jar: an exploration of adolescent responses to a women's literature unit /

This study examines adolescent student responses to a women's literature unit taught within a grade 12 Writer's Craft course. Current research (Gilligan, 1989, Pipher, 1994 & Slack, 1999) suggests that there is a great under-representation of female authors in the high school literature curriculum. The use of women's literature may draw attention to important literary figures who are historically overlooked within the curriculum. It gives voice to a marginalized group and presents students with alternative subjects and heroes. It encourages students to develop a critical perspective and reevaluate assumptions about institutions, ideologies, language and culture. It also allows me, as a teacher, to reflect on my own teaching practices and explore alternate feminist pedagogical principles and teaching styles encouraging multiplicity of voices, deconstruction of power relations, and alternative assessment tools within the classroom. As an educator, it is important for me to teach curriculum that is relevant and meaningful to students and help them become critical, self-reflective thinkers. It is also important for me to assist students in their exploration of self and encourage them to expand their awareness of historical, social and global issues. Sylvia Plath's (1963) The belljar is used as the primary text taught within this unit. In this novel, the bell jar is a central image that signifies entrapment and isolation. "To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead body, the world itself is the bad dream"(p.l 54). As a metaphor, the bell jar resonates with young readers in a variety of ways.

Tempus Post Mortem?* Adaptação portuguesa da transcendental-future time perspective scale (TFTPS)

Integrado no conceito mais geral da perspetiva temporal, o futuro transcendental tem sido conceptualizado como uma dimensão que abrange as crenças sobre o futuro a partir da morte imaginada do corpo físico até ao infinito. A transcendental-future time perspective scale (TFTPS) é uma escala unidimensional composta por 10 itens que avalia as cognições relacionadas com este espaço temporal. O objetivo deste estudo é apresentar a adaptação à língua e cultura portuguesa desta escala, assim como a sua estrutura fatorial e características psicométricas numa amostra de 346 participantes com idades compreendidas entre os 17 e os 54 anos (M = 19.87, DP = 4.27). Os resultados encontrados através da análise fatorial exploratória validaram a unidimensionalidade da escala (65.94 % de variância total explicada, α = 0.87).

Cooperación Sur-Sur entre Brasil y los Países Lusófonos Africanos (2003-2010)

La arquitectura de la Cooperación Internacional ha atravesado varios cambios. Entre ellos, el surgimiento de la Cooperación Sur-Sur dejó entrever el marcado interés de los países en desarrollo por hacer parte de la misma. En Brasil, el gobierno de Lula da Silva fue el gran promotor de esta cooperación, especialmente con aquellos países de habla portuguesa en África. En este contexto, la presente monografía pretende determinar de qué manera la construcción social de identidad incide en la dinámica de Cooperación Sur-Sur entre Brasil y los países lusófonos africanos. Mediante una perspectiva constructivista, se analiza el valor de diversos elementos sociales, culturales e históricos cuya interacción configuró determinadas percepciones entre Brasil y los países lusófonos africanos. Este proceso de interacción social permitió la consolidación de una identificación positiva entre ellos, fortaleciendo su acercamiento político y generando así un considerable aumento en el volumen y las temáticas de los proyectos de cooperación formulados de 2003 a 2010.

Relative durations of post-vocalic consonants in readaloud Spanish by native Swedish L2-learners

Prosody is said to be a persistent feature in foreign accents, particularly in the speech of adult learners. Native Swedish speakers have been reported to lengthen vowels in Spanish as well as post-vocalic consonants in English and German, more than native speakers of the respective languages. The aim of the present study is to examine whether native Swedish learners of Spanish produce increased postvocalic consonant durations in a reading aloud exercise. The text contains certain words that could be expected to trigger complementary consonant lengthening in native Swedish speakers. The result shows that there is no general tendency for native Swedes to lengthen post-vocalic consonants more than native speakers of Spanish in the present speech material. There are examples of longer consonant durations in the speech of the native,Swedish subjects, but it could be a coincidence. A conclusion is that the text used in the study, and probably Spanish as a language, contains few words that are ideal for triggering lengthening of post-vocalic consonants in native Swedish speakers.

L’insegnamento online delle lingue all’Università del Dalarna (Svezia) : Esperienze di collaborazione internazionale e prospettive future

This paper describes the on-line teaching strategies for languages adopted at the University of Dalarna (Sweden) and the experience of a collaboration carried out with the Language Centre of the University of Parma that led to the administration of an international course in Italian for specific purposes. According to the results of its first administration, the promotion of advanced forms of "virtual mobility" together with the prospective of a joint degree in Italian language and culture will be outlined.

As práticas de tradução redefinidas pelas relações linguísticas na economia informacional

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

Os quatro núcleos/eixos de produção da poética de Caio Fernando Abreu

This article presents a short study about the literary work of Brazilian writer Caio Fernando Abreu (1946-1996). In order to study his formal and thematic choices, we established criteria based on concepts like motif and plot (dramatic situation), as developed by Tomachevski (1976). A specific articulation between motives and dramatic situations establishes four nuclei of Abreu's literary production, which is characterized by a literary experimentation with these elements and it constructs an organic work that makes itself and/or is made in a dialogic way (Bakhtin, 1981). Firstly, the main characteristics of the four nuclei and the books that embody them will be presented. Then, we will describe how the motives and dramatic situations are re-elaborated from one nucleus to another. Not only does each nucleus features some new elements, but also contains remainders of previous ones. As such, each of Abreu's works can be considered as both the same and unique.

Folha rota, de Machado de Assis: Mulheres livres e pobres na ordem patriarcal

This article analyzes the short story Folha rota (1878) by Machado de Assis, taking to account the transformation process of the patriarchy, bearing in mind it's decadence within the increasing urbanization context through 19th century. From the representation of female characters and their everyday's life in the narrative, we discuss the violence experienced by free and poor women involved in the inherent power relations in that society. In this perspective, we intend to indicate an interpretation of literary work as an important device of social criticism, as much as, to give a contribution to an accurate comprehension of Machado de Assis's work, especially his short stories.

Is there any defence for matricide? A juridical reading of Sophocles' Electra

Based on an analysis of Electra by Sophocles, it is proposed that the central concern of the dramatist is not the matricide of Clytemnestra itself. Sophocles invites the audience to reflect, as though they were the jury in a law court, on the legality of the actions of Electra. The play is thus a contribution to the debate on Justice in Greek society initiated almost two centuries previously.

De platon à candido: la littérature en question

Cette étude propose, à partir de quelques conceptions de littérature qui circulent dans le domaine de la critique littéraire, une approche théorico-critique. Pour ce faire, on partira de la vision platonicienne et aristotélicienne, pour ensuite discuter les contradictions observables dans les concepts mêmes de littérature. A la fin, on se décidera pour une conception spécifique, en raison de sa flexibilité.

A frágil realidade de plástico: um estudo comparativo da imagem Casa de Bonecas em henrik ibsen e katherine mansfield

Considering the importance of significations in literary works, this paper proposes a comparative study of the image of the Doll's House in Henrik Ibsen's play ADoll's House (1879), and Katherine Mansfield's short story The Doll's House, published in the book The Dove's Nest (1923), based on the theories of Gaston Bachelard and Jean Baudrillard. In both cases, one notices that the presence of this image indicatesnot only the construction of these works' environment, but also a criticism of the bourgeois model of a perfect and flawless society, as the described image refers to. However, even though this image shares the same idea in both works, it will be explored differentlyin each case, whether through the search of Nora's character in escaping social conformity as in Ibsen, or through the subtle childlike game experienced by the Kelvey sisters, asin Mansfield.

A literatura latino-americana e as alegorias nacionais de concierto Barroco

The problematical identity of Latin America is reflected on the recurrence of the theme in the literature created in this part of the continent. The images of Caliban and anthropophagy and the attribution of a Baroque meaning to the Latin American experience characterize an expressive part of such literature. By means of the character Amo, Carpentier's Concierto Barroco exemplifies the difficulties of the Creole elite in finding a nobleorigin for themselves in their ancestors' Europe, and in identifying themselves with it. The slave musician Filomeno and Amo naturalizes narrative, whereas Filomeno provocativelytransits between the hierarchies, turning the Baroque meaning of identity into an allegory. Jazz is a Creole, anthropophagic and Baroque product whose erased origin was replaced by the fabled narrative in the Spirituals that renewed modern music. It is important to emphasize that Carpentier created, by means of Filomeno, the unity of the American experience whose frontier is Mexico.