Questões de Concurso Comentadas sobre aspectos linguísticos | linguistic aspects em inglês

Foram encontradas 875 questões

Q1607902 Inglês
Being literate can be defined in a number of ways, yet, the most known all over the world is related to:
Alternativas
Q1607899 Inglês
Phonology, also known as phonemics, is the study of the particular sound units (phonemes) in languages. It can be compared to phonetics, which is the study of human speech in general, and includes the articulation and perception of sounds. About this area it is correct to affirm that it includes:
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Q1607897 Inglês
When teaching my daughter how to drive, I told her if she didn't hit the brake in time she would break the car's side mirror. In brake and break we can clearly see an example of
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Q1374290 Inglês

Leia o texto e responda à questão.


    For years attention has been paid to so-called communicative tests – usually implying tests dealing with speaking. More recently, efforts have been made to design truly communicative tests of other language skills as well, such as reading comprehension.

    Canale (1984) points out that a good test is not just one which is valid, reliable, and practical in terms of test administration and scoring, but rather one that is accepted as fair, important and interesting by test takers (the teachers) and test users (the students). Also, a good test has feedback potential, rewarding both teachers and students with clear, rich, relevant, and generalizable information. Canale suggests that acceptability and feedback potential have often been accorded low priority, thus explaining the curious phenomenon of multiple-choice tests claiming to assess oral interaction skills.

    One example of a communicative test has been referred to as a “storyline” test. In such a test, a common theme runs throughout in order to assess the effects of context. The basis for such an approach is that the respondents learn as they read on, that they check previous content, and that the ability to use language in conversation or writing depends in large measure on the skill of picking up information from past discussion and using it in formulating new strategies.

    Swain (1984), for example, developed a storyline test of French as a foreign language for high school French immersion students. The test consisted of six tasks around a common theme, “finding summer employment”. There were four writing tasks (a letter, a note, a composition, a technical exercise) and two speaking tasks (a group discussion and a job interview). The test was designed so that the topic would be motivating to the students and so that there would be enough information provided in order to give the tasks credibility. There was access to dictionaries and reference material, and opportunity for students to review and revise their work. Swain’s main concern was to “bias for best” in the construction of the test – to make every effort to support the respondent in doing their best on the test.


(Andrew D.Cohen. Second Language Assessment. IN: Marianne Celce-Murcia(ed). Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Boston, Massachusstes: Heinle&Heinle. 2nd edition. 2001. Adaptado)

A letra g não é pronunciada em muitas palavras na língua inglesa. Das palavras a seguir, retiradas do texto, assinale aquela em que a letra g é pronunciada.
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Q1365690 Inglês

    The Food and Drug Administration warned Wednesday that repeated or lengthy use of general anesthesia or sedation drugs _______ children younger than 3 or pregnant women in their third trimester may affect youngsters' developing brains. The agency, which said its warning is based _________ a comprehensive analysis of the latest research, issued a “drug-safety communication” to inform health-care providers, parents and pregnant women about the risks of using the drugs repeatedly or for more than three hours at a time. It also ordered manufacturers to add warnings to their products labels. “We recognize that in many cases these exposures may be medically necessary,” Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. The new data on potential harms, she said, “must be carefully weighed against the risk of not performing a specific medical procedure.

    The agency said that laboratory studies show that using the drugs in pregnant or young animals for more than three hours at a time causes widespread loss of nerve cells, which correlated with long-term effects on learning and behavior.

    Some studies have also been conducted in children, with some supporting the findings from the animal research, particularly after repeated or prolonged exposure to the drugs early ____ life. But, all the studies in children had limitations, and the FDA said that “it is unclear whether any negative effects seen in children’s learning or behavior were due to the drugs or to other factors, such as the underlying medical condition that led to the need for the surgery or procedure.” A single, short exposure to the drugs is unlikely to have a negative effect, the agency added. More than 1 million children under age 4 require anesthesia for surgery in the United States each year, for conditions such as congenital heart defects or pyloric stenosis, which is a narrowing of the opening from the stomach into the small intestine.

    The FDA said it has been investigating the effects of anesthesia on brain development since the first animal study on the topic was published in 1999. In 2010, it formed a partnership ________ the International Anesthesia Research Society on a project called SmartTots – Strategies for Mitigating Anesthesia-Related Neurotoxicity in Tots – to fund research on the effect of the drugs on pregnant women and children.

The Washington Post - adapted.

Choose the alternative that completes the blank spaces in the text CORRECTLY:
Alternativas
Ano: 2019 Banca: FEPESE Órgão: ABEPRO Prova: FEPESE - 2019 - ABEPRO - Pós-Graduação |
Q1336722 Inglês
Text

Operations management is important. It is concerned with creating the products and services upon which we all depend. And creating products and services is the very reason for any organization’s existence, whether that organization be large or small, manufacturing or service, for profit or not profit. Thankfully, most companies have now come to understand the importance of operations. This is because they have realized that effective operations management gives the potential to improve revenues and, at the same time, enables goods and services to be produced more efficiently. It is this combination of higher revenues and lower costs which is understandably important to any organization.

Operations management is also exciting. It is at the center of so many of the changes affecting the business world – changes in customer preference, changes in supply networks brought about by internet-based technologies, changes in what we want to do at work, how we want to work, and so on. There has rarely been a time when operations management was more topical or more at the heart of business and cultural shifts.

Operations management is also challenging. Promoting the creativity which will allow organizations to respond to so many changes is becoming the prime task of operations managers. It is they who must find the solutions to technological and environmental challenges, the pressures to be socially responsible, the increasing globalization of markets and the difficult-to-define areas of knowledge management.
Choose the alternative with the correct negative form of “operations management gives the potential to improve…”
Alternativas
Q1291662 Inglês

While at home in Ireland my poor mother wept bitter tears at the thought of her daughter with the university education serving hamburgers to pop stars.

I had been working there about six months the night I met James. It was a Friday night, which was traditionally the night the OJs frequented our restaurant. “OJ” standing, of course, for Office Jerks.

At five o’clock every Friday, like graves disgorging their dead, offices all over the center of London liberated their staffs for the weekend so that hordes of pale, cheapsuited clerks descended on us.

It was de rigueur for us waitresses to stand around sneering disdainfully at the besuited clientele, shaking our heads in disbelieving pity at the attire, hairstyles, etc., of the poor customers.

On the night in question, James and three of his colleagues sat in my section and I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion. I paid them almost no attention whatsoever, barely listened to them as I took their order and certainly made no eye contact with them. If I had I might have noticed that one of them (yes, James, of course) was very handsome, in a black-haired, green-eyed, five-foottenish kind of way. I should have looked beyond the suit and seen the soul of the man.

Oh, shallowness, thy name is Clare.

But I wanted to be out back with the other waitresses, drinking beer and smoking and talking about sex. Customers were an unwelcome interference.

“Can I have my stake very rare?” asked one of the men.

“Um,” I said vaguely. I was even more uninterested than usual because I had noticed a book on the table. It was a really good book, one that I had read myself.

I loved books. And I loved reading. And I loved men who read. I loved a man who knew his existentialism from his magi-realism.And I had spent the last six months working with people who could just about manage to read Stage magazine (laboriously mouthing the words silently as they did so). I suddenly realized, with a pang, how much I missed the odd bit of intelligent conversation.

Suddenly the people at this table stopped being mere irritants and took on some sort of identity for me.

“Who owns this book?” I asked abruptly, interrupting the order placing.

The table of four men were startled. I had spoken to them! I had treated them almost as if they were human!

“I do,” said James, and as my blue eyes met his green eyes across his mango daiquiri, that was it, the silvery magic dust was sprinkled on us. In that instant something wonderful happened. From the moment we really looked at each other, we both knew we had met someone special.

I maintained that we fell in love immediately.

He maintained nothing of the sort, and said that I was a romantic fool. He claimed it took at least thirty seconds longer for him to fall in love with me.

First of all he had to establish that I had read the book in question also. Because he thought that I must be some kind of not-so-bright model or singer if I was working there. You know, the same way that I had written him off as some kind of subhuman clerk. Served me right.

KEYES, Marian. Watermelon. New York: Perennial, HarperCollins, 2002 (Edited).

In the sentence “And I loved a man who read”, mark the alternative which registers the modifier:
Alternativas
Q1291655 Inglês

While at home in Ireland my poor mother wept bitter tears at the thought of her daughter with the university education serving hamburgers to pop stars.

I had been working there about six months the night I met James. It was a Friday night, which was traditionally the night the OJs frequented our restaurant. “OJ” standing, of course, for Office Jerks.

At five o’clock every Friday, like graves disgorging their dead, offices all over the center of London liberated their staffs for the weekend so that hordes of pale, cheapsuited clerks descended on us.

It was de rigueur for us waitresses to stand around sneering disdainfully at the besuited clientele, shaking our heads in disbelieving pity at the attire, hairstyles, etc., of the poor customers.

On the night in question, James and three of his colleagues sat in my section and I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion. I paid them almost no attention whatsoever, barely listened to them as I took their order and certainly made no eye contact with them. If I had I might have noticed that one of them (yes, James, of course) was very handsome, in a black-haired, green-eyed, five-foottenish kind of way. I should have looked beyond the suit and seen the soul of the man.

Oh, shallowness, thy name is Clare.

But I wanted to be out back with the other waitresses, drinking beer and smoking and talking about sex. Customers were an unwelcome interference.

“Can I have my stake very rare?” asked one of the men.

“Um,” I said vaguely. I was even more uninterested than usual because I had noticed a book on the table. It was a really good book, one that I had read myself.

I loved books. And I loved reading. And I loved men who read. I loved a man who knew his existentialism from his magi-realism.And I had spent the last six months working with people who could just about manage to read Stage magazine (laboriously mouthing the words silently as they did so). I suddenly realized, with a pang, how much I missed the odd bit of intelligent conversation.

Suddenly the people at this table stopped being mere irritants and took on some sort of identity for me.

“Who owns this book?” I asked abruptly, interrupting the order placing.

The table of four men were startled. I had spoken to them! I had treated them almost as if they were human!

“I do,” said James, and as my blue eyes met his green eyes across his mango daiquiri, that was it, the silvery magic dust was sprinkled on us. In that instant something wonderful happened. From the moment we really looked at each other, we both knew we had met someone special.

I maintained that we fell in love immediately.

He maintained nothing of the sort, and said that I was a romantic fool. He claimed it took at least thirty seconds longer for him to fall in love with me.

First of all he had to establish that I had read the book in question also. Because he thought that I must be some kind of not-so-bright model or singer if I was working there. You know, the same way that I had written him off as some kind of subhuman clerk. Served me right.

KEYES, Marian. Watermelon. New York: Perennial, HarperCollins, 2002 (Edited).

In the sentence “I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion”, taken from the text, it is incorrect to say that the word ‘irresponsible’
Alternativas
Q1291654 Inglês

While at home in Ireland my poor mother wept bitter tears at the thought of her daughter with the university education serving hamburgers to pop stars.

I had been working there about six months the night I met James. It was a Friday night, which was traditionally the night the OJs frequented our restaurant. “OJ” standing, of course, for Office Jerks.

At five o’clock every Friday, like graves disgorging their dead, offices all over the center of London liberated their staffs for the weekend so that hordes of pale, cheapsuited clerks descended on us.

It was de rigueur for us waitresses to stand around sneering disdainfully at the besuited clientele, shaking our heads in disbelieving pity at the attire, hairstyles, etc., of the poor customers.

On the night in question, James and three of his colleagues sat in my section and I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion. I paid them almost no attention whatsoever, barely listened to them as I took their order and certainly made no eye contact with them. If I had I might have noticed that one of them (yes, James, of course) was very handsome, in a black-haired, green-eyed, five-foottenish kind of way. I should have looked beyond the suit and seen the soul of the man.

Oh, shallowness, thy name is Clare.

But I wanted to be out back with the other waitresses, drinking beer and smoking and talking about sex. Customers were an unwelcome interference.

“Can I have my stake very rare?” asked one of the men.

“Um,” I said vaguely. I was even more uninterested than usual because I had noticed a book on the table. It was a really good book, one that I had read myself.

I loved books. And I loved reading. And I loved men who read. I loved a man who knew his existentialism from his magi-realism.And I had spent the last six months working with people who could just about manage to read Stage magazine (laboriously mouthing the words silently as they did so). I suddenly realized, with a pang, how much I missed the odd bit of intelligent conversation.

Suddenly the people at this table stopped being mere irritants and took on some sort of identity for me.

“Who owns this book?” I asked abruptly, interrupting the order placing.

The table of four men were startled. I had spoken to them! I had treated them almost as if they were human!

“I do,” said James, and as my blue eyes met his green eyes across his mango daiquiri, that was it, the silvery magic dust was sprinkled on us. In that instant something wonderful happened. From the moment we really looked at each other, we both knew we had met someone special.

I maintained that we fell in love immediately.

He maintained nothing of the sort, and said that I was a romantic fool. He claimed it took at least thirty seconds longer for him to fall in love with me.

First of all he had to establish that I had read the book in question also. Because he thought that I must be some kind of not-so-bright model or singer if I was working there. You know, the same way that I had written him off as some kind of subhuman clerk. Served me right.

KEYES, Marian. Watermelon. New York: Perennial, HarperCollins, 2002 (Edited).

In the sentence “It was de rigueur for us waitresses to stand around sneering disdainfully at the besuited clientele”, the word besuited
Alternativas
Q1290180 Inglês
Observe the following news.

Police were called to investigate reports that children was threatened with a knife by a masked men who drove at them.

There are two mistakes in the context above related to:
Alternativas
Q1287618 Inglês
Choose the option that is grammatically correct:

1. The stolen wallet has been returned by someone. 2. You will not be sent any money until next month. 3. The children are being looked after by her. 4. Have you been informed about the change of plan
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Q1259684 Inglês

Internet: <https://www.english‐online.at> (adapted).

According to the text, judge the following items.


The word “thus”, in “many mothers do not breastfeed their children, thus weakening the immune system” (line 22), can, without changing its meaning, be replaced for thereby.

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Q1259677 Inglês

Internet: <https://www.english‐online.at> (adapted).

According to the text, judge the following items.


In “Malnutrition happens when people lack nutrients, vitamins and minerals” (line 6), “lack” can be replaced, without changing its meaning, by have insufficient.

Alternativas
Q1254134 Inglês
Choose the option that is grammatically correct:
1. He hard works everyday. 2. He spoke hardly this morning at the debate 3. Always he drives his car carefully. 4. Don't drive so fast!
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Q1254132 Inglês
Choose the option that is grammatically correct:
1. Carefully he drives always his car. 2. He drives his car carefully always. 3. He always drives his car carefully. 4. He drives his car always carefully.
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Q1254131 Inglês
Choose the option that is grammatically correct:
1. We live in the same neighbourhood. 2. Dancing is my favourite activity. 3. Are you all ready to leave? 4. Are there any pharmacies around here?
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Q1254130 Inglês
Choose the option that is grammatically correct:
1. Peter and I doesn't live here. 2. Jane likes ice cream. 3. Does he likes broccoli? 4. Women make as much money as men in this company.
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Q1253401 Inglês

TEXT I

The teaching of English as a foreign language in the context of Brazilian regular schools: a retrospective and prospective view of policies and practices.

(Ricardo Luiz Teixeira de Almeida).




(…) A brief overview of the recent history of ELT in Brazilian regular schools

During the 1970s, the so-called audiolingual method, based on behaviorist and structuralist assumptions, was still considered the only scientific way of teaching a foreign language. Its emphasis on the oral skills and on the exhaustive repetition of structural exercises seemed to work well in the contexts of private language institutes. Those contexts were characterized by the gathering of small numbers of highly motivated students per class, a weekly time-table superior in the number of hours to the one adopted in regular schools, and plenty of audiovisual resources. Questionable in itself, both because of its results (which in time were revealed to be less efficient than believed, especially in terms of fluency) and its theoretical assumptions, the method ended up being adopted by regular schools due to its positive reputation at the time. The failure of the methodology in this context would soon become evident, generating extreme frustration both amongst teachers and students.

From the 1980s on, with the spread of ideas connected to the so-called communicative approach and the growth of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), the community of researchers and teachers interested in the context of regular schools started reviewing the assumptions and logic of English Language Teaching (ELT). Recognizing that each and every school discipline needs to justify its presence in the curriculum socially and educationally, this movement identified the skill of reading as the most relevant one for the students attending the majority of Brazilian regular schools. This understanding was achieved by considering not only the possibility of real use outside school, but also the role this approach could play in the achievement of other educational goals, such as the improvement of student's reading abilities in Portuguese as a mother tongue (MOITA LOPES, 1996)*. This movement reached its climax with the publication of the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) for the teaching of foreign languages at basic education level by the end of the 1990s. The document recommended the focus on the teaching of reading within a view of language as discourse. However, it did not close the door on the teaching of any other skill, as long as the context made it possible and relevant.

It is important at this point to clarify a few things about the emergence of this educational policy. First of all, it was not formulated apart from the community of teachers and researchers and then imposed upon them. On the contrary, great names in Brazilian Applied Linguistics, such as Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes and Maria Antonieta Celani among others, were involved in the formulation of the Parameters. Even more important than that, a lot of teachers, individually or collectively, with or without supervision, were already trying the focus on reading as an alternative to the failure of previous practices before the Parameters were elaborated. Two well-known examples are those from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In São Paulo, The Catholic University (PUCSP) became a national center for foreign language teacher education, through the development of a Brazilian ESP project focusing on reading (CELANI, 2005)**. In Rio de Janeiro, a discussion conducted by the city educational authorities and the teachers in public schools (concerning the contents and methodology of each school discipline), during the administrations of Saturnino Braga and Marcelo Alencar, led to the proposition that the focus on reading for foreign language teaching reflected the will of most teachers who participated in the discussion.

Another important characteristic of the Parameters that should not be overlooked is their emphasis on teacher's autonomy. This emphasis can be seen clearly in the fact that no content or method is imposed upon the teachers. What one can find are suggestions and relevant information for teachers to make their own decisions, taking into consideration the context within which they work. In other words, the Parameters do not force any teacher to limit their focus on the teaching of reading, if they believe they can go further than that.

In spite of all these positive points, since their publication, it is possible to identify a strong resistance to the focus on reading on the part of many teachers. The reasons for this resistance will be discussed in the following sections of this paper. […] (p.333-334)



*MOITA LOPES, Luiz Paulo da. Oficina de Lingüística Aplicada: a natureza social e educacional dos processos de ensino / aprendizagem de línguas. Campinas:

Mercado de Letras, 1996.

**CELANI, M. A. Introduction. In: CELANI, M. A. et al. ESPin Brazil: 25 years of evolution and reflection. Campinas-SP: Mercado de Letras, São Paulo: Educ, 2005.

p. 13-26.

(Adapted from: Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada. vol.12. nº.2. Belo Horizonte. Apr./June 2012, p. 331-348. Available at:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-63982012000200006 Accessed on April 15 , 2019) 


“In spite of all these positive points, since their publication, it is possible to identify a strong resistance to the focus on reading on the part of many teachers.” The expression in spite of can be substituted by
Alternativas
Q1253400 Inglês

TEXT I

The teaching of English as a foreign language in the context of Brazilian regular schools: a retrospective and prospective view of policies and practices.

(Ricardo Luiz Teixeira de Almeida).




(…) A brief overview of the recent history of ELT in Brazilian regular schools

During the 1970s, the so-called audiolingual method, based on behaviorist and structuralist assumptions, was still considered the only scientific way of teaching a foreign language. Its emphasis on the oral skills and on the exhaustive repetition of structural exercises seemed to work well in the contexts of private language institutes. Those contexts were characterized by the gathering of small numbers of highly motivated students per class, a weekly time-table superior in the number of hours to the one adopted in regular schools, and plenty of audiovisual resources. Questionable in itself, both because of its results (which in time were revealed to be less efficient than believed, especially in terms of fluency) and its theoretical assumptions, the method ended up being adopted by regular schools due to its positive reputation at the time. The failure of the methodology in this context would soon become evident, generating extreme frustration both amongst teachers and students.

From the 1980s on, with the spread of ideas connected to the so-called communicative approach and the growth of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), the community of researchers and teachers interested in the context of regular schools started reviewing the assumptions and logic of English Language Teaching (ELT). Recognizing that each and every school discipline needs to justify its presence in the curriculum socially and educationally, this movement identified the skill of reading as the most relevant one for the students attending the majority of Brazilian regular schools. This understanding was achieved by considering not only the possibility of real use outside school, but also the role this approach could play in the achievement of other educational goals, such as the improvement of student's reading abilities in Portuguese as a mother tongue (MOITA LOPES, 1996)*. This movement reached its climax with the publication of the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) for the teaching of foreign languages at basic education level by the end of the 1990s. The document recommended the focus on the teaching of reading within a view of language as discourse. However, it did not close the door on the teaching of any other skill, as long as the context made it possible and relevant.

It is important at this point to clarify a few things about the emergence of this educational policy. First of all, it was not formulated apart from the community of teachers and researchers and then imposed upon them. On the contrary, great names in Brazilian Applied Linguistics, such as Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes and Maria Antonieta Celani among others, were involved in the formulation of the Parameters. Even more important than that, a lot of teachers, individually or collectively, with or without supervision, were already trying the focus on reading as an alternative to the failure of previous practices before the Parameters were elaborated. Two well-known examples are those from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In São Paulo, The Catholic University (PUCSP) became a national center for foreign language teacher education, through the development of a Brazilian ESP project focusing on reading (CELANI, 2005)**. In Rio de Janeiro, a discussion conducted by the city educational authorities and the teachers in public schools (concerning the contents and methodology of each school discipline), during the administrations of Saturnino Braga and Marcelo Alencar, led to the proposition that the focus on reading for foreign language teaching reflected the will of most teachers who participated in the discussion.

Another important characteristic of the Parameters that should not be overlooked is their emphasis on teacher's autonomy. This emphasis can be seen clearly in the fact that no content or method is imposed upon the teachers. What one can find are suggestions and relevant information for teachers to make their own decisions, taking into consideration the context within which they work. In other words, the Parameters do not force any teacher to limit their focus on the teaching of reading, if they believe they can go further than that.

In spite of all these positive points, since their publication, it is possible to identify a strong resistance to the focus on reading on the part of many teachers. The reasons for this resistance will be discussed in the following sections of this paper. […] (p.333-334)



*MOITA LOPES, Luiz Paulo da. Oficina de Lingüística Aplicada: a natureza social e educacional dos processos de ensino / aprendizagem de línguas. Campinas:

Mercado de Letras, 1996.

**CELANI, M. A. Introduction. In: CELANI, M. A. et al. ESPin Brazil: 25 years of evolution and reflection. Campinas-SP: Mercado de Letras, São Paulo: Educ, 2005.

p. 13-26.

(Adapted from: Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada. vol.12. nº.2. Belo Horizonte. Apr./June 2012, p. 331-348. Available at:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-63982012000200006 Accessed on April 15 , 2019) 


“[...] both because of its results (which in time were revealed to be less efficient than believed, especially in terms of fluency) and its theoretical assumptions [...]”. The word which
Alternativas
Q1253399 Inglês

TEXT I

The teaching of English as a foreign language in the context of Brazilian regular schools: a retrospective and prospective view of policies and practices.

(Ricardo Luiz Teixeira de Almeida).




(…) A brief overview of the recent history of ELT in Brazilian regular schools

During the 1970s, the so-called audiolingual method, based on behaviorist and structuralist assumptions, was still considered the only scientific way of teaching a foreign language. Its emphasis on the oral skills and on the exhaustive repetition of structural exercises seemed to work well in the contexts of private language institutes. Those contexts were characterized by the gathering of small numbers of highly motivated students per class, a weekly time-table superior in the number of hours to the one adopted in regular schools, and plenty of audiovisual resources. Questionable in itself, both because of its results (which in time were revealed to be less efficient than believed, especially in terms of fluency) and its theoretical assumptions, the method ended up being adopted by regular schools due to its positive reputation at the time. The failure of the methodology in this context would soon become evident, generating extreme frustration both amongst teachers and students.

From the 1980s on, with the spread of ideas connected to the so-called communicative approach and the growth of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), the community of researchers and teachers interested in the context of regular schools started reviewing the assumptions and logic of English Language Teaching (ELT). Recognizing that each and every school discipline needs to justify its presence in the curriculum socially and educationally, this movement identified the skill of reading as the most relevant one for the students attending the majority of Brazilian regular schools. This understanding was achieved by considering not only the possibility of real use outside school, but also the role this approach could play in the achievement of other educational goals, such as the improvement of student's reading abilities in Portuguese as a mother tongue (MOITA LOPES, 1996)*. This movement reached its climax with the publication of the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) for the teaching of foreign languages at basic education level by the end of the 1990s. The document recommended the focus on the teaching of reading within a view of language as discourse. However, it did not close the door on the teaching of any other skill, as long as the context made it possible and relevant.

It is important at this point to clarify a few things about the emergence of this educational policy. First of all, it was not formulated apart from the community of teachers and researchers and then imposed upon them. On the contrary, great names in Brazilian Applied Linguistics, such as Luiz Paulo da Moita Lopes and Maria Antonieta Celani among others, were involved in the formulation of the Parameters. Even more important than that, a lot of teachers, individually or collectively, with or without supervision, were already trying the focus on reading as an alternative to the failure of previous practices before the Parameters were elaborated. Two well-known examples are those from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In São Paulo, The Catholic University (PUCSP) became a national center for foreign language teacher education, through the development of a Brazilian ESP project focusing on reading (CELANI, 2005)**. In Rio de Janeiro, a discussion conducted by the city educational authorities and the teachers in public schools (concerning the contents and methodology of each school discipline), during the administrations of Saturnino Braga and Marcelo Alencar, led to the proposition that the focus on reading for foreign language teaching reflected the will of most teachers who participated in the discussion.

Another important characteristic of the Parameters that should not be overlooked is their emphasis on teacher's autonomy. This emphasis can be seen clearly in the fact that no content or method is imposed upon the teachers. What one can find are suggestions and relevant information for teachers to make their own decisions, taking into consideration the context within which they work. In other words, the Parameters do not force any teacher to limit their focus on the teaching of reading, if they believe they can go further than that.

In spite of all these positive points, since their publication, it is possible to identify a strong resistance to the focus on reading on the part of many teachers. The reasons for this resistance will be discussed in the following sections of this paper. […] (p.333-334)



*MOITA LOPES, Luiz Paulo da. Oficina de Lingüística Aplicada: a natureza social e educacional dos processos de ensino / aprendizagem de línguas. Campinas:

Mercado de Letras, 1996.

**CELANI, M. A. Introduction. In: CELANI, M. A. et al. ESPin Brazil: 25 years of evolution and reflection. Campinas-SP: Mercado de Letras, São Paulo: Educ, 2005.

p. 13-26.

(Adapted from: Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada. vol.12. nº.2. Belo Horizonte. Apr./June 2012, p. 331-348. Available at:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-63982012000200006 Accessed on April 15 , 2019) 


Some relevant theoretical assumptions underlying Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) concerning ELTare:
Alternativas
Respostas
481: A
482: A
483: A
484: E
485: A
486: B
487: B
488: B
489: C
490: C
491: E
492: C
493: C
494: C
495: B
496: E
497: C
498: A
499: B
500: E