I have suggested that many, if not most teachers, could usefully adjust the values they emphasise. Here, three of them:

      1. From Short-Term to Long-Term Aims

          Learning a foreign language can be a valuable, long-term personal asset for the student. lt can be inhibited by over-emphasising short-term objectives — tests, pressure to speak before you are ready etc.

      2. From Knowledge to Skill

     Knowledge involves answers and explanations and is necessary, but not sufficient. What matters is not what you know, but what you can do. ‘Knowing’ a foreign language may be interesting; the ability to use it is life-enhancing.

     3. From Accuracy to Communication

       Successful communication always involves at least limited accuracy. Accuracy need not involve communication at all. Communication is a wider, more useful concept; successful language is more valuable than language which is only accurate.

(Michael Lewis. The lexical approach. 2002. Adaptado)

                             What Is the Interactive Reading Model?

                                                                                                          by Alicia Anthony

The Interactive Reading Model, as developed by David E. Rumelhart in 1977, describes a model of the reading process and the way linguistic elements are processed and interpreted by the brain. The model combines both surface structure systems – the sensory, bottom-up portion of reading – with deep structure systems – the thinking, or top-down, aspects of reading – to build meaning and memory for all learners.

How it Works

Readers use both knowledge of word structure and background knowledge to interpret the texts they read. For example, a student who encounters an unknown word might use surface structure systems like graphophonic, or letter-sound, knowledge to decode the word. A different student might find it easier to use deep structure systems like semantic knowledge, such as meaning and vocabulary, to decode the same unknown word. Each student makes connections in different ways. This process validates and supports both methods of understanding, realizing that individuals process information in very different ways.

Benefits of Interactive Model

The most evident benefit of this model is the opportunity for the differentiation that it provides students. Students are not required to fit into a set mold or have identical skill sets to decode and interpret text. They are encouraged to use their own strengths to gain understanding and new information. When used in the classroom setting, students should be encouraged to share their knowledge with classmates or peers. This model allows the reader to bring his own background knowledge to reading and to interact with others to build meaning and memory from the text.

                  (http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/interactive-reading-model-13048.html)

Para responder à questão, leia o texto a seguir, que exemplifica estratégias de leitura, e assinale a alternativa que melhor completa cada uma das lacunas numeradas, considerando o sentido do texto e a norma-padrão da língua inglesa.

John is a conscientious student. When he is told he will 41 tested on the contents of Chapter 2 in the textbook, he looks 42 every unknown word in the dictionary in an effort to fix the information in his memory. Despite his extended preparations, he doesn’t do very well 43 the test, though he says he spent hours preparing. Lia, on the other 44 , excels on the exam, but she has approached the text in a very different way. Before she reads the chapter, she skims through it, looking at subheadings and graphics so as to give herself a general idea of what the text will be about. 45 she reads, she connects the material in the chapter to what she already knows. She frequently asks herself 46 about the text, looking back or ahead to link one part of the text to another. When she is puzzled by the content, she searches for clues in the 47 , tries to paraphrase, or considers what she knows about text 48 . In short, Lia is reading like an expert, 49 John is relying on just one technique. The difference between the two is in 50 use of reading strategies.

[Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice,

by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya (Eds.)]

TEXT 1

School for sexism

By Deborah Cameron (Oxford University)

      This week, it was announced that schools in England are being issued with new guidelines on combatting sexism and gender stereotyping. This initiative follows research conducted for the Institute of Physics (IoP), which found that most schools took sexism less seriously than other kinds of prejudice and discrimination. […]

      The IoP’s main concern—one it shares with the government, which co-funded the research—is that girls are being deterred from studying science subjects by the sexist attitudes they encounter in school. Language is only one of the issues the report urges schools to tackle. […] But language was the main theme picked up in media reporting on the new guidelines, with many news outlets dramatically proclaiming that children ‘as young as five’ were going to be ‘banned’ from using certain words.

      […] I think we can guess why these newspapers were so keen on the language angle. They’ve known since the heyday of ‘political correctness gone mad’ that nothing stirs up the wrath of Middle England like a story about someone trying to ban words. Never mind that no sane parent permits total free expression for the under-fives […].

      This reporting only underlined the point that sexism isn’t taken as seriously as other forms of prejudice. […] Rather than being outraged by the idea of telling primary school children to watch their words, shouldn’t we be asking why ‘children as young as five’ are using sexist language in the first place?

      We may not want to think that this is happening among children still at primary school, but unfortunately the evidence says it is. […] Girl Guiding UK publishes an annual survey of girls’ attitudes: the 2015 survey, conducted with a sample of nearly 1600 girls and young women aged between 7 and 21, found that in the week before they were questioned, over 80% of respondents had experienced or witnessed some form of sexism, much of which was perpetrated by boys of their own age, and some of which undoubtedly occurred in school. 39% of respondents had been subjected to demeaning comments on their appearance, and 58% had heard comments or jokes belittling women and girls. […]

      By the time they go to secondary school, girls are conscious of this everyday sexism as a factor which restricts their freedom, affecting where they feel they can go, what they feel able to wear and how much they are willing to talk in front of boys. In the Girl Guiding UK survey, a quarter of respondents aged 11-16 reported that they avoided speaking in lessons because of their fear of attracting sexist comments.

      So, the Institute of Physics isn’t just being perverse when it identifies sexist ‘banter’ as a problem that affects girls’ education. It’s to the organization’s credit that it’s saying this shouldn’t be tolerated—and it’s also to its credit that it’s offering practical advice. Its recommendations are sensible, and its report contains many good ideas for teachers to consider. […]

      When the Sunday Times talks about ‘boys and girls cheerfully baiting each other in the playground’, the implication is that we’re dealing with something reciprocal, a ‘battle of the sexes’ in which the two sides are evenly matched. But they’re not evenly matched. What can a girl say to a boy that will make him feel like a commodity, a piece of meat? What popular catchphrase can she fling at him that has the same dismissive force as ‘make me a sandwich’? […]

      The IoP report does not seem to grasp that there is more to sexism than gender stereotyping. It falls back on the liberal argument that stereotyping harms both sexes equally: it’s as bad for the boy who wants to be a ballet dancer as it is for the girl who dreams of becoming an astrophysicist. But sexism doesn’t harm boys and girls equally, just as racism doesn’t harm white people and people of colour equally. It is the ideology of a system based on structural sexual inequality: male dominance and female subordination. You can’t address the problem of gender stereotyping effectively if you don’t acknowledge the larger power structure it is part of.

                               Disponível em: https://debuk.wordpress.com. Acesso em: 20 out. 2019. 

Leia o texto para responder a questão.

What is a Content Management System (CMS)?

July 19, 2018

      A content management system, often abbreviated as CMS, is software that helps users create, manage, and modify content on a website without the need for specialized technical knowledge. In simpler language, a content management system is a tool that helps you build a website without needing to write all the code from scratch (or even know how to code at all).

      Instead of building your own system for creating web pages, storing images, and other functions, the content management system handles all that basic infrastructure stuff for you so that you can focus on more forward-facing parts of your website. Beyond websites, you can also find content management systems for other functions – such as document management.

      The content management system is not just a backend management interface, though. It also makes all of the content that you create show up for your visitors exactly like you want it to.

(https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/content-management-system. Adaptado) 

The Disappearing Honeybee

• Honeybees do more than just make honey. They fly around and pollinate flowers, plants, and trees. Our fruits, nuts, and vegetables rely.....................these pollinators. One third.....................America’s food supply is pollinated.....................the honeybee.

Have you seen or heard a honeybee lately? Bees are mysteriously disappearing in many parts of the world. Most people don’t know about this problem. It is called “colony collapse disorder” (CCD). Some North American beekeepers lost 80% of their hives from 2006-2008. Bees in Italy and Australia are disappearing too.

The disappearance of the honeybee is a serious problem. Can you imagine never eating another blueberry? What about almonds and cherries? Without honeybees food prices will skyrocket. The poorest people always suffer the worst when there is a lack of food.

This problem affects other foods besides fresh produce. Imagine losing your favourite ice cream! Haagen Daaz is a famous ice cream company. Many of their flavours rely on the hard working honeybee. In 2008, Haagen Daaz began raising money for CCD. They also funded a garden at the University of California called The Haven. This garden helps raise awareness about the disappearing honeybee and teaches visitors how to plant for pollinators.

Donating money to research is the most important thing humans can do to save the honeybee. Some scientists blame CCD on climate change. Others think pesticides are killing the bees. Commercial bee migration may also cause CCD. Beekeepers transport their hives from place to place in order to pollinate plants year round.

https://www.englishclub.com/reading/environment/honeybee.htm

     In order for collection of sentences and utterances to succed effectively, the discourse needs to be organised or conducted in such a way that it will be successful. In written English this calls for both coherence and cohesion. For a text to be coherent, it needs to be in the right order. (…)

      No matter how coherent a text is, however, it will not work unless it has internal cohesion. The elements in that text must cohere or stick to each other successfully to help us navigate our way around the stretch of discourse. One way of achieving this is through lexical cohesion, and a way of ensuring lexical cohesion is through the repetition of words and phrases. (…) We can also use interrelated words and meanings to bind a text together (…)

      Another similar cohesive technique is that of substitution, using a phrase to refer to something we have already written. (…) Writers also use linkers such as and, also, moreover (…)

      These features are also present in spoken language, which also shows many examples of ellipsis (where words from a written-grammar version of an utterance are left out without compromising the meaning of what is said). (…)

                      (Harmer, J. The practice of English language teaching. 2007. Adapted)

Read the two cartoons and answer questions.

                                   A Free Press Needs You

By The Editorial Board

August 15, 2018

      In 1787, the year the Constitution was adopted in the USA, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to a friend, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

      That’s how he felt before he became president, anyway. Twenty years later, after enduring the oversight of the press from inside the White House, he was less sure of its value. “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” he wrote. “Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

      Jefferson’s discomfort was, and remains, understandable. Reporting the news in an open society is an enterprise laced with conflict. His discomfort also illustrates the need for the right of free press he helped to preserve. As the founders believed from their own experience, a well-informed public is best equipped to root out corruption and, over the long haul, promotes liberty and justice. “Public discussion is a political duty,” the Supreme Court said in 1964. That discussion must be “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” and “may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

(www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/15/opinion/editorials/free-press-local -journalism-news-donald-trump.html?action=click&module=Trending& pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Trending. Adaptado.)