Questões de Concurso Público SEE-PE 2022 para Professor - Língua Inglesa

     Children are not being taught enough about plants at a time when they could be the answer to global warming, scientists have warned. This has led to people becoming “disconnected from the botanical world” of plants when understanding flora has become crucial to ecology. Even students starting masters’ degrees in biology lack a “basic” ability to identify plants, the new study claims.

       Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency of the United Kingdom reveals just one student graduated in plant science for every 185 who graduated in other life sciences between 2007 and 2019. The lack of botanical knowledge means people can’t identify invasive species and that ecological damage is being done as trees are planted in the wrong places and wildflower meadows are damaged.

     Researchers argue “nature literacy” must become a core skill for professionals from planners, engineers, architects, and educators as much as it does to farmers, foresters, and fishermen. Researchers at the University of Leeds, in England, say plant ecology — which studies the distribution and abundance of plants, the effect of the environment on them and how they interact with the environment — is also not taught well enough. “We ignore the opportunities presented to us by the botanical world at our own peril,” said lead study author and doctoral student Seb Stroud.

       This data is also corroborated by the Scottish government, which said there are not enough skilled people to implement “nature-based solutions” to rising temperatures. The University of Leeds team also argued that people’s inability to identify plants could make the spread of invasive plants worse. The researchers conclude: “The extinction of botanical education will only continue to worsen unless we break the cycle of disconnection from the botanical world.”

Internet:<https://www.newsweek.com/>  (adapted). 

       Language teachers, like other teachers, had to quickly rethink priorities and means of delivery in response to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as measures to manage the pandemic. It isn’t surprising then that some of the findings in our 2021 survey relate to the pandemic.

       Language teaching was suspended by local education boards at one in five primary schools in January 2021 due to Covid-19, and the impact has been felt more acutely in deprived areas. Teachers in state secondary schools report that two in five pupils in Key Stage 3 (lower secondary) did not engage with language learning during the first national lockdown, leading to time lost to language learning for a lot of pupils.

         Dr Ian Collen said that “the most disadvantaged pupils are most likely to have been negatively affected by the impact of Covid-19, experiencing greater disruption to their language learning and fewer international opportunities. Looking to the future, schools should consider giving more curriculum time to languages, as well as more opportunities to use languages in real life, such as visits abroad.”

       Many teachers reported that they cannot wait to get back to face-to-face teaching in the classroom. Despite the barriers they have faced over the past year, it is encouraging to see how they pivoted to remote learning during the national lockdowns.

Internet: <www.britishcouncil.org> (adapted).