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Como os videogames estão moldando uma geração de meninos, para o bem e para o mal

Na última década e meia, meninos e homens jovens de 15 a 24 anos mais do que dobraram o tempo médio que passam jogando, chegando a cerca de dez horas por semana, de acordo com uma ampla pesquisa.

Alguns professores dizem que os jogos atrapalham a concentração nas salas de aula. Já os economistas os vinculam ao declínio nas horas de trabalho dos homens jovens.

Os games, no entanto, também desempenham um papel importante na vida dos jovens. Eles se tornaram uma forma central de socialização e proporcionam, especialmente aos meninos, um senso de pertencimento.

O aumento no tempo que meninos e homens jovens passaram jogando foi maior que de qualquer atividade medida pela Pesquisa Americana de Uso do Tempo, levantamento federal que todos os anos pergunta a uma amostra nacionalmente representativa de milhares de pessoas o que elas fizeram a cada minuto de um dia — a categoria inclui outros tipos de jogos, como cartas, mas as evidências sugerem que são os videogames são os principais.

O aumento coincidiu com mudanças tecnológicas que tornaram os jogos muito mais envolventes. Os games passaram de uma atividade feita em casa em console ou computador para algo feito também no telefone, em qualquer lugar e a qualquer hora.

Embora os pais se preocupem desde sempre com videogames (querem saber, por exemplo, se jogar certos jogos estimula a violência, uma conexão que não foi comprovada), uma preocupação nova e urgente diz respeito ao tempo gasto jogando. À medida que esse tempo aumenta, o receio é que os games tenham substituído outras atividades na vida de meninos e homens jovens — incluindo atividade física, socialização presencial, lição de casa, trabalho e sono.

"Os meninos preferem jogar Minecraft ou Fortnite a brincar lá fora," diz Susan Donohoe, professora do ensino fundamental em Portland, Maine (EUA). "Eles estão vivendo uma vida virtual em detrimento de brincadeiras e tarefas reais ao ar livre, que desenvolvem habilidades sociais e responsabilidade."

Fonte: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/equilibrio/2025/10/como-os-videogamesestao-moldando-uma-geracao-de-meninos-para-o-bem-e-para-o-mal.shtml. Acesso em 09/10/2025

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Building Rapport

Establishing strong foundations for teaching and learning

By Stephanie Hirchman

September 2, 2025

How do teachers build rapport with students? I can’t think of a more important question; after all, learning is all about relationships. In fact, I hope the word “rapport” runs through all the blogs I’ve written, like the letters in a stick of rock. However, as the summer holidays draw to a close and with new beginnings in sight, I’m going to focus exclusively on building rapport.

Fostering rapport

Let’s get out the metaphors! If learning is a house, then rapport is the foundation, but because it needs constant maintenance, rapport is also a garden, tended with care on a daily basis. When there is a good rapport, students feel:

• seen – each student is greeted individually, and the teacher makes an eff ort to interact with each one during the lesson.

• confident in the teacher, the course, and themselves - the teacher knows what each student needs and how to deliver it so students make progress. Classroom routines are predictable, fair, and make sense.

• safe – they know the teacher will not embarrass them or expose their sensitivities or weaknesses. Mistakes are dealt with sensitively and treated as learning opportunities.

• accepted – the teacher meets each individual student exactly where they are, without judgment, academically and personally. If someone is called out on their behaviour, this is done in private, and an explanation is given about why this behaviour is unproductive or unacceptable.

Student profiles – the basis for rapport

Whatever your teaching context, you’ve got to get to know each student as an individual. This can be considered as an initial information gathering phase, with several possible pathways.

A good starting point is to test students either before they start the course or in the first few days, making it clear that this is a process that produces information that will help you to plan and them to learn. Try to generate as full a picture as possible, so you have an idea about their abilities in all four skills.

Secondly, you need to conduct a needs analysis, either privately or publicly. You can read more about this process, but bear in mind that a public needs analysis can also serve to make everyone in the class aware of each other’s interests and thus of the rationale for including certain topics, language points, or skills work in the course syllabus.

Finally, use whatever resources you have to identify students with specific learning differences or traumas/triggers. This information may be disclosed at registration, self-disclosed (perhaps at interview) or in a private needs analysis, or tentatively identified through your own observations. Obviously, this information is private, between you and the student (and their parents, if they are under 18).

Classroom activities to build rapport at the start of a course

These rapport-building activities aim to generate information in such a way that students feel well-supported.

In a first lesson, the top priority is to make sure you know everybody’s preferred names and how to pronounce them. I’ve always found it helpful to have small desktop cards with this information on display – at least for a couple of sessions. Why not ask the students to make these themselves, or at least to personalize them? The back of the card could have some classroom language phrases to help prompt students, and there’s also the option of including this useful functional language as an introductory lesson – note that this generates a lot of information about student performance in areas like listening (including following instructions), speaking (including pronunciation) and studentship (including note-taking), facility with vocabulary, grammar and functional language. It can also serve as an introduction to pair and group work and to questioning and correction techniques, and, of course, builds confidence for students to take an active part in lessons.

Rapport thrives on praise

Teachers must remember that students are putting themselves on the line every time they come to class. Every effort carries a risk of failure, and not everyone is robust enough to bounce back easily when this occurs. Praise is the magic ingredient here – individualized, sincere and specific. Even when things have gone a bit wrong, find something that went well. It may be that you’re praising eff ort (“Good try, Haruka, I like that idea, but it isn’t what I’m looking for right now.”) or scaffolding achievement (“That’s a pretty good sentence, Juan, the verb tense is correct. But think again about the subject – should it be singular or plural?”). It may be delivered in written form (“This essay makes some relevant points. You used a lot of new vocabulary and improved your accuracy with punctuation. Next time, put the information into paragraphs.”). And when you make a mistake, as you inevitably will, model a positive reaction – check the information, put it right and thank the person who pointed it out.

Finally, make plenty of space for laughter and smiles, as they not only reduce stress, but have a positive effect on engagement, learning and recall. Rapport really does serve learning.

Adapted from: https://www.linguahouse.com/blog/post/building-rapport Acesso em 18/10/2025