Questões de Inglês - Palavras conectivas | Connective words para Concurso

   In Communicative ELT (English Language Teaching), text genre analysis is essential to uncover the social and the cultural basis of language. The notion of genre has largely drawn the attention of many scholars. It is incontestable that a genre-based approach to teaching greatly improves learners’ skills, not only in academic settings, but also in professional scenarios. A genre--oriented approach to language teaching incorporates an understanding that language is purposeful and that structures emerge from use. Additionally, there is an increasing recognition of the relevance of taking into consideration language varieties, text--types, and text genres while designing reading and writing language programs. As Martin (2002) points out, genres have been defined as staged, goal-oriented social processes. In these terms, as a level of context, genres represent “the system of staged goal-oriented social processes through which social subjects in a given culture live their lives”. In ELT, the concept of text genre sheds light on the influence of the context of culture on language. From that viewpoint, every culture structures particular ways of achieving communication goals in a given context through the production of written and oral texts. The fact that English is considered the predominant language for communicating research findings makes it paramount  that users of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) develop proficiency in research English across the skills of reading and writing. In order to be part of the scientific community, EFL researchers need to understand “the social processes by which knowledge about reality and the world are made”, that is, they need to be able to understand several genres that are part of academic social practice. Failure to understand written genres as social action may result in instruction that encourages the creation of texts to fit formal requirements, as opposed to the practice of achieving social goals. Technology also plays a role in assisting second/foreign language (L2) writing instruction. The Internet, social networks and digital media may provide EFL learners with greater opportunities for meaningful and authentic language use, which are usually interactive, social and multimodal. Learners can interact with other speakers of the language from different parts of the world, write blogs or create webpages and profiles in social networks and produce both written and oral language with a targeted community of speakers in mind.

(Available: http://www.scielo.br. Adapted.)

   There is growing evidence that L2 learners pick up new words while viewing video but little is known about the role of individual differences. This study explores incidental learning after the viewing of a French documentary containing 15 pseudowords and investigates whether learning is moderated by participants’ prior vocabulary knowledge and working memory. Sixty-three higher-intermediate learners of French participated in this study. Prior vocabulary knowledge was measured by means of a French meaning recognition test. Participants also took a forward digit-span (phonological shortterm memory), a backward digit-span, and an operation-span task (complex working memory). After viewing the video, four surprise vocabulary tests on form and meaning were administered. Results revealed that learning gains occurred at the level of form and meaning recognition. Vocabulary knowledge was positively related to picking up new words from video. Complex working memory correlated with the recognition tests showed more incidental learning gains for learners with higher complex working memory.

TEACHING GRAMMAR IN THE POST COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH ERA

   Grammar. To teach or not to teach? This has been the question that language teachers have asked themselves for ages. It has been a matter of debate for teachers, linguists and second language acquisition experts.

   Historically, language teaching approaches and methods have moved from one extreme of the spectrum to another as regards the explicit teaching of grammar. Long before our times, grammar was at the centre of language teaching, as it was believed that the study of the grammar of X‟s language was the best way to its mastery. So, from medieval times till around the 1970s, the fixation of language teaching on the study and description of structures manifested in approaches such as the Grammar Translation and the Audio Lingual method, with short interludes of the other approaches such as the Direct Method, Total Physical Response and the Silent way which although claiming to differ still based their syllabus on grammar points.

   From the Grammar-dominated end of the spectrum, we moved to the Absolutely-noGrammar end. Grammar based approaches proved inadequate in that students were unable to communicate outside the classroom. Based mainly on Hymes‟ “communicative competence” and Krashen‟s models of language acquisition, the Communicative Approach emerged as the meaning-focused alternative to the formfocused approaches of the past. Strong versions of the approach emphasized the teaching of functions and absolutely discouraged the teaching of grammar structures arguing that communication – and not language description- was the aim of language teaching.

   However, the studies of the last 30 years have proved that the lack of grammar instruction has not encouraged language acquisition. On the contrary, more recent studies show that grammar instruction and explicit knowledge of the target language do have positive effects on language acquisition. So, how should we approach the teaching of Grammar in the Post- CommunicativeApproach Era?

Source: https://www.eflmagazine.com/teachinggrammar-post-communicative-approach-era/ Accessed on 17/06/2018