Questões de Concurso Sobre sinônimos | synonyms em inglês

Read the text to answer 

The nature of approaches and methods in language teaching

        Although specific theories of the language may provide the basis for a particular teaching method, other methods derive primarily from a theory of language learning. A learning theory underlying an approach or method responds to two questions: (a) What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes involved in language learning? and (b) What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning processes to be activated? Learning theories associated with a method at the level of approach may emphasize either one or both of these dimensions. Process‐ oriented theories build on learning processes, such as habit formation, induction, inferencing, hypothesis testing, and generalization. Condition‐oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place.  

        Stephen D. Krashen’s Monitor Model of second language development (1981) is an example of a learning theory on which a method (the Natural Approach) has been built. At the level of process, Krashen distinguishes between acquisition and learning. Acquisition refers to the natural assimilation of language rules through using language for communication. Learning refers to the formal study of language rules and is a conscious process. Krashen’s theory also addresses the conditions necessary for the process of “acquisition” to take place. He describes these in terms of the type of “input” the learner receives. Input must be comprehensible, slightly above the learner’s present level of competence, interesting or relevant, not grammatically sequenced, in sufficient quantity, and experience in low‐anxiety contexts.

         Tracy Terrell’s Natural Approach (1977) is an example of a method derived primarily from a learning theory rather than from a particular view of language. Although the Natural approach is based on a learning theory that specifies both processes and conditions, the learning theory underlying such methods as Counseling‐Learning and the Silent Way addresses primarily the conditions held to be necessary for learning to take place without specifying what the learning processes themselves are presumed to be.

          Charles A. Curran in his writings on the Counseling‐Learning (1972), for example, focuses on the conditions necessary for successful learning. James Asher’s Total Physical Response (Asher 1977) is likewise a method that derives from a learning theory. Caleb Gattemo’s Silent Way (1972, 1976) is built around a theory of the conditions necessary for successful learning to be realized. Many of the techniques used in the method are designed to train learners to consciously use their intelligence to heighten learning potencial.

(Richards, Jack C. and Rodgers, Theodore S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2004. P. 22‐23. Adapted.)

Read the text to answer 

Communicative strategies

     As anyone who has tried to communicate in an L2 knows, learners frequently experience problems in saying what they want to say because of their inadequate knowledge. If learners do not know a word in the target language they may “borrow” a word from their L1 or use another target‐language word that is approximate in meaning, or try to paraphrase the meaning of the word, or even construct an entirely new word. These strategies, with the obvious exception of those that are L1 based, are also found in the language use of native speakers.

     There have been a number of attempts to construct psycholinguistic models to account for the use of communication strategies. Claus Faerch and Gabriele Kasper, for example, proposed a model of speech production which involves a planning and an execution phase. Communication strategies are seen as part of the planning phase.They are called upon when learners experience some kind of problem with an initial plan which prevents them from executing it. They can either abandon the initial plan and develop an enterily different one by means of reduction strategy (such as switching to a different topic) or try to maintain their original communicative goal by adopting some kind of achievement strategy (such as L1 borrowing).

      As Selinker has pointed out, communication strategies constitute one of the processes responsible for learner errors. We might expect, therefore, that the choice of communication strategies will reflect the learners’ stage of development. For example, learners might expect to switch from L1‐based strategies to L2‐based strategies as their knowledge of the L2 develops. It would also be interesting to discover whether the use of communication strategies has any effect on L2 acquisition. For example, do learners notice the gap more readily as a result of having to use a communication strategy? Or does successful use of a communication strategy obviate the need for learners to pick out the correct target‐language forms?  

(ELLIS, Rod. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University, 1997. P.60‐61. Adapted.)  

The main issues of the Brazilian port system

Since the beginning of the privatization of the Brazilian ports in 1995, the lessee companies of container terminals have invested approximately USD 1 billion acquisition of modern equipment, physical infrastructure, training of manpower and infrastructure.

Particularly after the injection of resources by the Federal Government through the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), the situation at the Brazilian ports started to improve.

Part of the dredging works in the main Brazilian ports are finished. With the sea deeper along the ports’ area, it is estimated that around 30% of the vessels worldwide that could not dock in Brazil before, now can.

But what used to be an issue at the sea, now it is an issue at the land. The logistical problems of access are evident, the bottleneck of access from the cargo container terminals generate unproductive periods, which are highly detrimental to the foreign trade and financial activity of Brazil. It is a fact that the rail network and roads in the vicinity of the ports are insufficient.

Another great matter about the Brazilian ports is the bureaucracy. Besides making everything more expensive, slowness in the Brazilian ports invented a truly “congestion at sea”. Every ship that arrives in the country waits at least 5.5 days to have the goods delivered by agencies such as IRS, the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Docks. The world average is three days. 

In Brazil, the organs responsible for clearance of goods run only during business hours. It is the only country among the world’s major economies, which does not have these services available 24 hours.

Text VI.

                            Critical Discourse Analysis

      We have seen that among many other resources that define the power base of a group or institution, access to or control over public discourse and communication is an important "symbolic" resource, as is the case for knowledge and information (van Dijk 1996). Most people have active control only over everyday talk with family members, friends, or colleagues, and passive control over, e.g. media usage. In many situations, ordinary people are more or less passive targets of text and talk, e.g. of their bosses or teachers, or of the authorities, such as police officers, judges, welfare bureaucrats, or tax inspectors, who may simply tell them what (not) to believe or what to do.

      On the other hand, members of more powerful social groups and institutions, and especially their leaders (the elites), have more or less exclusive access to, and control over, one or more types of public discourse. Thus, professors control scholarly discourse, teachers educational discourse, journalists media discourse, lawyers legal discourse, and politicians policy and other public political discourse. Those who have more control over more ‒ and more influential ‒  discourse (and more properties) are by that definition also more powerful.

      These notions of discourse access and control are very general, and it is one of the tasks of CDA to spell out these forms of power. Thus, if discourse is defined in terms of complex communicative events, access and control may be defined both for the context and for the structures of text and talk themselves.

(van DIJK, T. A. Critical Discourse Analysis. In: SCHIFFRIN, D.; TANNEN, D.; HAMILTON, H. (eds.).   The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Wiley‐Blackwell, 2003. pp. 352‐371.)

One day I was showing the beginning saxophone students at Ridgecrest Junior High school in Paragould, Ark the proper way to assemble and hold their instruments. It s extremely important to connect the neck strap to the loop on the back of the instrument so it doesn't fali out of your hands at a careless moment, I explained. “ Mr. Reely”, a dull student sitting in the back of the room quipped, “ Are you teaching us how to practice safe sax? “

                                                Contributed by Trey Reely Adapted from Readehs Digest, March 1997

‘Intellectualism’ is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents; but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.

                                                                                                                                         William James

                Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/search/belief?page=1#vM Pj4T57BbXTwqJA.99

Read the Mother Teresa’s “Anyway Poem” and answer.

                          People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;

                                                     Forgive them anyway.

                          If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior

                                                                  motives;

                                                            Be kind anyway.

                         If you are successful, you will win some false friends and 

                                                        some true enemies;

                                                         Succeed anyway.

                             If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

                                                Be honest and frank anyway.

                         What you spend years building, someone could destroy

                                                            overnight;

                                                         Build anyway.

                            If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

                                                    Be happy anyway.

                           The good you do today people will often forget tomorrow;

                                                     Do good anyway.

                              Give the world the best you have, and it may never be

                                                            enough;

                                     Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

                         You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;

                                   It was never between you and them anyway.

[Reportedly inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta, and attributed to her. However, an article in the New York Times has since reported (March 8, 2002)] 

Read the extract of the song GIVE ME LO VE by ED Sheeram and answer

Told you l ’d let them go

And TU fight my comer

Maybe tonight Til call ya

After my blood turns into alcohol

No I just wanna hold ya

Give a little time to me, we’ll burn this out

We’ll play hide and seek, to turn this around

All I want is the taste that your lips allow

Give me love like never before

‘Cause lately /Ve been craving more

And it’s been a while but I still feel the same

Maybe I should let you go

Michael Joseph Jackson’s story was an American tale of celebrity and excess that took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits, paparazzi and failed plastic surgery.

At the height of his career, Mr. Jackson was indisputably the biggest star in the world; he sold more than 750 million albums. He spent a lifetime surprising people, in his last years mainly because of a surreal personal life, lurid legal scandals, serial plastic surgeries and erratic public behaviorthat turned him — on his very best days — into the butt of late-night talk-show jokes and tabloid headlines.

Mr. Jackson died atage 50 in Los Angeles on June25,2009. His death itself became an enormous spectacle. On television and on the Internet, tens of millions of people worldwide watched a memorial Service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The cause of Mr. Jackson’s death was a mixture of the powerful anesthetic propofol and the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.

Two days after Mr. Jackson’s death his personal doctor, Conrad Murray, told detectives that he had been using propofol nearly daily for the last two months to help Mr. Jackson sleep. But he said that he had been trying to wean Mr. Jackson off the drug and had tried sedatives instead. Dr. Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter for providing him with propofol.

                                                                                             Adapted from New York Times, Nov. 29, 2011

Teen romance usually digitally enhanced, says US study

Technology plays a key role in teenage romance from initial encounters to eventual break-ups, says a US study.

Teenagers rarely meet online but do use technology for flirting, asking out, meeting up and parting, American think tank, the Pew Research Center, found.

A survey of 1,060 US teenagers aged 13 to 17 revealed that technology brings them closer but also breeds jealousy.

"Digital platforms are powerful tools for teens," said Amanda Lenhart, lead author of the report from Pew.

"But even as teens enjoy greater closeness with partners and a chance to display their relationships for others to see, mobile and social media can also be tools for jealousy, meddling and even troubling behaviour."

Digital romance, broken down

Of the 1,060 teenagers surveyed:

• 35% said they were currently dating and 59% of that group said technology made them feel closer to their partner.

• For boys who were dating, 65% said social media made them more connected to a significant other while it was 52% for girls.

• 27% of dating teenagers thought social media made them feel jealous or insecure in relationships.

• 50% of all teens surveyed, dating or not, said they had indicated interest by friending someone on Facebook or other social media and 47% expressed attraction by likes and comments.

• Texting is king - 92% of teens who were dating said they texted a partner, assuming the partner would check in with "great regularity"

• Jealousy happens, but not as much as flirting does - 11% of teenage daters reported accessing a partner's online  accounts and 16% reported having a partner asking them to de-friend someone.

What gets discussed during all those frequent social media enabled check-ins?

According to the survey, it is mostly "funny stuff" followed by "things you're thinking about" as well as other information such as where they are and what their friends have been doing.

And forget having to meet up to resolve a conflict - 48% of dating teenagers said that could be done by texting or talking online.

Online tools, with their accessibility and ease of use, also showed some signs of giving this group relationship anxiety. Females are more likely to be subject to unwanted flirting and 25% of teenagers surveyed said they have blocked or unfriended someone because of uncomfortable flirting.

And 15% of teenage daters said a partner had used the internet to pressure them into unwanted sexual activity.

'More than emojis'

Nearly half the respondents admitted to concentrating on their phone ahead of their partner when together with 43% of dating teens saying that had happened to them.

"I don't think this survey reveals much that is surprising.

But it is affirming. Humans are social animals and we build tools to connect with each other,"wrote Julie Beck, an associate editor at The Atlantic news site, of the survey's findings.

"It's not all heart emojis all the time, no, but the tools that facilitate relationships facilitate all aspects of them, good and bad. "Connecting with others is scary, hard, sometimes dangerous, but usually, hopefully, good. The teens get it."

(Fonte: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34416989)

TEXT 2

                             Women in Computing

(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/3/19/1363705626950/women-at-computers-003.jpg accessed October 26th, 2015)

                                                                  The Next Generation

Technology is rapidly evolving, but the low number of women in computer science and engineering remains stagnant and experts say that this could have major implications for the future.

“Computing is at the heart of everything,” says Dr. Telle Whitney, CEO of the Anita Borg Institute and co-founder of Grace Hopper Celebration. “To be missing half the population is a significant loss to our world.

In 2014, women made up only 22 percent of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computer science (STEM) workforce. The number of Canadian women working in STEM fields has barely changed in the past three decades.

“Women look at the world a little differently than men and I think we have a huge opportunity to disrupt and play a big role in the technology space,” says Vicki Saunders, founder of SheEO, an initiative that supports female entrepreneurs.[…]

(MACLEAN’S, October 12th, 2015, p. 1)