Questões de Concurso Comentadas sobre substantivos e compostos | nouns and compounds em inglês

TEXT I 

Is English language teaching for you? A guide to a new career 

Marie Therese Swabey

June 14, 2021

Whether you’re just starting out or thinking of a career change, teaching English as a foreign language is one of the most rewarding professional journeys you can embark on.

In English language teaching, there is a lot of career potential. As you develop your skills and take on more responsibilities, you can enjoy a long-term career. Many professionals become senior teachers or teacher trainers, or move into management or materials writing.

Why become an English language teacher? 

There are lots of reasons you might want to become an English language teacher. For a start, you can make a real difference in people’s lives. According to a 2019 survey by Wall Street English, 18% of professionals who have learned English report that they feel happier at work; 12% say they feel happier in general; and half of English speakers earn 25% more because of their language skills.

Moreover, English language teaching is an immensely flexible profession. You can decide whether to take a public or private job, or offer lessons on your own. Your working conditions are flexible too. You might prefer to work in a local school or academy, but many English language teaching jobs also allow you to work online from home. And if you’re feeling adventurous, there are lots of opportunities to live and work abroad, in a new country and culture. If you do travel further afield, you might even learn a new language of your own.

English language teaching is a career that encourages creativity. You’ll become an expert at designing lessons and making learning materials to meet the needs of your students. Best of all ... it’s fun! You spend your day with interesting, engaging people who are keen to learn. What could be better than that?

What do English language teachers do every day? 

It probably goes without saying that language educators teach students English on a day-to-day basis. But there are plenty of other aspects to the job as well.

English language teachers assess their learners through quick tests and official exams. They use this information to define learning objectives, and then plan courses and classes that meet their students’ needs.

Language teachers use a range of coursebooks and English language teaching materials, including a variety of audio, visual and digital tools. At the same time, they find and create teaching and learning materials of their own.

In the process of developing learners’ reading, listening, speaking andwriting abilities, teachers also help students develop confidence in presenting and communicating ideas. Furthermore, language teachers encourage students to develop important 21st century skills, such as creativity, collaboration, leadership, autonomous learning and adaptability. These skills are transferable and will help learners in many areas throughout their lives.

What do you need to become an English language teacher? 

Being a good English teacher requires more than just being able to speak the language fluently. You’ll also need a comprehensive knowledge of English grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary, combined with excellent communication skills. Teachers of young learners will also need to have an understanding of how to teach engaging, effective classes to children.

It helps if you are comfortable speaking in front of other people, managing groups of learners, and able to plan and organise your time. And it’s important to have a friendly, sympathetic nature and a good degree of cultural sensitivity. After all, you’ll be working with people from all over the world and all walks of life.

Where can you teach? 

There are opportunities to teach the English language almost everywhere. For example, you can teach English in an Englishspeaking country such as the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Ireland. You’ll find many private and public programmes and classes for people who have come to work or study, and who need to improve their English.

Alternatively, you can teach English in schools and universities in countries where English is the official language – but not always how people communicate on a daily basis. Nigeria, Malta, India and Sierra Leone are examples. You might also prefer to teach in non-English-speaking countries, where you’ll have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture and learn a new language too.

In terms of teaching environments, there are opportunities to teach in private academies, public schools, universities, offices, private homes and online. 

Who do you teach? 

There is an extensive list of people who want to learn to speak English. Many teachers start out with a variety of class types to find out which they like best. Your options include (but are not limited to):

• • adults in private groups or one-to-one classes
• 
  
• • adults in language schools, colleges or universities
• 
  
• • professionals such as business people, medical professionals, pilots, etc. who require English for a specific purpose
• 
  
• • students who are preparing for an official exam
• 
  
• • people who have moved to an English-speaking country and need to improve their English 
• 
  
• • young learners in one-to-one classes or groups, or online
• 
  
• • young learners in private language schools, or in secondary/ primary schools.

Adapted from: https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/blog/is-english-language-teachingfor-you. Accessed on May 2, 2024

What is Validity?
by Evelina Galaczi
July 17th, 2020

The fundamental concept to keep in mind when creating any assessment is validity. Validity refers to whether a test measures what it aims to measure. For example, a valid driving test should include a practical driving component and not just a theoretical test of the rules of driving. A valid language test for university entry, for example, should include tasks that are representative of at least some aspects of what actually happens in university settings, such as listening to lectures, giving presentations, engaging in tutorials, writing essays, and reading texts.

Validity has different elements, which we are now going to look at in turn.

Test Purpose – Why am I testing?

We can never really say that a test is valid or not valid. Instead, we can say that a test is valid for a particular purpose. There are several reasons why you might want to test your students. You could be trying to check their learning at the end of a unit, or trying to understand what they know and don't know. Or, you might want to use a test to place learners into groups based on their ability, or to provide test takers with a certificate of language proficiency. Each of these different reasons for testing represents a different test purpose.

The purpose of the test determines the type of test you're going to produce, which in turn affects the kinds of tasks you're going to choose, the number of test items, the length of the test, and so on. For example, a test certifying that doctors can practise in an English-speaking country would be different from a placement test which aims to place those doctors into language courses.

Test Takers – Who am I testing?

It’s also vital to keep in mind who is taking your test. Is it primary school children or teenagers or adults? Or is it airline pilots or doctors or engineers? This is an important question because the test has to be appropriate for the test takers it is aimed for. If your test takers are primary school children, for instance, you might want to give them more interactive tasks or games to test their language ability. If you are testing listening skills, for example, you might want to use role plays for doctors, but lectures or monologues with university students.

Test Construct – What am I testing?

Another key point is to consider what you want to test. Before designing a test, you need to identify the ability or skill that the test is designed to measure – in technical terms, the ‘test construct’. Some examples of constructs are: intelligence, personality, anxiety, English language ability, pronunciation. To take language assessment as an example, the test construct could be communicative language ability, or speaking ability, or perhaps even a construct as specific as pronunciation. The challenge is to define the construct and find ways to elicit it and measure it; for example, if we are testing the construct of fluency, we might consider features such as rate of speech, number of pauses/ hesitations and the extent to which any pauses/hesitations cause strain for a listener.

Test Tasks – How am I testing?

Once you’ve defined what you want to test, you need to decide how you’re going to test it. The focus here is on selecting the right test tasks for the ability (i.e. construct) you're interested in testing. All task types have advantages and limitations and so it’s important to use a range of tasks in order to minimize their individual limitations and optimize the measurement of the ability you’re interested in. The tasks in a test are like a menu of options that are available to choose from, and you must be sure to choose the right task or the right range of tasks for the ability you're trying to measure. 

Test Reliability - How am I scoring?

Next it’s important to consider how to score your test. A test needs to be reliable and to produce accurate scores. So, you’ll need to make sure that the scores from a test reflect a learner's actual ability. In deciding how to score a test, you’ll need to consider whether the answers are going to be scored as correct or incorrect (this might be the case for multiple–choice tasks, for example) or whether you might use a range of marks and give partial credit, as for example, in reading or listening comprehension questions. In speaking and writing, you’ll also have to decide what criteria to use (for example, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, essay, organisation in writing, and so on). You’ll also need to make sure that the teachers involved in speaking or writing assessment have received some training, so that they are marking to (more or less) the same standard.

Test Impact - How will my test help learners?

The final – and in many ways most important – question to ask yourself is how the test is benefitting learners. Good tests engage learners in situations similar to ones that they might face outside the classroom (i.e. authentic tasks), or which provide useful feedback or help their language development by focusing on all four skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking). For example, if a test has a speaking component, this will encourage speaking practice in the classroom. And if that speaking test includes both language production (e.g. describe a picture) and interaction (e.g. discuss a topic with another student), then preparing for the test encourages the use of a wide range of speaking activities in the classroom and enhances learning.

Adapted from: https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/blog/what-is-validity. Acesso em: 15 dez. 2023.

O texto seguinte servirá de base para responder às questões de 11 a 22.

Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata

(1º§) The World Heritage property includes three different archaeological areas: the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum together with the Villa of the Mysteries (to the west of Pompeii) and the Villa of the Papyri (to the west of Herculaneum), and the Villa A (Villa of Poppaea) and Villa B (Villa of Lucius Crassius Tertius) in Torre Annunziata. The vast expanse of the commercial town of Pompeii contrasts with the smaller but better-preserved remains of the smaller Herculaneum, while Villa A in Torre Annunziata gives a vivid impression of the opulent lifestyle enjoyed by the wealthier citizens of the early Roman Empire.

(2º§) When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, it engulfed the two flourishing Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as the many wealthy countryside villas in the area. Pompeii was buried largely by a thick layer of volcanic ash and lapilli and Herculaneum disappeared under pyroclastic surges and flows. These sites have been progressively excavated and made accessible to the public since the mid-18th century. However, in the case of Herculaneum large areas of the ancient town still lie under the modern town and have only been explored and surveyed by the network of 18th-century tunnels that drew the attention of Grand Tour visitors, the basis still today for visiting the Herculaneum's underground ancient theatre. These areas are mostly not currently included in the World Heritage property.

(3º§) Pompeii, with its well-preserved buildings in an excavated area of 44 ha, is the only archaeological site in the world that provides a complete picture of an ancient Roman city. The main forum is flanked by a number of imposing public buildings, such as the Capitolium, the Basilica and temples and within the city there are also many public bath complexes, two theatres and an amphitheatre.

(4º§) In Herculaneum several impressive public buildings are well preserved, including a spacious palaestra accessed through a monumental gateway, two sets of public baths, one of which (Central Thermae) is monumental and vividly decorated, the College of the Priests of Augustus, and a theatre of standard form. The Villa of the Papyri, outside the city walls, is an opulent establishment. The town is also noteworthy for the completeness of its shops, still containing equipment such as enormous wine jars.

(5º§) Herculaneum's urban districts and seafront display a higher level of preservation with noteworthy conservation of upper floors thanks to the pyroclastic material that buried the town. Organic matter was often carbonized by the high temperatures and exceptionally preserved finds include everyday objects such as foodstuffs, architectural elements and wooden furniture.

(6º§) Both Pompeii and Herculaneum are renowned for their remarkable series of residential and commercial buildings, built along well-paved streets. The earliest is the atrium house, entirely inward-looking with a courtyard at its centre: the House of the Surgeon at Pompeii is a good example. Under Hellenistic influences, this type of house was enlarged and decorated with columns and arcades and equipped with large representative rooms. In its highest form, this type of Roman house, known from towns all over the Empire, developed into a veritable mansion, richly decorated and with many rooms, of which the House of the Faun and the House of the Chaste Lovers are outstanding examples.

(7º§) The suburban villas across the Vesuvian area are perhaps even more exceptional in terms of the scale of their buildings and grounds, as well as their lavish decorations. The Villa of the Mysteries is an enormous residence just outside Pompeii's city walls, developed from a modest house built in the 3rd century BC, named from the remarkable wall paintings in the triclinium, which depict the initiation rites ('mysteries') of the cult of Dionysus.

(8º§) The two villas in Torre Annunziata are both extraordinary examples of suburban buildings in the countryside of Pompeii. The villa A, so-called "of Poppaea", is a huge maritime residence built in the middle of the 1st century BCE, enlarged during the Imperial period and under restoration at the moment of the eruption. It is especially well known for its magnificent and well-preserved wall paintings, one of the most important examples of Roman painting with their superb illusionistic frescos of doors, colonnades and garden views. On the other hand, villa B is an excellent example of villa rustica provided with rooms and spaces designated for market activities such as storage of amphoras and trading of locally produced foodstuffs, especially wine.

(9º§) There were many changes to these buildings over time in response to changing circumstances of the owners; these include repairs and adjustments that were a response to the seismic events that led up to the AD 79 eruption and reflect a community living with changing environmental and economic conditions.

(10º§) A special feature of Pompeii is the wealth of graffiti on its walls. An election was imminent at the time of the eruption, and there are many political slogans scrawled on walls, as well as others of a more personal nature, often defamatory. At Herculaneum, the volcanic deposits preserved hundreds of wax tablets, some of which conserve legal documents, and more than 1,800 papyri scrolls containing Greek philosophical texts were found at the Villa of the Papyri.

(11º§) The diverse range of literary sources available in Pompeii and Herculaneum provides a picture of the final decades of these ancient cities and the image of socially complex and dynamic communities, representing exceptional evidence of typical ways of life in Roman society in the first century AD and the importance of texts in political and private life.

(12º§) Other important sources of archaeological evidence are the human remains of those who died in the eruption. Pompeii witnessed an early archaeological experiment when plaster was poured into voids found in the volcanic material and which allowed casts to be made of the forms of the human and animal victims and other organic material. At Herculaneum, on the other hand, about 300 skeletons were discovered along the ancient shoreline. The study of these significant samples of victims from the towns provides insight into their health, lifestyles and death and a chance to compare the two data sets. The casts themselves are important resources as they contain both skeletal remains and evidence of 19th- and 20th-century archaeological practice.

(13º§) Another important legacy of the twentieth century was the presentation of Herculaneum to the public as an 'open-air museum', perhaps Europe's first, with buildings reconstructed based on archaeological evidence and displays of original objects within the archaeological site. This concept of 'open-air museum' had already been adopted in some buildings in Pompeii, as a medium to communicate the meaning of ancient spaces, at the end of the 19th century.

(14º§) The impressive remains of the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and their associated villas, destroyed and yet preserved by Mount Vesuvius, provide a complete and vivid picture of society and daily life at a specific moment in the past that is unparalleled elsewhere. The rediscovery and history of these places as archaeological sites has captured the collective imagination century after century, shaping archaeological, art historical, conservation and interpretation practices in Europe and beyond.

(adapted) https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/829/

Instruction: answer questions 31 to 40 based on the following text. The highlights throughout the text are cited in the questions.

He donated blood and saved the lives of 2.4 million babies

01 Most people get a gold watch when they retire. James Harrison deserves so much more than

02 that. Known as the “Man With the Golden Arm,” Harrison has donated blood nearly every week

03 for 60 years, and after all those donations, the 81-year-old Australian man “retired” Friday.

04 According to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, he has helped save the lives of more than

05 2.4 million Australian babies because his blood has unique, disease-fighting antibodies.

06 Harrison’s antibodies have been used to develop an injection called Anti-D, which helps

07 fight against rhesus disease. This disease is a condition where a pregnant woman has rhesus-

08 negative blood (RhD negative) and the baby in her womb has rhesus-positive blood (RhD

09 positive), inherited from its father. If the mother has been sensitized to rhesus-positive blood,

10 usually during a previous pregnancy with a rhesus-positive baby, she may produce antibodies

11 that destroy the baby’s “foreign” blood cells. In the worst cases, it can result in brain damage,

12 or death, for the babies.

13 Harrison’s remarkable gift of giving started when he had major chest surgery when he was

14 just 14. Blood donations saved his life, so he pledged to become a blood donor. A few years

15 later, doctors discovered his blood contained the antibody which could be used to create Anti-D

16 injections, so he switched over to making blood plasma donations to help as many people as

17 possible. Doctors aren’t exactly sure why Harrison has this rare blood type, but they think it

18 might be from the transfusions he received when he was 14, after his surgery. He’s one of no

19 more than 50 people in Australia known to have the antibodies, according to the blood service.

20 “In Australia, up until about 1967, there were literally thousands of babies dying each year,

21 doctors didn’t know why, and it was awful.” Jemma Falkenmire, of the Australian Red Cross

22 Blood Service, told CNN. “Australia was one of the first countries to discover a blood donor with

23 this antibody, so it was quite revolutionary at the time.”

24 The blood service estimates Harrison saved more than two million lives, and for that, he is

25 considered a national hero in Australia. He’s won numerous awards for his generosity, including

26 the Medal of the Order of Australia, one of the country’s most prestigious honors. Now that

27 Harrison has given his last blood donation (in Australia you can’t donate blood past the age of

28 81), Falkenmire and others hope people with similar antibodies in their blood will step up and

29 donate.

(Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/11/health/james-harrison-blood-donor-retires-trnd/index.html – text especially adapted for this test).