Learning Portuguese Research Articles

Hispania Begins its Second Hundred Years

Hispania Begins its Second Hundred Years Sheri Spaine Long Hispania's one-hundredth anniversary issue (100.5) is now in print and available for download gratis (see www.hispaniajournal.com). The centenary issue offers visionary articles and response essays on the future of teaching Spanish and Portuguese. As the journal begins a new century of its publication, we look forward to the work ahead and acknowledge our past achievements and contributors. The milestone of the centenary issue gives us the opportunity to reflect on our past and contemplate our future. During 2017, sadly, we lost the tenth Editor of Hispania Dr. Estelle Irizarry, Professor of Spanish Emerita of Georgetown University. Irizarry was Hispania's first female editor. She provided the journal with stellar leadership from 1993–2000. She was an accomplished editor, professor, and scholar. Perhaps best known for her scholarship on the DNA of Christopher Columbus, her publications and projects in languages and literature were many and varied. During her tenure at the journal, Hispania garnered second place for the "Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement" from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) in 1995. Her editorship was also known for implementing new technology. She produced a CD of all articles published in Hispania dating from its inception in 1917 through 1990. This project paved the way for further digitization of the journal in more recent years. Irizarry also improved efficiency and reduced decision time by introducing submissions via email. Close colleague and luminary in her own right Dr. Barbara Mujica, Professor of Spanish Emerita, also of Georgetown University, wrote a tribute to Irizarry that aptly captures her intellectual work, generous spirit, and humanity that begins on the next page. Looking forward, our profession has much work ahead to serve heritage learners (HL) more comprehensively. I invited Hispania Associate Editor Dr. Maria Carreira, Professor of Spanish at California State University, Long Beach and the Co-director of the National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA, to pen a response to the recent publication by the Commission on Language Learning of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) titled America's Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century (2017). Carreira makes the case for the oft-underutilized assets of HLs in building language proficiency. There are implications for HL students of Spanish and Portuguese. Carreira offers a concise summary of the development of research and the current state of HL education and demonstrates the lack of systematic implementation of targeted HL education in the United States at all levels. This reality contradicts one of the five priorities put forth in the report by the AAAS: to advance language proficiency through the education of heritage learners. Over the last few decades, as Carreira points out, the burden has fallen to instructors to innovate HL instruction. There has been scant institutional support or acknowledgement of such efforts. She calls for the hiring of administrators who are committed to this cause to be able to institutionalize and regularize HL instruction within the curriculum. She offers data and arguments for Spanish HLs. In particular, students of Spanish who are heritage speakers are likely to be useful in the context of your institution as you advocate to serve HL learners of Spanish and Portuguese. As Hispania moves forward, watch for more on this important topic. I encourage you to read Carreira's essay in the upcoming pages. [End Page 1] Sheri Spaine Long Editor of Hispania Copyright © 2018 AATSP

Análise da matriz de competência em uma aplicação real da Avaliação da Aprendizagem em Processo de Língua Portuguesa da Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo

A proposta deste trabalho é discutir a matriz de competência e habilidades da Avaliação da Aprendizagem em Processo (AAP). Esta avaliação é composta por questões objetivas de Língua Portuguesa e é aplicada pela Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo em escolas públicas de ensino fundamental e médio do estado. O objetivo da prova é medir os coeficientes de aprendizado em língua portuguesa em cada ano escolar. O presente trabalho corresponde a uma análise de caso realizada em uma sala de oitavo ano. O foco da análise está nas questões com maior porcentagem de erro. Tal destaque se dá, pois a AAP utiliza os indicadores em que os alunos apresentam maior fragilidade e que indicam a necessidade de promover ações metodológicas capazes de sanar as lacunas conteudísticas, notadamente, aquelas direcionadas para a competência leitora.

Interpretação de pronomes fortes e clíticos em português L2

This study investigates whether L2 learners of Portuguese show difficulties in the interpretation of reflexive and non-reflexive strong and clitic pronouns, and whether there are asymmetries in the establishment of referential dependencies with the reflexive ‘si’ in local and long-distance contexts. The study is based on three truth-value judgement tasks and the participants are Chinese-speaking intermediate learners of L2 European Portuguese. The results show that the grammatical status of the pronoun is relevant in the case of reflexives, with learners exhibiting difficulties particularly in the interpretation of reflexive strong pronouns. Moreover, in biclausal contexts, they are more accurate in accepting coreference between ‘si’ and long-distance antecedents than with local antecedents. It is suggested that this behaviour may result not only from L1 transfer but also from the strategies adopted by learners to cope with the processing complexity arising from the ambiguity of these contexts.

Aquisição da correferência pronominal catafórica no português europeu por aprendentes chineses

This paper aims to investigate how Chinese learners of European Portuguese as second language acquire backward anaphora in this language, analyzing the interpretation of overt pronoun in left-dislocated temporal adverbial adjunct. Two experiments were administered to test if the syntactic position and the proximity of antecedent are main factors to determine the interpretation by the native speakers of Portuguese and the Chinese learners, as well as if the learners are influenced by their first language. The first test illustrates that in Chinese the native speakers may fluctuate between three possible interpretations in backward anaphora structures, namely the matrix subject, matrix object and the antecedent in context. The second test demonstrates that the native speakers of European Portuguese also fluctuate between the three interpretations, while the Chinese learners do not tend to accept an antecedent in the context. The test also shows that the C1 level learners are more likely to accept the matrix subject as the antecedent of the embedded overt pronoun than the B2 level learners.

On syllable structure and phonological variation: The case of i-epenthesis by Brazilian Portuguese learners of English

Our study employs nonword-learning tasks to examine i-epenthesis in the speech output of 53 Brazilian Portuguese learners of English. One aim is to investigate conflicting views on the syllabification of consonants in various word-medial and final contexts, where they can be parsed as either codas or onsets of empty nuclei. Another aim is to test a proposal (Authors, 2017) concerning the source of L2 phonological variation: we suggest that L2 variation is lexical rather than derivational, stemming from individual items having dual underlying representations which compete for selection at the moment of speaking. The results of a multivariate statistical analysis indicate: i) a hierarchy of difficulty in the acquisition of the stops /p k/ in different lexical locations; and ii) simultaneous development of dual representations for single lexical items.

The Influence of Family Support According to Gender in the Portuguese Language Course Achievement.

Several factors like pupils’ characteristics, school conditions and family context have been pointed out in the literature as being linked to academic achievement. Regarding the latter, family socio-economic status and parental support have been identified as determining variables on success at school. The current study analyses the influence of family support on the achievement of school children in their native language [Portuguese language course (PLC)]. Participants were 885 students attending PLC on basic and secondary schools (6th and 9th school grades) (ISCED 1); 418 boys and 467 girls, ranged between 10 and 18 years of age (M = 12.99). School achievement was assessed using year-end classifications in PLC. Family support was assessed using the Family Support-Context Variables Questionnaire. A regression analysis showed that students’ perception about instrumental and affective family support in school life was positively related to their Portuguese grades. However, different predictive values were revealed according to gender. Girls’ Portuguese languge couse classification seemed to depend on affective variables like their perception of affective parental support and affective attitudes toward the PLC, while boys’ results seemed to be influenced by instrumental variables, such as the perception of instrumental support from parents and boys’ attitudes toward the utility of learning Portuguese language. These results supported those of other studies, showing the need to take gender differences into account in educational interventions, especially during early adolescence. In conclusion, the study shows an influence of parental support on PLC achievement. Such influence differs according to gender, with girls being more sensitive to the affective dimension of parental support and boys to the instrumental one.

INCREASING THE ROLE OF LEARNING PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE FOR ESTABLISHING THE NATIONS CHARACTER OF TIMOR LESTE

The study outlined in this article aimed to describe the increasing the role of learning Portuguese for establishing the national character of Timor Leste. Portuguese language learning in Timor Leste needs to be developed seriously. The learning condition of the language still faces many problems, especially related to the material and the learning process. Therefore, the preparation of teaching materials that are truly functional and make it easier for students to learn the language needs to be developed. This needs to be done to make quality learning outcomes. Through quality Portuguese language learning, students will be able to gain understanding and appreciation of the language culture. Cultural insights will have an impact on the building of student character that is compatible with the culture of the nation of Timor Leste.

The use of Instagram in the teaching and learning of Portuguese as a foreign language by Chinese students in the Un. of Aveiro

The main purpose of this article is to highlight the potential of the Instagram social network as a didactic resource for teaching and learning languages. To do so, it presents a pilot study titled #aveiroenossople (Aveiro is ours PLE) about the use of Instagram in complementary activities in the teaching of Portuguese for Chinese students of Portuguese as a Foreign Language (PFL) of the University of Aveiro, whose products were advertised on the page Of the # AveiroeNosso-PLE project on the Wix platform. In order to study whether the Instagram social tool can contribute to the development of discursive skills of Chinese learners, both in the oral and written modalities, the study proposal was anchored in a conception of language as process and interaction, from which one understands the production and comprehension of text – oral or written – as social practice. In the methodological path, three stages were accomplished in the development of the work, namely: (i) planning, (ii) implementation, and (iii) evaluation. In general terms, the results point to contributions from the use of Instagram for the development of competences related to textual and multimodal production and comprehension, the cultural competences necessary and intrinsic to the learning of a foreign language, as well as for the formation of learning communities by means of the interactions between the participants.

Teaching and Learning Portuguese as a Second Language for Deaf Students: Reflections on Teaching Practices in An Inclusive Context

In Brazil, according to the principles of bilingualism, the process of teaching written Portuguese to deaf people should be based on methodologies used to teach a second language (L2). Also, the teaching method should be developed from experiences with the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). On that account, the present study investigated the teaching-learning process of the written Portuguese experienced by a deaf student in an inclusive class. A qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research was conducted. As for collecting data, three methods were explored: participant observation, field diary and document analysis. The results indicated that in the aforementioned process, LIBRAS was not appreciated as a first language (L1). They also showed that no Portuguese language teaching methodology based on a L2 was used. Thus, we concluded that the methods used for teaching the written language in the inclusive situation did not meet the principals of bilingual education and did not embody all the linguistic and cultural singularities of the deaf student.

BRAZILIAN EFL LEARNERS’ AWARENESS ABOUT L2 PHONES: IS MALL PRONOUNCED AS ‘MAL’?

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper was to examine the extent of non-verbalizable knowledge L1 Brazilian Portuguese (BP) learners of English possess about the segmental inventory of the L2. The study had two aims: i) to determine to what extent L1 BP EFL learners are aware of contrastive and non-contrastive L2 segments, ii) to determine which type of segments present the lowest level of awareness. To the date, little research has been carried out about the non-verbalizable aspect of L2 phonological awareness, most studies having relied on participants’ verbalization of the acquired knowledge (e.g., KENNEDY & TROFIMOVICH, 2010; WREMBEL, 2011). Whereas language learners are frequently taught grammar explicitly, pronunciation of the L2 is rarely addressed in the foreign language classroom. Moreover, phonology is in nature less susceptible to conscious processing than other aspects of L2 learning, making the noticing, and especially the explicit explanation, of phonological aspects difficult. Nevertheless, high L2 phonological awareness is beneficial for L2 pronunciation (KIVISTÖ-DE SOUZA, 2015), making its examination a priority in the foreign language classroom context. The participants of the study were 71 advanced EFL learners and 18 native speakers of American English. Participants performed a perception test which presented English segments spoken by native and non-native speakers. The ability to identify pronunciation deviations in the non-native speaker trials was taken as a measure for phonological awareness. The results showed that the L1 BP participants manifested a significantly lower sensitivity to English segmental phonology than the native English speakers (F[1, 87] = 40.56, p <.001, η2=.31). Pronunciation deviations involving consonants were identified to the greatest extent (52%), whereas the trials involving short-lag VOTs were identified the poorest (33%). The results reveal a need for explicit pronunciation instruction and the employment of consciousness-raising activities in the Brazilian EFL classroom.

Chinese learners of Portuguese as a Foreign Language and Cultural Challenges

Chinese learners of Portuguese as a Foreign Language and Cultural Challenges Fernandes, Gomes Maria da Graça Abstract Framed in the context of Macao and, in particular, in the specific context of the School of Languages and Translation of Macao Polytechnic Institute, this study aims to determine which representations students bring about Portugal, the culture and native speakers before starting learning Portuguese, but also the opinion they have formed all along the learning process and, in particular, after one year immersion program, in Leiria (Portugal). To achieve these objectives, a survey was carried out, with a year 1 students’ group (N=32) and a second with year 4 group (N=29). The results confirm that these students belong to what Hofstede (2010) defined by a collectivist society. However, the fact that there is a strong sense of belonging and identification with the group does not prevent learners to feel excited about learning this foreign language and want to understand new ways of thinking, expressing themselves and taking action. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v5n2a15

Expressões do português brasileiro com o verbo cair: uma abordagem semântico-pragmática para o ensino de língua adicional

This study aims to present a way to help learners of Portuguese as an additional language to understand the meaning of expressions of Brazilian Portuguese, which need the context of the communicative process to have their meaning inferred. For this we adopted a semantic-pragmatic approach, with inferential bias proposed by the philosopher Paul Grice (1957, 1975) in his theories of conversation and of meaning. In this paper, we assume expressions of the verb cair because it is a frequent verb in Brazilian Portuguese everyday language, in expressions with a literal meaning and in idioms, assumed by Fernando (1996) as part of idiomaticity process. As a methodology we use Corpus Linguistics (Sardinha, 2004; O'keeffe; Carter; McCarthy, 2007) so we have access to authentic oral and written texts, using the corpus developed and maintained by Mark Davies and Michael J. Ferreira.

Schema activation through pre-reading activities: teaching proverbs in L2

Although educators are aware that the use of pre-reading activities can prompt schemata and therefore enhance the reading process in a foreign language (e.g., Aebersold; Field, 2007; Johnson, 1982; Langer, 1981), planning an effective pre-reading activity may pose a challenge. In this article, we discuss how students’ schemata on proverbs can be activated through pre-reading activities by promoting text structure awareness (e.g., Grabe; Stoller, 2011) and exploring cultural aspects embedded in proverbs in their first(s) language(s). This study proposes a pre-reading activity for the teaching of proverbs in a Portuguese as a foreign language class in a multilingual context, in which minimal interference from the teacher is required and dialogical interaction among students is promoted. The activity was applied in an intermediate class of Portuguese learners in an American university. The pre-reading activity was designed in order to help students establish a well-grounded basis before they encounter proverbs in Portuguese, from both formal and content perspectives. This study also analyzes the students’ feedback, collected in an online survey. The analysis shows an overwhelmingly positive response to the pre-reading activity.

O contato linguístico na Serra dos Tapes, RS: implicações para o ensino do Português brasileiro com manutenção do pomerano

This paper is the result of a study with a pre-school group, in the Primary School Martinho Lutero, located in Santa Augusta city, RS. We aim to promote thoughts towards to Pomerano and Brazilian Portuguese linguistic contact; more specifically, since the adoption of a more culturally sensitive pedagogy to students sociolinguistics specificities influences Portuguese teaching process, considering that most of the half analyzed joined school or as Pomerano monolingual or as Pomerano/ Portuguese bilingual. Based on Erickson (1987), Bortoni-Ricardo (2005) and Bell (1984) theoretical postulations about school context, we propose that code- switching in the classroom by the teacher into a culturally sensitive pedagogic strategy which ratifies the student and generates an environment of trust in which shifts between two languages, in that case Pomerano and Portuguese, contribute to the Portuguese learning. However, to code-switching in the classroom underlines to a reflection on when which language is used, so that the bilingual uses do not lead to a process of replacement of mother tongue to Portuguese by students.

Interpretação de pronomes e aquisição de dependências referenciais em português L2

This study investigates whether L2 learners of (European) Portuguese display asymmetries in their comprehension of reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns, as has been found in L2 English (e.g., Kim, Montrul & Yoon, 2014). Forty- one intermediate learners of L2 Portuguese, who were L1 speakers of Spanish, English and Chinese, completed a truth-value judgement task (Silva, 2015) testing both reflexive and non-reflexive object clitics. The three groups achieved targetlike results in their interpretation of both types of pronouns. These findings indicate that, unlike strong pronouns, clitic pronouns pose no difficulties for learners, which suggests that, as previously shown for L1 acquisition (e.g., McKee, 1992), the grammatical status of pronouns (strong vs. clitic) is also relevant in L2 acquisition.

Apresentação do Corpus de Português Língua Estrangeira/Língua Segunda – COPLE2

In this article, we present COPLE2, a new corpus of Portuguese FL/L2, which encompasses written and spoken data produced by foreign learners of Portuguese at the University of Lisbon. Over the past few years we are seeing a substantial growth in the area of learner corpus research applied to other languages besides English. Our aim is to enhance the learning data of Portuguese, a less commonly taught language. We believe that COPLE2 will constitute a good resource for teachers and researchers, since it will provide empirical data to: (i) identify general errors in the learning of Portuguese L2; (ii) develop textbooks and other teaching material targeting specific groups of students; (iii) implement teacher training material by taking into account the analysis of the corrections of the teachers. We will briefly describe the work in progress regarding the constitution and linguistic annotation of this corpus.

Language learners’ representations of Portugal: implications for culture teaching / Las representaciones de Portugal de los estudiantes de portugués: implicaciones en la enseñanza de aspectos culturales

This pedagogically-oriented study investigated cultural representations of Portugal held by 29 learners of Portuguese in a large public university in Malaysia. The main purpose of this study was to demonstrate how these representations could be employed for teaching the cultural component of the Portuguese language programme. During the content analysis, representations of Portugal provided by the respondents were divided into 11 categories. The study then assessed salience and favourability of each category of images. The findings revealed that the language learners’ representations of Portugal were for the most part positive. The images referring to Portuguese people formed the largest and most salient category. Overall, the students’ representations of Portugal tended to be simplistic and included ubiquitous stereotypes. A discussion of pedagogical implications arising from these findings concludes the article.

Competing voices: Participants managing constraints from the textbook in a foreign language class

This article discusses how participants in a foreign language class negotiate instances of power and manage the constraints embedded in the discourse of a textbook. The aim is to analyse the manner in which teacher and students collaboratively set up a participation locus that is less dependent on institutional and social norms. Because the interactive space of the classroom is an environment in which power relationships become explicit, I am especially concerned with how the students (who are all Chinese beginner-level learners of Portuguese) deal with the limitations imposed by their textbook discourse and negotiate with their teacher new ways of participation that enable them to have a more decisive voice in the class. I take a microanalytical perspective to analyse the actions that participants (teacher and students) perform to contest for power and create a flexible order of local rank that contrasts with the more stable notion of institutional rank imposed by school norms. The results show that active participation by students, with the collaboration of their teacher, challenges the conventional image of passiveness that is often attributed to Chinese learners.

Effects of language experience on the discrimination of the Portuguese palatal lateral by nonnative listeners

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to investigate (1) whether manner or place takes precedence over the other during a phonological category discrimination task and (2) whether this pattern of precedence persists during the early stages of acquisition of the L2. In doing so, we investigated the Portuguese palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ since it differs from English /l/ only by the place of articulation, and from English /j/ only by the manner of articulation. Our results indicate that monolinguals’ perception of the non-native sound is dominated by manner while Portuguese learners show a different pattern of results. The results are interpreted as being consistent with evidence suggesting that manner may be neurophysiologically dominant over place of articulation. The study adds further details to the literature on the effects of experience on language acquisition, and has significant clinical implications for bilingualism in general, and foreign accent training, in particular.

PORTUGUÊS COMO SEGUNDA LÍNGUA: DIFICULDADES ENCONTRADAS PELOS SURDOS

Este trabalho intitulado, Português como segunda língua: dificuldades encontradas pelos surdos tem como finalidade investigar os quatros alunos surdos do 3o ano do Ensino Médio do Colégio Elysio Campos, na Associação de Surdos de Goiás (ASG) e do Colégio Estadual Lyceu de Goiânia. O foco principal da pesquisa teórica relaciona os problemas apresentados pelos professores com a inclusão, especialmente a educação de surdos e a Língua Portuguesa. Também entender como os surdos se desenvolvem cognitivamente e subjetivamente no Português, pois na inclusão eles deveriam aprendê-la como segunda língua, o que nem sempre acontece, gerando problemas. Caso os professores passem a entender o ensino de Português para surdos como segunda língua, também poderão entender melhor sua leitura e escrita. Melhorando a relação professor-aluno e o desenvolvimento da compreensão utilizando-se de estratégias e conversas. O aprendizado poderá ocorrer por duas metodologias distintas: Português como língua estrangeira ou como segunda língua. A perspectiva bilíngue, Língua de Sinais e Língua Portuguesa, ajudam a melhorar o desenvolvimento dos alunos surdos, pois eles conhecem o significado das palavras e aprendem mais rápido. A prática da escrita pela experiência da leitura é um desenvolvimento necessário e presente na proposta bilíngue que aceita o Português como segunda língua (L2). Entende-se a importância da relação teoria e prática e pretende-se, através desta pesquisa, auxiliar os alunos surdos.