Forum of English Teachers at UESC 17.10.2008

Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz - UESC

Departamento de Letras e Artes - DLA

Página mantida pelo projeto de extensão Dinamizando o ensino da língua inglesa

Coordenação: Prof. Isaias Francisco de Carvalho Profa. Elaine Cristina Medeiros Frossard Profa. Claudia Pungartnik

Forum of English Teachers at UESC

comunicações e relatos de experiências na área de ensino de língua inglesa

October 17th, 2008

Coordinator: Prof. Msc. Isaías Carvalho (Departamento de Letras e Artes - DLA/UESC)

Monitors: Jamário Santos Souza & Matheus Gonzaga Teles

Program

Morning

8:30 to 9:00 Checking in

9:00 to 9:30 Opening Session: “Professionalism in EFL teaching: a personal account” - Isaías Carvalho (UESC)

Isaías Carvalho

This is a rather personal account that traces the practical and theoretical solutions to the predicaments and obstacles posed by my teaching reality over the almost 20 years of TEFL experience. Over the last twenty years, the most remarkable moments of my effort to become a more professional teacher and a teacher trainer were based on a few underlying assumptions: that effective language teachers are knowledgeable about Second Language Acquisition and its underlying theory and processes; that teachers are not supposed to separate teaching theory from teaching practice, because these two domains are inevitably interwoven; that well-trained teachers are far more able to analyze learner language production, as well as be aware of their own pedagogical principles, which can lead them to make informed decisions about teaching; and that qualified teachers demonstrate an understanding of a variety of teaching techniques and methodology, being able to carry out research projects and present the results to peers, thus contributing to the teaching field as a whole.

9:40 to 10:10 Weaving the 44 sounds of English: a pronunciation workshop Helem Alves Viana (ACE/UESC)

The report of experience refers to my teaching practice of five years. It describes workshops given to participants in both in-service and pre-service trainings at ACE-Allpurpose Communication and Exchange, between 2005 and 2008, in Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil, and to teachers in training at UESC, in 1996. With the theme “Weaving the 44 sounds of English” I trace a relationship between the intertwining of the sounds and the sonority of the English language. The main goals of the workshop are to demystify the belief that teaching the phonemic chart is difficult or tedious, and share experience on the teaching and learning of pronunciation in English, based on the Phonics approach.

10:20 to 10:45 Break

10:45 to 11:00 Contrastive Analysis: references and evolution Tamyres Melo de Reitas (UNEB – Caetité)

This study aims at dealing with references to and the evolution of Contrastive Analysis (AC), highlighting its collaboration in preparing necessary methodologies by English Teachers in their classrooms. Considering that Contrastive Analysis is a sub-area of general linguistics whose main goal is to show the differences between Mother Language and Foreign Languages, It’s also important to point out its good and bad aspects contributing for the development of productive classes and pupils’ learning process.

11:10 to 11:45 SONGS IN ENGLISH – let us all sing along with Tânia Azevedo (UESC), Ramon Ribeiro (UESC) & Tito de Brito (UESC)

English Domain

Afternoon

2:30 to 3:10 Action Research Report: “The Effective Language Teacher” Isaías Carvalho (UESC)

Everyone seems to remember a good teacher they had, be it that kindergarten “princess” or that math “master” who used to tell jokes in high school. By analyzing my own students’ formal written feedback in the first semester of 1998 - through the student feedback forms used at Associação Cultural Brasil–Estados Unidos (ACBEU), in Salvador-Bahia, where I taught for 10 years - I’ve drawn an impressionistic list of characteristics our students expect their teachers to have, or perhaps how they picture an ideal teacher to be.

3:20 to 3:40 SONGS IN ENGLISH with Tânia Azevedo (UESC)

3:40 to 4:00 Break

4:00 to 5:30 “From learning to teaching: the paths of an apprentice/teacher of foreign languages” Lecture by Prof. Dr. Décio Torres Cruz (UFBA;State University of New York)

This lecture will deal with the several paths followed by an apprentice/teacher of foreign languages in his journey through several pedagogical-didactic methods and approaches. By means of a life experience report, both as a student and as a professional, I will depict the way an individual moves from being an apprentice to being a teacher, and his relationship with the various foreign language teaching-learning methods within different decades. Also, I will analyze an individual’s relationship with different foreign languages, with different teachers/professors and with himself, as well as his beliefs, his concerns about his working matter and object from the perspective of the changes of attitude towards the concept of the teaching of hegemonic languages and what they represent both politically and ideologically. The several paths followed throughout my career will exemplify models of a pedagogy and of a critical posture which are necessary for the teaching professionals.

5:30 to 6:00 Closing Remarks and feedback questionnaire

DÉCIO TORRES CRUZ, a former Fulbright scholar, obtained his Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo in 1998. He holds an M.A. in Literary Theory, a specialization degree in Translation, and a B.A. in English from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). A prolific writer, besides poems and short stories, he has published several essays on different topics in the areas of Linguistics, Language, Translation, Cultural Studies, Cinema, Literature, Methodology, and English Teaching. His major works are Inglês para Administração e Economia [English for Business Administration and Economics], Inglêspara Turismo e Hotelaria [English for Tourism and Hotel Management] and Inglês.com.textos para informática [English for Informatics], published by DISAL, and O pop: literatura, mídia e outras artes [Pop: Literature, Media and the Other Arts], published by Quarteto/UNEB. He teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate Program in Modern Languages at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and at the State University of Bahia (UNEB). He has been teaching different courses, such as Literary Theory, national literatures (Brazilian, Portuguese, English and American), Media Studies, Reading and Textual Production, Reading Art and Media Products, Discourse Analysis, Cultural and Identity Studies, Film and Literature, English as a Foreign Language and English for Specific Purposes. He also teaches Communications and Instrumental English for Computer Sciences, and English for Business at Ruy Barbosa College (FRB). He is also an evaluator of university courses in Letters for the Ministry of Education of Brazil. Besides Portuguese, his native language, he speaks English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. e-mail: deciotc@ufba.br