Jornal da Associação dos Professores de Inglês do Espírito Santo
Ano XVI - Nº 60 - Março/2013
Welcome
to The Wheel, no. 60
This number starts with a tribute
to the students killed in that terrible
accident in Santa Maria, RS. Also, it
offers opportunities for professional
development and a moment to reflect
upon being a teacher. Besides, it brings a
discussion about discipline and limits and
it suggests a new road for the teacher
tired of large classrooms: coaching. As
usual, there are classroom activities, the
forthcoming events and the letters we
have received from our readers.
We hope you enjoy reading it.
“141”
as
ad as
am did
ch ten
oa
13
nã
20
1/
/0 48
27 22h
1
14
Marcelo P. Machado
No dia 27 de janeiro de 2013, “141” foi apenas um número,
no meio de tantos outros.
Passou-se todo o dia a contar, quantos entraram, quantos
saíram, quantos entraram não saíram. Quantos seguranças,
quantos bombeiros, quantos carros, helicópteros, ambulâncias.
Na profusão de números de hoje, nem os caminhões funerários –
nova modalidade de transporte, inventada às pressas e por força
da profusão numérica – fugiu às estatísticas fúnebres.
O número 2 também surgiu, pequeno e acanhado ao lado
dos maiores. Foi apenas a segunda vez em nossa história que
tivemos tantos números queimados pelo fogo, vitimados por
outros números de coisas e pessoas.
Alguém já perguntou quantos fiscais, quantas normas
aplicáveis, quantos seguranças e quanto dinheiro, quantos
números deste conjunto tiveram hoje que ser contados e
recontados pelas pessoas, pelos tuites, pelas TVs. Qual foi o
número de pessoas, em todo o mundo, que se preocupou hoje
com todos esses números?
Não sei. Talvez nenhum desses números seja mais
importante que o “141”. 141
chamadas não atendidas
para uma única “Mãe” no
telefone de apenas um
desses números. No meio de
tantos números, grandes e
funestos, é, tragicamente,
a individualidade que se
sobressai.
Marcelo Pacheco
Machado
Advogado, Mestre e
Doutorando em Direito
Processual - Professor
da FDV, Vitória, ES
O Jornal The Wheel é a publicação quadrimestral oficial da Associação dos Professores de
Inglês do Espírito Santo (APIES), instituição de caráter cultural, sem fins lucrativos.
Presidente
Neise Cunha Rodrigues
Conselho Fiscal
Izabel Fecci, Luciana C. Barreto, Rita Tardin, Síndia Torres,
Susan Harris de Melo
Secretário
Paulo L. Torres
Representantes
Ana Cláudia Magnago (Linhares), Cristina Maria Federici
(Vila Velha), Cláudia Benevenute (Cach. de Itapemirim),
Débora Zancheta (Colatina), Fábio R. de Oliveira Santos
(PMV), Flávio de Souza (Baixo Guandu), Luciene P. de Souza
(Guaçui), Noely Maria Epifânio (Cariacica), Rosângela Vargas
D.Pinto (Conceição do Castelo), Roseli S. de Almeida (Cach.
de Itapemirim), Sérgio B. Coutinho (Afonso Cláudio), Soraya
M.Tavares (Mimoso do Sul), Valdecira N. Pereira (Marataíses)
Tesoureira
Janaína Vieira Mappa
Diretora Cultural
Valéria S.A. Fadini
2
Conselho Editorial
Neise C. Rodrigues, Susan Harris de Melo e
Luciana Cypriano Barreto
Editoração Eletrônica: Bios Ltda - Tel.: 3222-0645
Impressão: GSA Gráfica e Editora - Tel.: 3232-1266
APIES: www.apies.com.br | [email protected]
CNPJ 36.388.056/0001-02
Tiragem: 500 exemplares
THE WHEEL - Março/2013
Mind The Step
Opportunities for professional
development
Susan Melo interviews Roberta Guimarães
Roberta Guimarães is a Projects Manager at the British Council,
where she has worked for six years in the areas of English, Arts and
Education. Although she has graduated in English Language and
Literature, she’s also passionate about education, having taken a
post-graduation course in Social Responsibility and the Third Sector.
Before working for the British Council, she had worked for nine years
at Roberto Marinho Foundation, in the area of Education.
Roberta, can you tell us a
little about your work?
My work involves different
aspects – from building relations
with other ELT organizations
in Brazil to managing
English projects from their
implementation to conclusion,
managing risks, hiring
professionals, estimating costs,
liaising with stakeholders and
most of all, assuring we deliver
high quality projects.
We understand that you
have a project in progress
involving local teachers.
Can you give us an update
on how it’s going?
CONIF (Conselho Nacional das
Instituições da Rede Federal de
Educação Profissional, Científica
e Tecnológica) has established
a partnership with the BC. This
project will ensure that English
language teachers from the
Federal Institutes of Education,
Science and Technology are
equipped with the necessary
skills to teach English to the
Federal Institute students.
Also the same teachers will be
trained to prepare students
for the IELTs exam, which is
necessary in order to participate
THE WHEEL - Março/2013
in the Science without Borders
programme. These teachers
complete the first module of the
TKT Essentials online course on
15 April and, before moving to
modules 2 and 3, they will have
a 25 hour face to face training
in order to consolidate what
they have learnt on the online
course and to put into practice
some of the ideas and teaching
techniques. This teacher training
course will be held in Vitória
for those teachers based in
the South and Southeast and
in Salvador for those from the
North, Mid-west and Northeast
regions.
What opportunities for
continuous development
are available, sponsored
by the British Council, for
teachers in Brazil and
particularly those here in
Espirito Santo?
We engage in partnerships with
institutions and governmental
entities to offer courses (both
face-to-face and online) for
teachers similar to the one
described above. We have a
range of courses which develop
both language and teaching
skills. If you have a group of
teachers in Vitoria willing to take
one of our courses through an
organization that can manage
the process regarding payment
and logistics, we’ll be happy
to provide more information
about the courses and discuss
possibilities. In the future, we
plan to offer online courses on
an individual basis – please visit
our teacher training page at
http://www.teachingenglish.
org.uk/teacher-training.
Regarding BC and APIES
relationship, what can you
say?
One of the British Council aims
is to strengthen relations with
teachers associations in Brazil
and our liaison with APIES has
always been very valuable to us.
We have participated in several
annual meetings (Encontro
APIES) to promote our resources
and to present international
speakers, such as Dr Amritavalli,
Professor of Linguistics at the
English and Foreign Languages
University, Hyderabad, India. We
consider APIES a very close and
important partner and we hope
we can keep working together
in order to contribute to the ES
English teachers professional
development.
3
Looking for Improvement
Coaching for a Better Learning
Verônica Rangel Barreto
enters into a coaching partnership
will usually adopt new perspectives
and be able to better appreciate
opportunities for self-development.
All of this leads to a growth in selfesteem. Finally, the coach must
respect the confidentiality of his
partner. Coaching can bring out the
best in human beings, highlighting
what they can achieve if they
are given the right support. Both
Coaching is a useful tool in
today’s challenging world. Coaching
is a partnership between an
individual or a team and a coach.
First of all the individual identifies
his objectives. Then, through the
process of being coached, he focuses
on the skills he needs to develop
to achieve those objectives. In
professional coaching the individual
begins by leading the conversation
and the coach listens and observes.
Gradually, as the coach begins to
understand the individual’s goals,
he will make observations and ask
appropriate questions. Coaching
looks at where the individual is
now and where he wants to get to.
Between the initial interview and
an individual achieving the goals
he identified, there is a process
in which the two parties meet for
regular coaching sessions. Most
coaches employ an “appreciative
approach” which focuses more on
the positive rather than problems
based on the Positive Psychology by
Milton Erickson. An individual who
individuals and teams can enjoy
an increased level of motivation
after receiving the right coaching.
When individuals are keen to make
progress in their lives, they usually
enjoy being coached and find the
experience extremely useful. So, let
it shine!!
IFES, Vila Velha-ES
[email protected]
ENGLISH FILE third edition
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The best ever
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a real help for
teachers!
• Engaging 12-File structure
• Real-life video content
• Inspiring topics and texts
• iTutor: Student’s Book digital companion
• Blended online and mobile content
• Pronunciation App for your mobile
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Look inside
Mônica Melo
4
[email protected]
(027) 9890.9898
1
THE WHEEL - Março/2013
Discipline And Limits – Confessions
from a Teacher’s Rocky Journey
Marcelo Baccarin
I was compelled to run a series of
workshops and later write this article
because along with other cases I once had
a student called Felipe. Felipe is part of
the first confession I have to make. I was a
classroom teacher for twenty-three years
and had him as my student towards the
end of this period. He was only eleven, but
already an extreme case of misbehavior.
I dreamed about him at night and have
to admit, I stopped teaching him without
ever having turned his behavior into
anything positive.
Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on this,
as there are still too many mixed feelings
and question marks in my head. The only
reason I have mentioned Felipe is to make
it clear, where I’m writing from. Not from
a specialist’s podium with all the answers
to imaginary problems, but from the
standpoint of a teacher who will invariably
dwell forever with a Felipe, or Lucas, or
Wendell or Natália (Yes, the vast majority
is made up of male names!) whose case he
or she could never really solve.
The first thing that caught my eye
as I was investigating this topic was the
fact that teachers tend to see the word
discipline as a more necessary thing than
the layperson does. To the man or woman
on the street, discipline is associated with
strictness and even harshness, whereas
teachers tend to see discipline as a prerequisite for learning. I do too, but the fact
is that when we say to a parent that their
kid is suffering from a discipline problem,
what may go on in their head is “OK, so
my kid is rebelling against authoritarianism
– makes me proud!” This does not make
our job any easier. Parents seem to be
unaware of their kids’ need to learn to sit
down quietly, focus and do as told.
However, I must stress that we are the
professionals and we are the specialists.
When I hear teachers letting off steam
saying that parents don’t care about their
children anymore, I can only feel that
we’re coming to conclusions too fast. In
fact today’s children and teenagers are
much closer to their parents than most
of us ever were. And if there are often
clashes between families and schools,
most of them are not due to indifference,
but to caring too much and caring the
wrong way. Overprotection is much more
common today than it was in the past.
We now live in a society which is
afraid of many things. We’re afraid of
violence, of professional insecurity, of
health problems of being distant to friends
and loved ones. Families are smaller
and more fragile than they used to be.
They break up easily and kids are often
caught up in a turmoil surrounding them.
THE WHEEL - Março/2013
Neuroscience has established that fear
and aggressiveness are both generated in
the same area in the brain. What comes
out as one is usually the other being
awkwardly expressed. Aggressive kids in
our classroom are fearful ones. Aggressive
or overprotective parents are as frightened
as they could be. Therefore we should
understand that many of the discipline
problems that explode in our classrooms
have been fueled up by parents and
students afraid of things real or imaginary.
And then there’s the overused word
“limit”. I say overused, because I have
heard parents, doctors and teachers use
them without being aware of what a
limit actually entails. Another confession
I must make is that as a parent, I have
often been accused of giving my children
no limits. What I have to say in answer is
that I have not given my children the limits
these people would have given theirs, but
certainly give mine.
Let me first tell you what limits are
not. Limits are not rules. They’re not wellestablished, agreed upon and clear cut.
They are not right or wrong. They are just
limits. Limits are the border of what you as
a care-giver feel will do a child harm and
therefore should draw the line. They are
a gut feeling, an intuition. The other day
I took my oldest child to an amusement
park ad we went into different rides that
were either suggested by me or him. When
he asked me to take him onto the Ferris
wheel, I looked at the thing, wondered
and wondered and just didn’t feel
comfortable about it. That
was my limit. That’s where
I needed to draw the
line. I said “no”, he was
obviously frustrated,
cried, insisted and
nagged but gave in.
Deep inside he knew
I was doing that
because I love him
deeply and would
never allow him to run
unnecessary risks.
Teachers should do
the same. Use their
intuition and
whenever a
yellow
light
flashes on, draw the line and say “No”,
“You must” or “We will”. They will insist,
cry, threaten, nag, pout or slam doors.
Expect that. And unless things get
seriously out of hand, let it happen. Let
the student show that he/she is angry
at you. This doesn’t last long and if you
bear in mind that your objective has
been reached, that is establishing a limit,
you may even be able to show some
compassion. I promise you this student
and others will in the end show great
respect and affection for you. They know
when someone is doing something just
because that someone cares.
Limits are therefore synonymous to
caring. If you care enough, you have the
courage to take the risk and say “No”.
Youngsters sense that and if your feeling is
true, they’ll gather around you and make
you into a role-model. But remember –
don’t try to show who the boss is. Don’t
be rude. Che Guevara’s motto Hay que
endurecers e pero sin perder la ternura
jamás ,applies well to your relationship
with teenagers. You will at times need to
play a hard game, but don’t ever lose your
tenderness.
One way of staying tender is to use
humor yet firmly stand your position.
Teens will ask you to have a fun lesson…
tell them you think grammar is fun and
that they will therefore have lots of fun
i.e. grammar. Students ask you not to
give then homework. Pretend to accept
the suggestion and tell them that you will
instead give them home-exercises, and so
on.
Whatever you do, respect your limits
and act before things get on your
nerves. Teachers who get annoyed
often do something foolish. And have
the courage to act early because
ultimately this will benefit the
students themselves. I honestly feel
that despite all the negative things
we hear, we’re moving towards
a society that is more caring and
affective. This is what students expect
from us… nothing less.
Marcelo Baccarin
Macmillan
Academic
Consultant
5
On this page, we share with you activities
our teachers experienced.
Some Drama Experiences
in the Classroom
Leila Nucci, from Summer House, sent us an activity for
elementary students to introduce the Present Perfect with already
and yet.
ROUTINE with already and yet
By Valéria Septímio Alves Fadini, Ifes
This presentation aimed to share 3 different experiences,
using the same drama activity in the classroom. First,
some concepts of drama as a teaching technique were
presented, as well as some advantages of using it in
the ELT classroom. Then, the audience was invited to
think about this topic and share their own experiences
with one another. Finally, an adaptation of the activity
“Romeo and Juliet in One Hour” was presented, followed
by a reflective evaluation of its use in 3 different Ifes1
groups of students.
The article with the original activity was written by Judy
Monthie-Doyum and Gülay Öztürk, and can be found in
English Teaching Forum, Vol. 44, n. 4, 2006. p. 34-39.
1 Instituto Federal do Espírito Santo
Jane gets up very early every morning. She does a lot of
things in the morning as a routine. Some things she has already
done (•) and others she hasn’t done yet (o).
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
) eat breakfast_________________________________________
) make coffee__________________________________________
) dry her hair___________________________________________
) read the newspaper___________________________________
) watch the news on TV_________________________________
) take a shower________________________________________
) get up_______________________________________________
) read her emails_______________________________________
) turn on her computer_________________________________
) call the office_________________________________________
) water the plants______________________________________
Student A and student B
Look look at the list below and get ready to alternately ask
each other if he/she has already done that today.
Add 2 (or more) actions of your own to ask your partner.
Fun activity
Paulo de Paula sent us a fun activity. Try it!
An amazing Sentence in English!
“I do not know where family
doctors acquired illegibly perplexing
handwriting; nevertheless, extraordinary
pharmaceutical intellectuality
counterbalancing indecipherability
transcendentalizes intercommunication’s
incomprehensibleness.
The person who made this sentence
must be a vocabulary GENIUS.
Reason
This is the sentence where the first
word is one letter long, the second word
is two letters; the third word is three
letter long... the eight word is eight
letters long and so on... the twentieth
letter is twenty letters long!
6
THE WHEEL - Março/2013
F O R T H C O M I N G
E V E N T S
Letters
March 22, 2013
Apies - Local Presentations
IFES – Vitória – ES
Não poderia deixar de manifestar meu orgulho de pertencer
a APIES e ver que temos verdadeiros “OURO” na casa...
Parabéns pelas apresentações da última sexta. Todas 03
M A R A V I L H O S A S!!! Super interessantes e bem relevantes
para o prof. de inglês(ou não).
Infelizmente a época , fim de ano letivo, tem provado que
não é um bom período para atrair os professores. Estariam
demasiadamente cansados??? Temos de pensar numa
forma de atrairmos mais gente ou mudarmos a data de tais
apresentações. De qualquer forma sugiro que as 03 apresentem
no grande evento de Setembro.
Profª Carla Renata Natalli Machado
Professora de Língua Inglesa
Coordenadoria de Códigos e Linguagens, IFES
June 14, 2013-03-01
Apies – Local presentations
June 27, 28, 2013
V Encontro Nacional – ABEHTE
UFES – Vitória, ES
September 19 – 21, 2013
XXIII Encontro da Apies
Vitória, ES
September, 2013
Braz-Tesol
São Paulo
November 22, 2013
Apies – Confraternização
It was wonderful to get into my hands today the two copies
of The Wheel, and the two beautiful photographs with you
and the group. I sat for a few moments looking at them and
reliving memories!
The reporting was of the event very detailed and well-done,
and will serve as a valuable point of reference for all of us
who attended the event. Thank you and the entire team for
the sincere efforts which have gone into the making of this
newsletter. I am a bit sorry to say that in India, we are very
good at organizing celebratory events, but once the event is
over, we run out of energy completely and fail to document
and report it the way you have done. Perhaps we can model
ourselves to some extent on your work!
R. Amritavalli
Professor, Dept. of Linguistics
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad, India
Recebi The Wheel, muito obrigada! Adorei a entrevista.
Roberta Guimarães | Projects Manager
British Council
Botafogo - Rio de Janeiro – RJ
Recebi The Wheel ontem. Gostei muito, obrigada!
Leila Santos
Assessora Cultural / Cultural Affairs Specialist
Consulado Geral dos EUA / U.S. Consulate General
20030-020 Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Recebi “The Wheel”. Muito obrigado pela lembrança. Vou
deixar na sala dos professores da FALEM para todos terem
acesso a “newsletter”. Mostrei para Cristina e ela adorou. Vc
está ótima na foto.
Marcos Araújo
Recebi o The Wheel. Que maravilha! Thanks a lot.
UFPA
Rejane Brito
Unimontes, MG
Thank you very much indeed for the complimentary copies
of The Wheel and for the warm welcome at the APIES XXII
Encounter. It was memorable! So many teachers eager to
learn and share… Congratulations! Really impressive group of
teachers.
Nilton Varela Hitotuzi, Dr.
Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará
Instituto de Ciências da Educação
THE WHEEL - Março/2013
The copy of the Wheel has just arrived. I am so glad to
know that your 22nd conference has been better than ever.
I do congratulate you. As usual it is full of interest, and I do
wish that I had been able to attend one of your Apies, though
I suppose I would not have understood quite a lot of it. The
Indian professor sounds very interesting , and so practical. All
teachers must know how great can be the difference between
what they have been teaching and what their pupils have
actually learned.
Christine Bryant,
Leatherhead, UK
7
The Relevance of Identifying
“The Teacher” in you
Andréa Brotto
According to many
researchers there are lots of
reasons why people choose a
career. It is not different when
it comes to the decision to be a
teacher.
For Turnbull, teaching, like
any other profession, requires
specific intellectual and scientific
knowledge, skills and aptitudes.
She says that the complexities of the 21st century have
had a great impact on Education. Whereas the concepts
and principles of the working society used to form the
basis of a teacher’s educational background, nowadays it
is the information and technology society, very different in
many aspects.
Researchers such as Saviane, Kuenzer, Oliveira, Harvey
have stated that new concepts, like the flexibility of
today`s market, influence more and more educational
models, introducing ideas such as abilities and
competences, focusing on the formation of new workers
for a new market. The student’s profile is now guided
by the demands of this new market that rejects former
models, thus affecting the main purposes of Education.
Students’ priority is how much they can earn, they want a
job that pays well.
What does this have to do with us teachers? Is
teaching an attractive profession nowadays? One of the
consequences of this new political, social, economic and
educational model is the devaluation of professionals
who work with education, affecting the choices of new
workers and the way learners see their teachers.
The market wants to impose on Education the
formation of a professional who furthers the market’s
interests alone. That is where the paradox lies – educating
a person goes far beyond the professional life.
In the face of these facts it is crucial that teachers
of the English language are conscious of their role in
Education. So Gadotti, Antunes, Rayment, Turnbull and
many other educators have been debating what it means
to be a teacher today.
The behavior of English teachers today often
contradicts the principles of the communicative approach
defended by the most important linguists and text books
writers such as Jack Richards, Andy Curtis, David Nunan,
Kathi Bailey, Ben Goldenstein, Herbert Puchta, Jeremy
Harmmer, Jim Scrivener, Michael Mackarthy, and many
others. Teachers are so individualistic that they seem not
to realize that their practice reflects the old view that
the teacher is the center of the teaching and learning
processes; what they know, the way they do things is
unquestionable and enough. There is no need to continue
their education, as do other professionals. They sell their
work in exchange for money and that is all that counts.
Unwilling to improve their practice, their knowledge,
and their skills implies that they don’t care about their
8
practice. For these teachers nothing is satisfactory;
working conditions are not good enough, the salary is not
good enough, the students are not good enough….
I’m not saying that it’s not important to fight for
better working conditions and everything we believe to be
right and people need to understand that the difficulties
teachers face are a result of the social and economic
conjunctures. However, these factors cannot influence our
choice to be good teachers.
What these kinds of teachers do not realize is that
by not considering the importance of balancing their
personality and beliefs in such a changing and more
and more capitalist society may cause them not to be
seen as competent and effective teachers in the eyes
of experienced educators and they are always at risk of
compromising learners` development.
Gadotti in his book Boniteza de um Sonho: Ensinar
e aprender com sentido, supports by the ideas of Paulo
Freire, Angela Antunes, Ruben Alves, and the great
philosophers such as Socrates, and gives us some tips
on becoming real teachers in post modern society. He
recommends we:
• be critical about our practice
• select relevant information and mediate meaning
• learn with emotion and teach with joy
• motivate the wish to learn (learners usually want
to know things, but do not want to learn them) by
enjoying learning and loving the learner
• be ethical, which means to have ideals, dreams that
lead to engagement and commitment. Teachers
who are not ethical in this sense, mechanize the
teaching process and dehumanize Education
• dare to educate to transform, to promote
autonomy, to consider people, their culture, their
way of living, their identity, for we human are
beings in permanent construction.
• understand that it is fundamental to keep learning
so that you can keep teaching.
By understanding the broad meaning of being a
teacher and the many opportunities it can bring to a
professional`s life we should stand up for this cause
of influencing and motivating people to choose to
be teachers because it is worthwhile. In this lies the
importance of identifying the teacher in you so that you
can improve those aspects which may be hidden by the
stress and the pressures that surround this profession.
For us who are teachers and deal with the formation of
teachers, it is essential to be aware of the teachers we are,
so that we can identify the teachers in the others and help
them with their choices.
Andréa Duarte Aguieiras Brotto
Diretora Pedagógica - Ceicom
THE WHEEL - Março/2013