Questões de Concurso

It’s no surprise that research shows a very strong relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. After all, we need to be able to understand the words that we encounter when reading in order to understand what we’re reading. As Grabe and Stoller so succinctly stated back in 1997, “reading improves vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary knowledge supports reading development” (p.119). It’s a reciprocal relationship: the larger your vocabulary, the easier it is to read, and the more you read, the more your vocabulary increases.

So how do we get learners to increase their vocabulary to make reading easier (and more pleasurable!)? Research tells us that to read with adequate comprehension,95 – 98% of the words in the text need to be known (Nation 2001: 147). But what does it mean to know a word when a single word can have many diff erent senses/meanings? Take a simple word like green. Now put yourself in your student’s shoes. Imagine first encountering this word in a story about someone who lost their green jacket. Then in a diff erent context you read about someone who was green – instead of a color this could mean that the person was feeling sick, or envious, or a novice, or eco-conscious. Not so simple, is it?

We also know that reading texts on diff erent topics increases the chances that our students will encounter diff erent words and come across new meanings of known words. But how can we get them to do this consistently? One eff ective way is to combine “intensive” and “extensive” reading practice. This approach can both fine tune reading skills and increase vocabulary knowledge, all while making reading more pleasurable.

Intensive reading activities typically take place in class and involve diff erent ways of interacting with a text. Examples include timed readings, scanning for information, or skimming to get the gist of the text before diving in to read.

Newspaper articles off er great resources for scanning activities since they often include dates and names. If your school has a campus paper (print or online), use it as a resource for scanning activities. Rather than focusing on just one article, have your students scan the entire school paper for when or where certain events are taking place. This has the added benefit of being directly relevant to their daily lives.

I’m also a fan of timed readings using short texts (200 – 400 words) that cover a wide range of topics. These increase the opportunity for students to encounter more diff erent words and to see words they already “know” in diff erent contexts and with diff erent meanings (as our example above of the word green).

Extensive reading usually happens outside the classroom, but there are benefits to including a dedicated time for this type of reading in class. When I teach reading, I always have 10 – 15 minutes of silent sustained reading as part of class. During that time everyone, including me, reads something of their choice. I set a timer so that we don’t lose track of time while reading.

With extensive reading, students choose texts of high interest to read every day for a predetermined amount of time. It’s important that students are reading for pleasure during this time and NOT reading textbooks. Graded readers or young adult literature are great resources for extensive reading.

You can help motivate your students by keeping track of their reading. Here are two suggestions:

1. Reading logs – Have your students keep reading logs of how much time they spend reading each day. They should also write a sentence or two about what they read.

2. Reading progress tracker – Have a place in your classroom to show their reading progress. For example, if students commit to reading 15 minutes a day, create a board showing student progress in 15-minute increments. As students accumulate reading time, you can have benchmarks (e.g., an hour, five hours) for when students receive diff erent rewards, such as a certificate, time for an in-class game, or even a free book.

Combining intensive and extensive reading activities has long been a recipe for success in my classrooms. I have no doubt that it will help you help your students become more successful, and happier, readers, too.

Adapted from https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2025/03/13/readingand-vocabulary-a-recipe-for-success/ Acesso em 23/07/2025

It’s no surprise that research shows a very strong relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. After all, we need to be able to understand the words that we encounter when reading in order to understand what we’re reading. As Grabe and Stoller so succinctly stated back in 1997, “reading improves vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary knowledge supports reading development” (p.119). It’s a reciprocal relationship: the larger your vocabulary, the easier it is to read, and the more you read, the more your vocabulary increases.

So how do we get learners to increase their vocabulary to make reading easier (and more pleasurable!)? Research tells us that to read with adequate comprehension,95 – 98% of the words in the text need to be known (Nation 2001: 147). But what does it mean to know a word when a single word can have many diff erent senses/meanings? Take a simple word like green. Now put yourself in your student’s shoes. Imagine first encountering this word in a story about someone who lost their green jacket. Then in a diff erent context you read about someone who was green – instead of a color this could mean that the person was feeling sick, or envious, or a novice, or eco-conscious. Not so simple, is it?

We also know that reading texts on diff erent topics increases the chances that our students will encounter diff erent words and come across new meanings of known words. But how can we get them to do this consistently? One eff ective way is to combine “intensive” and “extensive” reading practice. This approach can both fine tune reading skills and increase vocabulary knowledge, all while making reading more pleasurable.

Intensive reading activities typically take place in class and involve diff erent ways of interacting with a text. Examples include timed readings, scanning for information, or skimming to get the gist of the text before diving in to read.

Newspaper articles off er great resources for scanning activities since they often include dates and names. If your school has a campus paper (print or online), use it as a resource for scanning activities. Rather than focusing on just one article, have your students scan the entire school paper for when or where certain events are taking place. This has the added benefit of being directly relevant to their daily lives.

I’m also a fan of timed readings using short texts (200 – 400 words) that cover a wide range of topics. These increase the opportunity for students to encounter more diff erent words and to see words they already “know” in diff erent contexts and with diff erent meanings (as our example above of the word green).

Extensive reading usually happens outside the classroom, but there are benefits to including a dedicated time for this type of reading in class. When I teach reading, I always have 10 – 15 minutes of silent sustained reading as part of class. During that time everyone, including me, reads something of their choice. I set a timer so that we don’t lose track of time while reading.

With extensive reading, students choose texts of high interest to read every day for a predetermined amount of time. It’s important that students are reading for pleasure during this time and NOT reading textbooks. Graded readers or young adult literature are great resources for extensive reading.

You can help motivate your students by keeping track of their reading. Here are two suggestions:

1. Reading logs – Have your students keep reading logs of how much time they spend reading each day. They should also write a sentence or two about what they read.

2. Reading progress tracker – Have a place in your classroom to show their reading progress. For example, if students commit to reading 15 minutes a day, create a board showing student progress in 15-minute increments. As students accumulate reading time, you can have benchmarks (e.g., an hour, five hours) for when students receive diff erent rewards, such as a certificate, time for an in-class game, or even a free book.

Combining intensive and extensive reading activities has long been a recipe for success in my classrooms. I have no doubt that it will help you help your students become more successful, and happier, readers, too.

Adapted from https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2025/03/13/readingand-vocabulary-a-recipe-for-success/ Acesso em 23/07/2025

The production of the BNCC (Base Nacional Comum Curricular) gave rise to a series of discussions on the role of school systems in Brazil. A number of educators and researchers expressed their concerns about the homogenizing perspective reflected and refracted by the document. In other words, in a country as socially and culturally diverse as Brazil is, how might an educational instrument outline “essential types of knowledge” for students, irrespective of their personal, regional, and local specificities?

On the other hand, the document also incorporates a discourse which values peripheral contributions. In doing so, it adopts a more overtly progressive tone, which accentuates the importance of diversity. Szundy, in her examination of the BNCC’s English Language component, underscores how the document subscribes to the notion of ideological literacy. The author believes that the BNCC’s introduction of an intercultural axis brings the document closer to an ideological stance which “understands languages as resources that put us in contact with otherness, with plural and equally valid ways of being and of being in the world.” A bit further, the author argues that “BNCC may urge us to situate teaching within the realm of decolonial practices”.

We could be led to think that BNCC, by laying emphasis on the situated nature of learners’ knowledge, reinforces democratic ideals and seeks to promote unrestricted access to critical education. This interpretation, albeit problematic, seems less harmful than the enunciation of universal, “essential knowledge.” However, it is also Szundy who, in her analysis of the competences and skills associated with the teaching of English in the Brazilian 6th grade, encounters an autonomous view of reading: “The use of verbs such as formulate, identify and locate in these three reading skills is at odds with the formative and political understanding of the English language found in the component’s introduction, as well as with the document’s overall apprehension of the lingua franca concept (…)”.

BNCC’s discursive and ideological diversity refracts a myriad of epistemological and axiological contradictions, illuminating a clash between ideological systems. Amidst such conflicts, however, we may find openings for the creation of new curricula. This point is repeatedly made in Szundy’s analysis as she dwells on the skills and competences outlined by the BNCC for the 9th grade in Middle Education. In such descriptors, the use of verbs such as debate, analyse and discuss could suggest the development of more critical and political linguistic practices. Yet, in Szundy’s own words: “In BNCC, the English language’s status as a lingua franca (…) is designed to assist students in developing the skills and competences they need to become selfentrepreneurs and to participate in the global world without ever calling its macro and micro structures into question; without ever examining how these very structures operate to keep huge swaths of the population at bay, deprived of any access to the commodities of an utopian global village.”

BNCC, a normative document, prescribes a conditioning of students’ reading practices. The underlying pedagogical conception assumes the existence of a Cartesian reader, equipped with enough autonomy to identify the precise routes laid down by authors, as if fruition automatically conferred such abilities. This project is incongruous with the nature of language itself, i.e., with the fact that meaning emerges through socially and historically situated contact with otherness (even when that otherness is materialized in texts). Here, the notion of ideological sign comes in handy once more, since meanings only arise in concrete communicative situations, where they are imbued with existing social values.

Internet: <doi.org> (adapted).

The production of the BNCC (Base Nacional Comum Curricular) gave rise to a series of discussions on the role of school systems in Brazil. A number of educators and researchers expressed their concerns about the homogenizing perspective reflected and refracted by the document. In other words, in a country as socially and culturally diverse as Brazil is, how might an educational instrument outline “essential types of knowledge” for students, irrespective of their personal, regional, and local specificities?

On the other hand, the document also incorporates a discourse which values peripheral contributions. In doing so, it adopts a more overtly progressive tone, which accentuates the importance of diversity. Szundy, in her examination of the BNCC’s English Language component, underscores how the document subscribes to the notion of ideological literacy. The author believes that the BNCC’s introduction of an intercultural axis brings the document closer to an ideological stance which “understands languages as resources that put us in contact with otherness, with plural and equally valid ways of being and of being in the world.” A bit further, the author argues that “BNCC may urge us to situate teaching within the realm of decolonial practices”.

We could be led to think that BNCC, by laying emphasis on the situated nature of learners’ knowledge, reinforces democratic ideals and seeks to promote unrestricted access to critical education. This interpretation, albeit problematic, seems less harmful than the enunciation of universal, “essential knowledge.” However, it is also Szundy who, in her analysis of the competences and skills associated with the teaching of English in the Brazilian 6th grade, encounters an autonomous view of reading: “The use of verbs such as formulate, identify and locate in these three reading skills is at odds with the formative and political understanding of the English language found in the component’s introduction, as well as with the document’s overall apprehension of the lingua franca concept (…)”.

BNCC’s discursive and ideological diversity refracts a myriad of epistemological and axiological contradictions, illuminating a clash between ideological systems. Amidst such conflicts, however, we may find openings for the creation of new curricula. This point is repeatedly made in Szundy’s analysis as she dwells on the skills and competences outlined by the BNCC for the 9th grade in Middle Education. In such descriptors, the use of verbs such as debate, analyse and discuss could suggest the development of more critical and political linguistic practices. Yet, in Szundy’s own words: “In BNCC, the English language’s status as a lingua franca (…) is designed to assist students in developing the skills and competences they need to become selfentrepreneurs and to participate in the global world without ever calling its macro and micro structures into question; without ever examining how these very structures operate to keep huge swaths of the population at bay, deprived of any access to the commodities of an utopian global village.”

BNCC, a normative document, prescribes a conditioning of students’ reading practices. The underlying pedagogical conception assumes the existence of a Cartesian reader, equipped with enough autonomy to identify the precise routes laid down by authors, as if fruition automatically conferred such abilities. This project is incongruous with the nature of language itself, i.e., with the fact that meaning emerges through socially and historically situated contact with otherness (even when that otherness is materialized in texts). Here, the notion of ideological sign comes in handy once more, since meanings only arise in concrete communicative situations, where they are imbued with existing social values.

Internet: <doi.org> (adapted).

The production of the BNCC (Base Nacional Comum Curricular) gave rise to a series of discussions on the role of school systems in Brazil. A number of educators and researchers expressed their concerns about the homogenizing perspective reflected and refracted by the document. In other words, in a country as socially and culturally diverse as Brazil is, how might an educational instrument outline “essential types of knowledge” for students, irrespective of their personal, regional, and local specificities?

On the other hand, the document also incorporates a discourse which values peripheral contributions. In doing so, it adopts a more overtly progressive tone, which accentuates the importance of diversity. Szundy, in her examination of the BNCC’s English Language component, underscores how the document subscribes to the notion of ideological literacy. The author believes that the BNCC’s introduction of an intercultural axis brings the document closer to an ideological stance which “understands languages as resources that put us in contact with otherness, with plural and equally valid ways of being and of being in the world.” A bit further, the author argues that “BNCC may urge us to situate teaching within the realm of decolonial practices”.

We could be led to think that BNCC, by laying emphasis on the situated nature of learners’ knowledge, reinforces democratic ideals and seeks to promote unrestricted access to critical education. This interpretation, albeit problematic, seems less harmful than the enunciation of universal, “essential knowledge.” However, it is also Szundy who, in her analysis of the competences and skills associated with the teaching of English in the Brazilian 6th grade, encounters an autonomous view of reading: “The use of verbs such as formulate, identify and locate in these three reading skills is at odds with the formative and political understanding of the English language found in the component’s introduction, as well as with the document’s overall apprehension of the lingua franca concept (…)”.

BNCC’s discursive and ideological diversity refracts a myriad of epistemological and axiological contradictions, illuminating a clash between ideological systems. Amidst such conflicts, however, we may find openings for the creation of new curricula. This point is repeatedly made in Szundy’s analysis as she dwells on the skills and competences outlined by the BNCC for the 9th grade in Middle Education. In such descriptors, the use of verbs such as debate, analyse and discuss could suggest the development of more critical and political linguistic practices. Yet, in Szundy’s own words: “In BNCC, the English language’s status as a lingua franca (…) is designed to assist students in developing the skills and competences they need to become selfentrepreneurs and to participate in the global world without ever calling its macro and micro structures into question; without ever examining how these very structures operate to keep huge swaths of the population at bay, deprived of any access to the commodities of an utopian global village.”

BNCC, a normative document, prescribes a conditioning of students’ reading practices. The underlying pedagogical conception assumes the existence of a Cartesian reader, equipped with enough autonomy to identify the precise routes laid down by authors, as if fruition automatically conferred such abilities. This project is incongruous with the nature of language itself, i.e., with the fact that meaning emerges through socially and historically situated contact with otherness (even when that otherness is materialized in texts). Here, the notion of ideological sign comes in handy once more, since meanings only arise in concrete communicative situations, where they are imbued with existing social values.

Internet: <doi.org> (adapted).