Questões de Concurso

English learning in Brazil

Statutory and the National Curricular Guidelines make the teaching of a ......................................... language at elementary and high school ................................... . However, teachers and experts acknowledge that English teaching - both public and private - is unable to provide students with a usable level of English. They identify similar reasons to those that cause other problems in basic education: the lack of language teaching equipment and over-filled classrooms.

There are also fundamental problems with the amount of time set aside for teaching English and it is hard to find adequately qualified teachers. In these conditions English teaching is reduced to the basic rules of grammar, reading short texts and learning to pass multiple choice exams for university admittance. Even government officials admit that English teaching in basic education has many shortcomings. The National Curricular Guidelines (which outline the curriculum for each subject) are well articulated, but cannot be applied fully in practice. Officials have pointed out that there are no language labs in schools as there is little funding available for them.

They feel that this limits oral communication, a problem that many educators have argued is exacerbated by the large number of students in the classroom. Government representatives and teachers alike have bemoaned the poor quality of language teachers working in basic language education. They argue that a bachelor degree in literature coupled with a teaching license does not prepare a language teacher for the reality of the classroom and to effectively teach the language. There is a widely held belief that these teachers are unlikely to have actually had the means to visit English speaking countries and lack the communication practice required to develop the command of a language. Experts have argued that it would be helpful to send teachers to travel to English speaking countries.

The shortcomings of language teaching in Brazil have resulted in a shortage of professionals who can speak English well. That limits contact between professionals, clients and suppliers and restricts international business opportunities. This affects the whole country - if Brazil is to function fully in the global arena it will need professionals better equipped with English.

https://www.britishcouncil.org.br

Leia o texto a seguir e responda de acordo com ele, as questões 2, 3 e 4.

‘It’s the only way to combat single-

use plastics’: Birmingham’s zero-

waste supermarket

Zero-

waste shopping promises to cut down on wasteful p ackaging and eradicate single-

use plastics from the weekly grocery shop. But can we really be weaned off our addiction to the ease a nd convenience offered by traditional supermarkets, with their pots of chilled products and plastic-

wrapped packs of fruit?

Jeanette Wong and partner Tom Pell think we can. In June 2018, they opened the Clean Kilo, a zerowaste vegetarian supermarket in Digbeth,

Birmingham where shoppers buy in bulk, bringing in their own containers and filling the m with everything from rice,

pulses and pasta to yoghurt, butter and milk.

The idea is to keep packaging to a minimum, so ev erything is scoopable, pourable and refillable. You c an squeeze your own orange juice, get ice-cream in cones and find a selection of fresh fruit and vegetab les. There are eco-

friendly cleaning products and personal care items. Moisturiser and body wash are sourced locally from nearby Bournville, and the contents of the five-

litre containers can be pumped into shoppers’ vess els. Washing up liquid, detergent and cleaners are dispensed from stainless steel containers into custo mers’ bottles, while laundry and dishwasher powder s are scooped into their containers. There’s not a pi ece of single-use plastic in sight.

Fonte: https://www.theguardian.com/productinnovation-with-henkel/2019/sep/24/its-the-onlyway-to-combat-single-use-plastics-birminghamszero-waste-supermarket Acesso em: 08/Out/2019

Questions 37 and 38 refer to the text below

Listening challenges for English language learners

There are many difficulties an individual may face in understanding a talk, lecture or conversation in a second language (and sometimes even in their first language). The speaker, the situation and the listener can all be the cause of these difficulties.

Contributing factors include the speaker talking quickly, background noise, a lack of visual clues (such as on the telephone), the listener’s limited vocabulary, a lack of knowledge of the topic, and an inability to distinguish individual sounds.

While the challenges posed by the speaker or the situation may be out of the listener’s hands, there are a few skills or 'strategies' that English learners can use to help them along

.