PAPER:
Playful
strategies in teaching Portuguese
By Nuno
Guimarães
10.12.2011
The binomial relation of learning versus
teaching in the way to bring extra motivation to students made me rethink
teaching and learning strategies continually.
I am a teacher that is aware of and interested in how to make teaching
practice more effective, and that reflects upon the content and tools that
contribute to a full and harmonious development of education. This means
considering teaching strategies that contribute to intellectual development,
among others, and foster the development of skills and language skills in the
target language, never forgetting the individual interest of each student. We
must attribute an important emphasis to playful activities and this can be used
during the usual process of the lectures, however, it is best done by mainly
creating parallel projects where the students can participate in a process that
they consider like a pleasant hobby.
I believe, like Stephen Krashen, professor
emeritus at the University
of Southern California
that the central element of learning a language is when it occurs naturally,
just as the acquisition of mother tongue, under appropriate conditions. Foreign
language skills are not taught, studied or memorized, but developed gradually, assimilated
and, naturally, in real communication, they are the result of human society being
in an environment of authentic foreign culture. In this way, for each text of
the adopted book presented in lectures, I try to link them with the reality of Portugal,
in almost all of them showing short movies where students can have an authentic
contact with the culture, environment, geography, history, music and
principally they can listen to Portuguese people speaking Portuguese.
According to Krashen, an important factor in
foreign language acquisition is the regulation of the affective filter, which
must be managed by the teacher. Situations of acquisition where the affective filter
is low mean that a student is prepared to receive, seek and produce a greater amount
of work, are more favourable to the process. In my opinion this is one of the
key factors of the success of our task. For a positive environment to learn, it
is necessary to have motivation, low anxiety and self-confidence.
Therefore, when they are well-directed and
having clear goals for the learner, it is possible to see playful strategies as
an effective aid in reducing anxiety in the environment of the classroom,
working on the regulation of the affective filter and thus reducing the
frustrations which a foreign language learner is likely to have in the learning
process.
My presentation aims at addressing some of the
strategies I use in class, but mainly presents the testimonies of students who
have become managers of various projects implemented during the process of
learning Portuguese as well as those that are still in development, in some
cases even after the termination their Portuguese language courses. It is my
pleasure and pride to have with me:
Giedrė
Šadeikaitė, Margarita Kornejeva and Diana Jablonskaja – poetry
Greta
Toločkaitė – cinema and journalism
Donata
Garliauskaitė – theatre
Aistė
Tomkevičiūtė – jazz
Tadas Žižiūnas - music
Aušra
Mankevičiūtė – culture and cuisine
