Questões para Concursos

Read the text to answer question. Based on theoretical, experimental, and experiential knowledge, teachers and teacher educators have expressed their dissatisfaction with method in different ways. Studies clearly demonstrate that, even as the methodological band played on, practicing teachers have been marching to a different drum. In this sense, the post method condition is established as a timely response. It signifies interrelated attributes. First and foremost, it signifies a search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative method. While alternative methods are primarily products of top-down processes, alternatives to method are mainly products of bottom-up processes. In practical terms, this means that we need to refigure the relationship between the theorizer and the practitioner of language teaching. If the concept of method authorizes theorizers to centralize pedagogic decision-making, the postmethod condition enables practitioners to generate location-specific, classroom-oriented innovative strategies. Secondly, the postmethod condition signifies teacher autonomy. The conventional concept of method “overlooks the fund of experience and tacit knowledge about teaching which the teachers already have by virtue of their lives as students” (Freeman, 1991). The postmethod condition, however, recognizes the teachers’ potential to know not only how to teach but also how to act autonomously within the academic and administrative constraints imposed by institutions, curricula, and textbooks. It also promotes the ability of teachers to know how to develop a critical approach in order to self-observe, self-analyze, and self-evaluate their own teaching practice with a view to effecting desired changes. (B. Kumaravadivelu, Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching . Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2003. Adaptado)

Read the text to answer question. Based on theoretical, experimental, and experiential knowledge, teachers and teacher educators have expressed their dissatisfaction with method in different ways. Studies clearly demonstrate that, even as the methodological band played on, practicing teachers have been marching to a different drum. In this sense, the post method condition is established as a timely response. It signifies interrelated attributes. First and foremost, it signifies a search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative method. While alternative methods are primarily products of top-down processes, alternatives to method are mainly products of bottom-up processes. In practical terms, this means that we need to refigure the relationship between the theorizer and the practitioner of language teaching. If the concept of method authorizes theorizers to centralize pedagogic decision-making, the postmethod condition enables practitioners to generate location-specific, classroom-oriented innovative strategies. Secondly, the postmethod condition signifies teacher autonomy. The conventional concept of method “overlooks the fund of experience and tacit knowledge about teaching which the teachers already have by virtue of their lives as students” (Freeman, 1991). The postmethod condition, however, recognizes the teachers’ potential to know not only how to teach but also how to act autonomously within the academic and administrative constraints imposed by institutions, curricula, and textbooks. It also promotes the ability of teachers to know how to develop a critical approach in order to self-observe, self-analyze, and self-evaluate their own teaching practice with a view to effecting desired changes. (B. Kumaravadivelu, Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching . Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2003. Adaptado)

Read the text to answer question. Making the Case: The Importance of Listening in Language Learning It has taken many years to bring the language teaching profession around to realizing the importance of listening in second and foreign language learning. As observed by Rivers, long an advocate for listening comprehension, “Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is said is comprehended by another person”. Teaching the comprehension of spoken speech is therefore of primary importance if the communication aim is to be reached” (1966, pp. 196, 204). The reasons for the nearly total neglect of listening are difficult to assess, but as Morley notes, “Perhaps an assumption that listening is a reflex, a little like breathing - listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in one’s native language - has masked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a non-native language” (1972, p. vii). In reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life. On average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write. (Joan Morley,. In: Marianne Celce-Murcia, (Ed.). Teaching English as a second or foreign language . Boston: Heinle&Heinle-Thomson, 2001. Adaptado)

Read the text to answer question. Making the Case: The Importance of Listening in Language Learning It has taken many years to bring the language teaching profession around to realizing the importance of listening in second and foreign language learning. As observed by Rivers, long an advocate for listening comprehension, “Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is said is comprehended by another person”. Teaching the comprehension of spoken speech is therefore of primary importance if the communication aim is to be reached” (1966, pp. 196, 204). The reasons for the nearly total neglect of listening are difficult to assess, but as Morley notes, “Perhaps an assumption that listening is a reflex, a little like breathing - listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in one’s native language - has masked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a non-native language” (1972, p. vii). In reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life. On average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write. (Joan Morley,. In: Marianne Celce-Murcia, (Ed.). Teaching English as a second or foreign language . Boston: Heinle&Heinle-Thomson, 2001. Adaptado)

What's the Difference Between a Solstice and an Equinox? You may know that the solstices and equinoxes signal the changing of the seasons on Earth, but do you remember which is which? Are they just different names for the same thing? Actually, a solstice and an equinox are sort of opposites. The seasons on Earth change because the planet is slightly tilted on its axis as it travels around the Sun. This means different points on Earth receive more or less sunlight at different times of year. If Earth were not tilted, the Sun would always appear to be directly above the Equator, the amount of light a given location receives would be fixed, and there would be no seasons. There also would be no need to mark equinoxes or solstices. The two solstices happen in June (20 or 21) and December (21 or 22). These are the days when the Sun’s path in the sky is the farthest north or south from the Equator. A hemisphere’s winter solstice is the shortest day of the year and its summer solstice the year’s longest. In the Northern Hemisphere the June solstice marks the start of summer: this is when the North Pole is tilted closest to the Sun, and the Sun’s rays are directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer. The December solstice marks the start of winter: at this point the South Pole is tilted closest to the Sun, and the Sun’s rays are directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn. (In the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are reversed.) The equinoxes happen in March (about March 21) and September (about September 23). These are the days when the Sun is exactly above the Equator, which makes day and night of equal length. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Adaptation.

Hanji Hanji is the name of the handmade paper produced in ancient Korea from the 1st century BCE. Made from mulberry trees, its exceptional quality made it a successful export, and it was widely used not only for writing but also for interior walls and everyday objects, such as fans and umbrellas. Hanji, famed throughout Asia for its whiteness, texture, and strength, is still made today in specialized Korean workshops. Initially Korean paper was made using hemp fiber, but the highest quality hanji was, for many centuries, made only from the pith of mulberry trees ( tak in Korean, Latin: Broussonetia papyrifera ). The toughness of hanji meant that it was ideally suited for use in printing presses that used blocks made from magnolia wood, which had been soaked and boiled in saltwater and then dried for several years before use. Each block was 24x4x64cm and carried 23 lines of vertical text on each side. These were then covered in ink and paper was pressed against them. The resilience of hanji was especially useful from the 12th century CE when printing was done using heavier moveable metal type made of bronze, a Korean invention. In the Joseon Period (from the 15th century CE), such was the demand for hanji, that Sejong the Great (r. 1418 - 1450 CE) permitted other plant materials to be used in its manufacture, especially bamboo. The paper was made in specialized workshops in the capital and the five provincial capitals. The hanji which was produced for state use was supervised by a government agency, the Chonjo-chang. World History Encyclopedia. Adaptation.

The mysterious death of Alexander the Great When Alexander the Great’s body seemingly remained unchanged for six days after his death in 323 BCE, his contemporaries could offer only one explanation. Alexander must have been a god. So… was he? Alexander the Great first fell ill during a days-long series of parties, during one of which he collapsed, complaining of a searing pain in his back. After 10 days of intense fever, Alexander’s soldiers were brought in to see him one final time. As reported by the historian Arrian, at that point the king “could no longer speak… but he struggled to raise his head and gave each man a greeting with his eyes.” When Alexander was declared dead on June 13, theories began forming. Had he been poisoned? Sabotaged? Had he been killed by drinking too much wine? Today we have an explanation for Alexander’s death and his period of bodily freshness that relies less on the supernatural and more on science. In 2018 Dr. Katherine Hall, a lecturer in New Zealand, proposed that Alexander the Great had Guillain-Barré syndrome, an acute autoimmune condition that results in muscle paralysis. In other words, Alexander may have been alive when he was declared dead—a mistake that could have been made when physicians mistook the shallow breathing of a coma patient for no breathing at all. If this was the case, Alexander may have been effectively murdered during embalming —a process that would have seen him disemboweled. While we can’t travel back in time to confirm Hall’s theory, it is the only one that takes into account all the details of Alexander’s death—and his body’s mysterious life. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Adaptation