→ NEWSLETTER | Edition 1/2020 | JAN.

2020

BRIDGING
OVER
ARTICLE ARTICLE INTERVIEW
COLLIGATION LEARNING CARMEM
AND A BOTTOM- STYLES & KOPPE &
UP APPROACH MULTIPLE FLORINDA
TO GRAMMAR INTELLIGENCES SCREMIN
REVISITED

RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 1 24/01/2020 15:48

Berlitz_Institucional_AnBrazTesol_217x280mm.indd 1 06/12/2019 17:44
 BRAZ-TESOL NEWSLETTER is
a publication of BRAZ-TESOL,
the professional organization of
Teachers of English to Speakers
of Other Languages in Brazil.
It is distributed free of charge
to individual and institutional
members of BRAZ-TESOL.
ISSN 1516-182X LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT................................................ 4
BRAZ-TESOL GENERAL COUNCIL

→ EXECUTIVE BOARD
PRESIDENT
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR.........................................................6
Higor Cavalcante
1st VICE PRESIDENT
Marcela Cintra ARTICLE 1
2nd VICE PRESIDENT
Natália Guerreiro
SECRETARY Following the patterns: colligation and the necessity
Bia Hedegaard
TREASURER of a bottom-up approach to grammar ................................... 8
Sérgio Monteiro
→ ADVISORY COUNCIL
PAST PRESIDENTS
Albina Escobar, Bob Carrington, ARTICLE 2
Donald Occhiuzzo, Henrick Oprea,
Marcelo Barros, Marie Adele Ryan,
Nadia Sarkis, Sara Walker, Valéria Change the theory, not (necessarily) the practice:
França, Vera Bradford, Vilma
Sampaio de Oliveira, Vinicius Nobre
Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences revisited ........... 13
→ ELECTED MEMBERS
Julio Vieitas, Henrique Moura,
Isabela Villas Boas, Sérgio Pantoja,
Stephan Hughes, T. Veigga RESPONSE
→ PROOFREADERS
Gabriela Froes, Marcela Cintra, The BNCC and the new colors of English -
Marcelo Barros, T. Veigga
→ GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Juliana De Maio Carnézi an answer to Lucia Rodrigues .............................................. 20
→ ADVERTISING
Gleice Mori

BRAZ-TESOL represents over

ARTICLE 3
3,000 teachers of English in
Brazil. Please, draw the word ‘House’ ............................................. 24
For membership information,
please contact: R. Coronel Oscar
Porto, 800 - 2º andar - Paraíso -
CEP 04003-004 BRAZ-TESOL EVENTS
São Paulo/SP - Brazil
+55 11 3559-8782
braztesol@braztesol.org.br Second Semester 2019 ......................................................... 28
www.braztesol.org.br
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BT INTERVIEW
instagram.com/braztesol
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braz-tesol-94274a31 Carmem Koppe e Florinda Scremin .................................... 30

January 2020 3

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 LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear
BRAZ-
TESOLers,
Happy New Year! I sincerely hope 2020 will be our best year yet, full of
health, love, and excellent professional development opportunities.

I also want to start by apologizing for our radio silence. 2019 was an
eventful year for some of us at BRAZ-TESOL, and that unfortunately
got in the way of our Newsletter. We guarantee you, however, that the
two issues we unfortunately did not have last year will be published
this year, which means that, apart from this one you have in your
hands right now, you have five more editions of our BRAZ-TESOL
Newsletter to look forward to in 2020.

This will be a very exciting year for all of us BRAZ-TESOL members.

Not only will we have numerous events all over the country –
organized by both our SIGs and our Chapters –, but this is also a
BRAZ-TESOL International Conference (BTIC) year. That means the
third biggest ELT event in the world and the biggest in Latin America
will be taking place here, in Brazil, in the city that never sleeps: São
Paulo.

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The 17th BTIC will go back to Mackenzie
University, the phenomenal venue that hosted our
BTIC once before, in 2000. From July 15th to 18th,
some of the most important names in ELT will
come together to celebrate teaching and learning,
as well as the pivotal importance of Brazil in the
ELT world. We are, by the way, proud to already
be able to confirm the presence of some of the
most prestigious speakers in education and ELT
today, such as Claudia Costin, Isabela Villas Boas,
Janaína Cardoso, and Scott Thornbury, among
many others. We are also counting on you, BRAZ-
TESOL member, to join us as a presenter and
share some of your knowledge and experience
with us during the conference.
Mackenzie is a fantastic venue and we are sure
this year’s BTIC will be an event to remember.
However, a conference of this magnitude would
simply not be possible without the help of a
great many volunteers, and you could be a very
important part of the team that will make the 17th
BTIC a reality by becoming a minder. Minders
are the beautiful people who – year after year,
conference after conference – help speakers and
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 5
HIGOR CAVALCANTE
participants navigate their way around the venue
during the event, making sure nobody gets lost
or misses the sessions they want to attend. If you
would like to lend a hand and become a minder in
the 17th BTIC, please write to minder@braztesol.
org.br for more information.
Finally, I want to end my first letter of the year by
inviting every single one of you to register for the
one event you absolutely can’t miss in 2020: our
17th BRAZ-TESOL International Conference. Visit
https://braztesol.org.br/internationalconference/
and make sure you are in São Paulo with us next
July. If you have any questions, please write to us
(braztesol@braztesol.org.br) or call us. Also, feel
free to write directly to me at any point with your
questions and suggestions. My email address is
president@braztesol.org.br and you can write in
Portuguese or in English.
Once again, happy 2020! Together we’re stronger.
Um abraço,
Higor Cavalcante
BT President 2019-2020
January 2020 5
27/01/2020 18:35
 LETTER FROM THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR

Dear
BRAZ-
TESOLers,
In the past few years, the word "collocation" has trickled down from
language analysis to language teaching to such a degree that just the
other day a friend of mine, who's a lawyer, casually dropped the term
in a bar conversation. I was gobsmacked, of course. (I didn't show it,
though, because lawyers already think too highly of themselves.)

The term "colligation", however, hasn't had the same luck. In fact,
not even teachers are usually familiar with it. That's why Hugh Dellar,
an avid supporter of the lexical approach, kindly wrote us an article
on "colligations", in which he explains how this concept can help us
understand our students' production.

Going from language to learning, we have two contributions by the

Mind, Brain, and Education Special Interest Group (SIG). André
Hedlund, who's just come back from a Master in Psychology of
Education at the University of Bristol, tell us the truth about learning
styles and multiple intelligences. He sees the good if not in the
theory at least in some of the teaching practice associated with it,
and he points out what we can actually do to help our students learn
better.

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His fellow SIG member Rodolfo Matiello offers
us a simple idea, as good ideas usually are: to
ask students to draw as a means to acquire and
retain language. And while you may be thinking of
vocabulary lessons with young learners, he dares
go beyond.
Then a member of the Public Schools SIG, Dr.
Debora Oss, gives her passionate response to
Lucia Rodrigues' article that featured in our 2019.1
newsletter. After all, we need to keep on talking
about the BNCC until the curriculum cows come
home. And we're not quite there yet.
Finally, as a wrap to this newsletter and to a 22-
year job well-done, Florinda Scremin and Carmem
Koppe celebrate the Curitiba Chapter they helped
found and maintain. The stories they tell show
how volunteer work for an association can help
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 7
NATÁLIA GUERREIRO
us grow as a professional and, more importantly,
make lifelong connections.
Another way to develop while contributing to the
association is writing for the newsletter. If you're
interested, you can ask me for help or guidance
at newsletter@braztesol.org.br . We are going
to have six issues of the newsletter this year, to
make up for the lack of two last year. I apologize
for the delay and promise to keep on looking for
interesting content, so every other month you get
a special delivery of texts to help us reflect on our
teaching practice.
Have a wonderful new year! :)
All the best,
Natália Guerreiro
BT Second Vice President 2019-2020
January 2020 7
27/01/2020 18:38
 ARTICLE 1
FOLLOWING THE
HUGH DELLAR
has over twenty-five years’
experience in the field and is the
co-founder of Lexical Lab. He
has co-authored two five-level
General English series, Outcomes
and Innovations, both published
by National Geographic Learning,
as well as one level of the high-
school series Perspectives. His
first methodology book, Teaching
Lexically, came out via Delta
Publishing in 2016. Most recently, he
has worked on two levels of the new
Pearson General English series,
Roadmap.
8 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 8
PATTERNS:
COLLIGATION AND THE
NECESSITY OF A
BOTTOM-UP APPROACH
TO GRAMMAR
For a term that has been around in ELT circles for over half a century
now, the idea of colligation has not made many inroads into the
mainstream of our profession. If you look up the word in a dictionary,
you will see it dates back to the 16th century and has Latin roots: the
verb colligare derives from col- meaning together and ligare, meaning
bind or tie, so colligation came to mean a binding or twisting together
of things.
It was the British linguist J.R. Firth who brought the concept of
colligation into ELT back it 1957. Firth defined it as “the interrelation
of grammatical categories in syntactical structures.” Over time, the
meaning has slightly shifted and it is now broadly used to describe
the grammatical patterns that words often co-occur with.
If it makes it easier to grasp, we can say that colligation exists in
a relationship with collocation. Where collocation describes the
words that words often co-occur with (heavy traffic, gain respect,
etc.), colligation describes the grammatical patterns that words
frequently go with – the grammatical collocations of the words, if you
like. Michael Hoey, whose masterwork Lexical Priming is one of the
definitive studies of the phenomenon, notes:
“The basic idea of colligation is that just as a lexical item may
be primed to co-occur with another lexical item, so it may also
be primed to occur in or with a particular grammatical function.
Alternatively, it may be primed to avoid appearance in or co-
occurrence with a particular grammatical function.” (Hoey 2005:43)
This may sound a bit abstract, so here are a few quick examples.
First, consider the fact that verbs of perception such as hear, notice,
27/01/2020 18:40

see, watch, and so on often colligate with an
object that comes before them and an –ing form
that follows, as in these sentences:
I heard you coming in last night.
I noticed him hanging around outside the house last
night.
I saw him playing live when I was in Belgrade last
year.
A connected point to make here is one that
Michael Hoey raised back in 1997, when he
observed that:
a. Where a common sense of a word favours
certain colligations, the rare sense of that
word will avoid those colligations
b. Where two senses of a word are
approximately as common as each other,
both will avoid colligational patterns of the
other
c. Where either (a) or (b) do not apply, the
effect will be humour, ambiguity or a new
meaning combining the two senses
In other words, where words have more than one
meaning – and most words do –, then different
meanings colligate differently. They keep different
grammatical company and prefer different
positions in sentences, paragraphs or texts.
Take the noun cause. The most frequent
meaning is an event, thing or person that makes
something happen, while the third most common
use is an aim, idea, or organisation that you
support, for example in politics. Now, the first
meaning often colligates with the preposition of,
so we have:
The main cause of these accidents is drivers going
too fast.
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 9
HUGH DELLAR
I have to write an essay on the causes of the First
World War.
We often use a definite example – the – with
this meaning of cause, and the noun tends to
be followed by another noun or noun phrase –
accidents, the First World War.
With the third meaning of cause, though, this
changes. The word is more often found near the
end of sentences, indefinite and even zero articles
abound, and a wider range of prepositions occur:
It may be hard work, but it’s all in a good cause
Campaigners hope people will be sympathetic to their
cause
Please give as much as you can. It’s for a very worthy
cause
This is not just the case with the word cause. It is
the case with pretty much everything! Different
meanings of the same word not only take different
collocations, but they also operate in different
ways grammatically.
You may be wondering what this has to do with
your classroom practice. Well, when students say
they “know words”, but still “have problems with
grammar”, what they may actually mean is that
they struggle when using words they think know
because the words neither colligate nor collocate
in the way they expect them to. They are bringing
over their L1 primings, and these affect the way
they produce items in L2.
When a student whose first language is Spanish*
says, I am agree or It is depend of my girlfriend, are
these grammar mistakes? Not if we think about
grammar in the traditional way of tense forms
and meanings, conditionals, modals and so on;
rather, this is micro-grammatical. These are
problems with the grammar that attaches itself to
particular words (agree, depend, want) and whilst
January 2020 9
27/01/2020 18:41
 ARTICLE 1
students may think they ‘know’ these words, they
have failed to factor in colligation. Any serious
correction of such output has to attempt to break
the L1 primings and make students notice the
gap between L1 usage and English usage.
Each student inevitably brings with them
colligational primings and expectations of their
own first language, so a Polish* student for whom
these utterances are natural:
On chce żebym studiował prawo
Jak ona wygląda?
may wonder why they cannot say in English:
He wants that I study Law
How does she look?
The answer is both simple and yet incredibly
subtle: it is because words colligate differently from
one language to the next.
Once you accept this, it is obviously not only
colligation that becomes important, but also
co-text: the language frequently used around the
language you are teaching. With my Spanish-
speaking* students above, this might mean
correcting to:
I agree (with you).
I totally agree with you.
I half-agree, I suppose/guess.
It depends on my girlfriend.
I’m not really sure yet, to be honest. It depends what
my girlfriend wants to do.
It depends what time my girlfriend gets home.
It depends whether my girlfriend is going out that
night.
And with the Poles:
He wants me to study Law.
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RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 10
My dad’s quite pushy. He wants me to study Law,
but I’m not really sure I want to.
What does she look like? Oh, she’s quite tall, long
hair, quite good looking . . . I think, anyway.
Providing this level of feedback takes time and
expertise, but it is still one of the only ways that
students become more aware of how the way
they think the language works differs from the
way it actually works. Without input that says
what they were trying to say in a more complex
and (grammatically) sophisticated way, students’
chances of progressing are reduced. And while
coursebooks and classroom materials can help to
bring such language to the students – especially
material that acknowledges the importance
of colligation and co-text when presenting
vocabulary –, the bottom line is that it is teachers
who are most capable of listening to their own
students, hearing what they are trying to say and
helping them say it better.
The bulk of errors that students make have less
to do with structural grammar as it is presented
within ELT and more to do with the way individual
items colligate (and collocate). Take this sentence
from one of my Intermediate student’s homework:
Drive carefully! It’s a really thick fog outside.
Now consider how you would correct it, what you
would tell students about the error and correction
(and why).
Again, it is worth asking what the real issue is
here. Is it grammar? Or is it rather a failure to
deploy the word fog effectively? My feedback was
as follows:
Drive carefully! It’s a There’s really thick fog outside.
(Fog is uncountable, so no article)
You could also say: It’s really foggy outside.
It is grammar, but not (perhaps) as you know it!
27/01/2020 18:43

SO WHAT ELSE MIGHT THIS
MEAN FOR TEACHERS?
Well, another implication is that we need to take
more time when teaching ‘words’ and factor
colligation and collocation in when getting
examples to the students. We need to take the
issue of priming seriously, and we need to ensure
that students learn words with the other words
they are often used with and with the grammar
they often colligate with.
Michael Hoey has shown that the real route to
accurate standardised usage is through sufficient
exposure to language in use – and this means as
it is used in the world outside the EFL classroom.
This kind of naturalistic priming takes ages. In
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 11
HUGH DELLAR
fact, it is never-ending, an on-going process
of reading and listening and noticing slight
differences between the way an item is used and
the way we’ve encountered it being used before.
However, for most students, there simply are not
enough hours in the day for this kind of slow,
extensive priming to occur, which is where we
come in. One of the most crucial roles teachers
can play is to shortcut things for students by
providing high-reward input that condenses
experience and presents items in ways that would
otherwise take an age to access. In short, we can
help prime better by showing students examples
of the most typical ways items are used.
Just say, for instance, that you are teaching an
Intermediate class, and the word fog comes
up. Instead of simply giving a translation or an
January 2020 11
27/01/2020 18:44
 ARTICLE 1
explanation, we need to be showing students
examples of how words are typically used. This
may mean giving examples such as the following:
The fog was so thick that we couldn’t even see fifty
feet in front of us.
All flights out of Heathrow have been cancelled
because of the fog.
Be careful how you drive tonight. The fog is really
thick out there.
Of course this takes longer, but it is time well
spent. It helps prime students in the micro-
grammar (and collocation and co-text) of the
word in question, and also lets the teacher draw
attention to other more macro-grammatical
issues, so one could ask, for example:
“HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. What tense is that? Right.
Present perfect. Why? Because it happened in the
past, but there’s a present result, yeah. No flights
now. And is it active or passive? Right, passive.
Because have BEEN cancelled, yeah? Cancelled by
someone, by the air traffic control people.”
One final mention needs to be made here of
perhaps the single best way of ensuring students
get their heads round colligation and the impact
that their own L1 primings have on the way they
often attempt to make English work – and that is
two-way translation.
I encourage students to keep record books with
pages divided in half. On the left, they write new
sentences in English, whilst on the right they
translate into L1, so they might have something
like this:
He wants me to study Ele quer que eu
Law. estude Direito.
Translation into L1 is pretty easy. What is much
harder is to later return to the L1 version and
12 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 12
HUGH DELLAR
reproduce the exact English version. Many
students will initially come up with He wants that
I study Law. By comparing what they think the
English should be with what it really is, they come
up against concrete evidence of how L1 affects L2
and are forced to start paying more attention to
colligation.
To conclude, when we are teaching, we need to
recognise that many learners understand the
basic senses of words, and their problems come
from lack of exposure to – and lack of awareness
of – the way in which words interact with
grammar and with other words. To tackle this, we
need to be correcting more cleverly, reformulating
output with this in mind and teaching vocabulary
from this perspective all the time.
* Note of the editor: This applies to Brazilian speakers of
Portuguese, too. Estou de acordo could lead learners to say
“I am agree” and depende se is often rendered as “depends
of”. The examples in Polish also seem to be particularly
relevant to our learners in Brazil because of our first
language equivalents “Ele quer que eu estude Direito” and
“Como ela é?”.
REFERENCES:
Firth, J. R. (1968). Linguistic analysis as a study
of meaning. In F. R. Palmer (Ed.), Selected papers
of J. R. Firth (1952-59) (pp. 168-205). London:
Longman.
Firth, J. (1968). A synopsis of linguistic theory,
1930-55. In F. R. Palmer (Ed.), Selected papers
of J. R. Firth (1952-59) (pp. 168-205). London:
Longman.
Hoey, M. (2005). Lexical priming: A new theory of
words and language. London: Routledge.
27/01/2020 18:45
 ARTICLE 2 ANDRE HEDLUND

CHANGE THE THEORY, NOT

(NECESSARILY) THE PRACTICE:
LEARNING STYLES AND MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES REVISITED

For decades the idea that people can be categorized according to ANDRÉ HEDLUND
how they supposedly learn best has become widespread on every André Hedlund is an Edify Bilingual
Education Mentor, Chevening
level of educational systems around the world. The Learning Styles
Alumnus, MSc in Psychology of
(LS) theory, often referred to along with the Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Education from the University
theory, has shaped curricula and how teachers and students think of Bristol, and a pedagogical
about learning. However, what does the specialized literature on the consultant. He has been an EFL
topic have to say about these theories? Can these ideas really be teacher for 15 years and has worked
considered false claims about the brain, the so-called neuromyths? both as an academic coordinator
and a Michigan examiner at a
Brazilian binational center. He has
SPOILER ALERT: also worked for National Geographic
Learning as a consultant and

LS and MI are controversial and the literature suggests that there’s reviewer. Currently, he is the
president of an NGO called Partners
a lack of empirical evidence to support these notions (Waterhouse,
of the Americas Goiás and the
2006; Howard-Jones, 2010; Paschler et al., 2010; Tokuhama-
representative of the BRAZ-TESOL's
Espinosa, 2014). Howard Gardner himself has already said that: Mind, Brain, and Education Special
Interest Group in the Midwest.
His blog edcrocks.com has been
[…] by the middle 1990s, I had noticed a number of viewed nearly 30 thousand times

misinterpretations of the theory — for example, the confusion of and accessed in more than 140
countries.
intelligences with learning styles […]

(Gardner, 2003, p. 8)

Drop the term “styles.” It will confuse others and it won’t help either
you or your students.

Howard Gardner for The Washington Post (Strauss, 2013)

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 ARTICLE 2

HOW DID THE NOTION OF

“INTELLIGENCE” EVOLVE?

Before 1950: Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon

developed the IQ test, which proposed that human
intelligence was fixed and quantifiable. Despite
Binet’s disagreement with Simon regarding how
fixed our intelligence was and how accurate the
test could be, the IQ test took the world and is
widely used to this day (Dweck, 2008).

After 1950: The idea that people could express

their intelligence in ways other than reasoning
skills and the ability to solve logical problems
became more popular. Many models of cognitive
styles and learning styles were proposed and this
gave teachers the idea that anyone could learn
(or learn better) if their styles were considered
when teaching them. In the 1970s, the concept
of crystallized and fluid intelligence appeared
(Cattell, 1971) and in the following decade,
Gardner (1983) proposed the idea of multiple
intelligences.

After 2000: IQ tests and learning styles became

more debatable as concepts that could determine
someone’s success at learning. New experiments
were designed and new advancements from
neuroscience, such as neuroimaging technologies,
became more accessible and raised some
questions. In this period, the notion that learning
styles theory is a myth is held widely by most
neuroscientists (Howard-Jones, 2010).

THE GOOD, THE BAD,

AND THE UGLY
So what does science have to say about these two
theories nowadays and why are they controversial?
Regarding LS, my former professor Paul Howard-
Jones from the University of Bristol explains that:

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 ANDRE HEDLUND

The implicit assumption seems to be that,

because different regions of the cortex have
crucial roles in visual, auditory and sensory
processing, learners should receive information
in visual, auditory or kinaesthetic forms
according to which part of their brain works
better. The brain’s interconnectivity makes
such an assumption unsound, and reviews of
educational literature and controlled laboratory
studies fail to support this approach to teaching.

(Howard-Jones, 2014, pp. 1-2)

In fact, a large systematic review done by Coffield

et al. (2004) with the most popular learning styles
theories (13 out of 71, yes, there are many!)
reached the conclusion that the conceptualizations
of these studies were confusing, the methods
inadequate, and that there was no conclusive
relationship between visual, auditory, and
kinesthetic teaching methods and students’
performance. A more recent study conducted by
Paschler et al. (2010) demonstrated that there is
no evidence in the literature to support the idea
that students learn best when taught in their
supposed learning style. As a matter of fact, the
authors end on this note:

The contrast between the enormous popularity

of the learning-styles approach within education
and the lack of credible evidence for its utility
is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing. If
classification of students’ learning styles has
practical utility, it remains to be demonstrated.

(Paschler et al, 2010, p.117)

The big issue with MI is that most intelligences

proposed by Gardner (1983), such as musical,
intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalist, and bodily,
for instance, are more like non-cognitive traits and
have more to do with personality, skills or “talents”
(if we may use this word) than general intelligence

January 2020 15

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 ARTICLE 2
and cognitive aptitudes (Visser
et al. 2006; Waterhouse, 2006;
Locke, 2005). Also, critical
reviews that aimed at looking
at the literature and designed
experiments to test the concept
of MI failed to find significant
evidence to support it (Visser et
al. 2006; Waterhouse, 2006).
If this comes as a shock to you,
I might have good news. You
might be wondering why you
have designed so many lesson
plans taking into account
the different learning styles
and multiple intelligences if
they are not really quite valid
concepts. Well, not all of it is
bad if we look at the underlying
ideas and the practices that
came out from these theories
and why they might actually
help students learn.
First of all, diversifying the way
we deliver content through
visual and phonological input
actually works because of our
working memory structure
and the way our brains encode
information. Paivio (1991)
suggests the concept of
dual coding, which basically
means that combining verbal
and visual representations
increases memorization.
Baddeley (2000) posits that our
working memory, that is, the
memory system we use to hold
16 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 16
information long enough to put
it to some use, is composed
of a visual and a phonological
channel and a buffer that puts
things together in a timely
manner. The working memory
system is like our work station
where we constantly bring new
and old information to so that
we can accomplish a task.
The best part is that we have
neuroimaging studies showing
where this memory is located
in the brain and experiments
suggesting that dual coding is
effective (Howard-Jones et al.,
2016; Wirebring et al. 2015).
Secondly, integrating non-
cognitive skills to the
curriculum and focusing a
little less on students’ ability
to solve puzzles and logical
problems seems to walk hand
in hand with notions like self-
determination, self-efficacy,
growth mindset (this one is
getting more controversial too),
and self-regulation, which are
tested and have yielded positive
correlations with students’
achievement because they deal
with things like motivation,
emotional regulation, and
collaborative learning
environments (Bandura, 1997;
Dweck, 2008; Hattie, 2012;
Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014).
Like António Damásio and Mary
Helen Immordino-Yang propose
in their article We feel, therefore
we learn: The Relevance of
Affective and Social Neuroscience
to Education, learning is not all
about cognition, it’s also about
emotion (Immordino-Yang &
Damásio, 2007).
We need to address the bad
and the ugly, though. The bad is
that many teachers around the
world might be using teaching
approaches or methods based
on ideas that are not supported
by science. This is not always
bad unless there is evidence
to show why it might be. An
example is this excerpt I got
from one of my blog posts:
But assigning homework
or teaching a one-to-one
lesson, for example, based
on a specific learning style
and neglecting the others
will most likely be bad for
the students.
(Hedlund, 2019)
In other words, what if you had
12 students in your classroom
and you tested them using a
learning styles questionnaire
and coincidentally they were
all categorized as auditory
learners? Would you bother
preparing lessons with visual
materials? Some teachers
certainly wouldn’t depending on
27/01/2020 18:48

how much they believe in the
concept.
The ugly is best represented
in a situation that took place a
couple of months ago during
a session I was delivering in
Bucharest, Romania. I’m sure
many of you know who Hugh
Dellar is [Note of the editor: you
can read an article by Hugh in
this very issue]. I was honored
to have him in my session and
I said that one of the good
things about the whole learning
styles theory was exactly the
fact that it made teachers think
about how they were reaching
every student in the classroom
by varying their input. Hugh
pointed out something along
these lines:
What about the huge
amount of money invested
to support and propagate a
theory that isn’t evidence-
based? What if that money
had been put somewhere
else?
(Paraphrasing Hugh
Dellar)
Well, I’d have to agree with
Hugh and say that if ELT and
education, in general, hadn’t
propagated the learning styles
theory and used the money to
produce materials, courses,
diplomas on let’s say furthering
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 17
our knowledge of how
neuroscience could be used
in the classroom and which
metacognitive strategies might
work more effectively, things
could be quite different.
CONCLUSION
The way I see it, we can keep
doing many of the things we
do in the classroom and be
effective teachers. We do need
to start calling things what they
are. Instead of saying that you
have some auditory learners
in the classroom and you need
to take that into consideration
when planning your lesson, you
can start saying that the brain
encodes information visually
and phonologically and that
you need to help your students
create multiple representations
of what you’re teaching them
in their brains to facilitate
retrieval and maximize learning
outcomes. You could also stop
saying that one of your students
has musical intelligence and
say that she has great musical
skills or that someone has
interpersonal intelligence and
say that they’re sociable and
like to interact with others.
It’s totally fine to ditch ideas
that were once quite prevalent,
take what’s best out of them,
ANDRE HEDLUND
and add the latest discoveries
of science. This is how science
works. And it’s important
to call things what they are
and understand more about
them so that companies stop
profiting from our lack of
knowledge by selling products
and services based on shaky
grounds. I say let’s follow
Gardner’s recommendation
and drop the “styles”, and
start teaching students more
holistically using every tool we
have.
REFERENCES
Baddeley, A. (2000). The
episodic buffer: a new
component of working
memory? Trends in cognitive
sciences, 4 (11), 417-423.
Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities:
Their structure, growth, and
action. New York: Houghton
Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-04275-5.
Coffield, F.; Moseley, D.; Hall,
E.; Ecclestone, K. (2004).
Learning styles and pedagogy in
post-16 learning: a systematic
and critical review. London:
Learning and Skills Research.
Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset:
The new psychology of success.
Random House Digital, Inc
January 2020 17
27/01/2020 18:49
 ARTICLE 2 ANDRE HEDLUND

Gardner, H. (1983) Frames of mind: The theory of
multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (2003). Multiple intelligences after
twenty years. American Educational Research
Association, 21.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers:
Maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.
Hedlund, A. (2019). Neuromyths and potential
classroom implications: Part 2 – Learning
Styles, Fixed Intelligence, Forget about Arts.
Retrieved from https://edcrocks.com/2019/06/27/
neuromyths-and-potential-classroom-
implications-part-2-learning-styles-fixed-
intelligence-forget-about-arts/
Howard-Jones, P. (2010). Introducing
neuroeducational research: Neuroscience, education
and the brain from contexts to practice. London:
Routledge.
Howard-Jones, P. (2014). Neuroscience and
education: myths and messages. Nature Reviews
Neuroscience, 15 (12), 817-824
Howard-Jones, P., Jay, T., Mason, A., & Jones, H.
(2016). Gamification of learning deactivates the
default mode network. Frontiers in Psychology, 6.
Immordino-Yang, M.H. and Damasio, A. (2007), We
feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective
and social neuroscience to education. Mind,
Brain, and Education, 1, 3-10. doi:10.1111/j.1751-
228X.2007.00004.x
Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory: Retrospect
and current status. Canadian Journal of
Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie, 45(3),
255.
Paschler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D. & Bjork, R.
(2010). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9,
105–119.
Strauss, V. (2013). Howard Gardner:‘Multiple
intelligences’ are not ‘learning styles’. The
Washington Post, 16.
Tokuhama-Espinosa, T. (2014). Making classrooms
better: 50 practical applications of mind, brain,
and education science. New York: W.W Norton &
Company.
Visser, B. A., Ashton, M. C., & Vernon, P. A. (2006).
g and the measurement of Multiple Intelligences:
A response to Gardner. Intelligence, 34(5), 507-510.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.04.006
Waterhouse, L. (2006). “Multiple Intelligences,
the Mozart Effect, and Emotional Intelligence: A
critical review”. Educational Psychologist, 41 (4):
207–225. doi:10.1207/s15326985ep4104_1
Wirebring, L. K., Wiklund-Hörnqvist, C., Eriksson,
J., Andersson, M., Jonsson, B., & Nyberg, L.
(2015). Lesser neural pattern similarity across
repeated tests is associated with better long-term
memory retention. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35
(26).

Locke, E. A. (2005). Why emotional intelligence

is an invalid concept. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 26(4), 425-431. doi: 10.1002/job.318

18 BT Newsletter

RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 18 27/01/2020 18:50

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 RESPONSE

THE BNCC AND THE NEW

COLORS OF ENGLISH -
AN ANSWER TO LUCIA
RODRIGUES
DEBORA OSS The first BRAZ-TESOL Newsletter of the year gifted us with
got her PhD in Applied Linguistics awesome articles. One of them was particularly attractive to me
(Language, Technology & Interaction) right from its title: “Is the BNCC really going to affect my classes?”
from UNISINOS (2013), her Master’s The author goes on a perfect scrutiny of what the BNCC expects
in Language Acquisition from UFRGS
from English language teachers in terms of competences and pillars
(2001), and her teaching license
of education, besides, of course, language. Indeed, it is a must-read
in English (2009) and Portuguese
article, particularly because she calls the unfamiliar practitioner’s
Language & Literature (1995)
from UCS. She is a researcher
attention to “the most important paradigm shifts that the BNCC is
and entrepreneur who works with bringing about” (p.11).
teacher education, English language
The attempt to answer the question that Lucia Rodrigues Alves
teaching, additional languages, and
posed became this manuscript. It is not an actual answer, though,
technological aids to learning. She
but I considered that it would be interesting to try to answer and
also volunteers for the BRAZ-TESOL
Rio Grande do Sul Chapter. expand, as good learners often do. I also thought that it could
be a good idea to address other aspects that the BNCC brought
about, which in a way would answer Lucia’s question from different
perspectives as well.

Before I forget, the answer to Lucia’s question is a sound YES as

we have probably agreed upon to begin with. First and foremost, I
truly believe that the BNCC is definitely going to affect my classes
due to the fact that English has become a mandatory component in
primary education, from 6th grade on. It may seem a minor move
at first, but it is a huge first step. Another aspect that should make
things different from the launch of BNCC on refers to the concept
of lingua franca adopted. These two aspects alone could be enough
to affect my classes, but of course teaching English language in
primary education has long become a bit more complex than that,

20 BT Newsletter

RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 20 22/01/2020 07:49


particularly in the public sector context. Let’s
address these two and see what may come next.
Some people will claim that foreign languages
have always been present in the school
curriculum. Unfortunately, that is not exactly
true. According to Vilson Leffa (1999), after the
1961 National Guidelines for Education (LDB
– Lei de Diretrizes e Bases, in Portuguese) the
array of foreign languages dropped drastically,
in comparison to the previous years of Brazilian
schooling. Leffa also asserts that “the prestige
of FLT [Foreign Language Teaching] [has been]
constantly diminished over the years, reaching
the lowest point in the law passed in 1971, when
many students finished secondary school without
ever getting in touch with a foreign language in
the classroom.” (Leffa, 1999, p.1). Even though
some skepticism is shown in relation to the 1996
LDB, the author suggests that the document
“remedies the situation to a certain point” (Leffa,
1999). At that time, about three years after the
promulgation of the 1996 LDB, and although it was
not clear how things would develop, the National
Parameters (Ministério da Educação [MEC], 1998)
helped to bring foreign languages back into the
basic education curriculum. Nevertheless, the
document suggested that ‘foreign languages’ were
included in the curriculum by considering aspects
such as historical, community, and tradition/
regional factors, in order to promote a linguistic
plurality policy. Promoting such linguistic plurality
though met some hindrances, as foreseen in the
document:
“Regardless of recognizing the importance of
learning multiple languages, instead of a single
one, and to put into practice a policy of linguistic
pluralism, there is not always the possibility of
including more than one foreign language in the
curriculum. The reasons can range from the lack
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 21
DEBORA OSS
of teachers to the difficulty of including a high
number of disciplines in the school curriculum.
Thus, one issue that needs to be addressed
is which foreign languages ​​ to include in the
curriculum.” (MEC, 1998, p. 22 – my translation)
After going through technically no foreign
languages in the school curriculum and
experiencing the choice of a school component
that hardly had teachers available to teach the
subject, English has finally become a mandatory
foreign language to be learned in basic education.
Of course this may not affect many students
from the private sector or even change much in
certain communities where English is the foreign
language that young learners get familiar with
from very early school days. But it is certainly
going to make great changes in the lives of many
teens in the public sector.
I truly believe that by becoming a mandatory
school subject, English is likely to perform great
changes in our educational system as a whole.
There are several arguments that support my
thesis, but I will stick to three here, for time and
space reasons.
First of all, I will take from Lucia’s ‘paradigm shift’
point, by illustrating that TEACHER EDUCATION
should be the main aspect to be addressed
under these new standards. As far as I am
concerned, teacher education programs lack to
mention that after 6th grade children begin the
second part of primary school, when they usually
start having a different teacher for each school
subject, for example. From my experience, having
English language classes is a kind of upgrade
or new challenge that these kids get, after being
‘promoted’ to the new school level. I would really
wonder why teacher educators neglect such
relevant moment for the children if I didn’t know
the answer. One of the reasons is because teacher
January 2020 21
27/01/2020 18:53
 RESPONSE
educators usually do not have the slightest
idea of how to integrate components. Teacher
educators of specific subjects do not ‘have eyes’
for any other school subject, except theirs –
which is a pity. English and all the other school
subjects teachers, for that matter, usually have
to develop such competence (to keep up with the
BNCC words) on their own once they walk into
the grounds of the school units they have been
assigned to. Another clear reason is that teacher
educators do not teach much about students'
developmental stages, either. Learning to teach
specific subjects of the school curriculum is
usually confined to the theoretical aspects of the
subject itself, and that includes English. Even so,
English language teachers are particularly prone
to inviting colleagues of other school subjects to
promote collaborative work. It is also true that
English language teachers have not much trouble
in inviting themselves into other colleagues’
projects, which may be one of the traits to be
added to the ones that Simon Borg identified in
his 2006 study.
The second leg of the tripod would be the number
of hours that children would have to devote to
learning English at school. Whether the school
unit would increase the actual number of hours
per week or not, by working collaboratively the
amount of time spent on learning English (and
the other school subjects) would not only be
enlarged, but also intensified, which would apply
to all components (and teachers!) involved. At
this point, having a schedule where some school
subjects count more formal periods of class than
others may mean that sometimes during the
school year teachers of all school subjects and
students could enjoy some time to discuss what
they have learned with the other teachers and
22 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 22
from the other components throughout the term,
for instance.
The third leg of this easel would give support to
the specific competences to be developed in each
school subject. In the case of English language
learning, the BNCC has provided five boxes,
as Lucia also addresses in her article. Having
oral, reading, and writing competences, besides
linguistic knowledge and intercultural dimension,
to work on means a whole new world to explore.
All worked on a paced and graded way, from the
6th school year on, from a fresh perspective.
What fresh perspective? Well, according to the
BNCC, besides becoming a mandatory school
subject, English language should also be learned
from a lingua franca point of view, which means
that our tripod could now support not only a
black and white canvas, but a totally colorful and
personal one!
The status of lingua franca adopted by the
writers of the BNCC regards the contemporary
dimension of the English language as a means of
communication among different peoples of varied
interests. It acknowledges what is already so
trivial to basic education students, who interact
with online players and games, listen to and sing
songs from different types of English, who are
aware that English itself is so trivial in their lives
that what they have received in class becomes
meaningless for their purposes. It is also
irrelevant for these kids whether it is American or
British English. They know English is everywhere
– why don’t English language teachers?
Having English language as a lingua franca to
teach basic education students takes us back to
our tripod. Teacher education programs would
27/01/2020 18:55
 DEBORA OSS

also have to respond to Lucia’s invitation by

learning how schools actually work after 6th
grade and what the kids’ expectations are at
this point of their development. Finally, teacher
educators should align with Lucia’s thoughts and
“recognize the positive points which may improve
our teaching practice and include these items
little by little in what we do in the classroom.”
(p.12-13).

In other words, my complete answer to Lucia’s

question is “Yes, the BNCC is really going to affect
our classes… and the new pictures we will be able
to help our students to paint using the English
language shades of colors.”

Thanks for asking, Lucia!

REFERENCES
Borg, S. (2006). The distinctive character-
istics of foreign language teachers. Lan-
guage Teaching Research 10,1, 3–31. <<http://
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?-
doi=10.1.1.132.6475&rep=rep1&type=pdf>>

Leffa, V. J. (1999). O ensino de línguas estrangei-

ras no contexto nacional. Contexturas, APLIESP,
4, p. 13-24. << http://www.leffa.pro.br/textos/tra-
balhos/oensle.pdf>>

Ministério da Educação. (MEC). (1998). Parâmetros

curriculares nacionais: Área de linguagens e
códigos e suas tecnologias. O conhecimento em
língua estrangeira moderna [National curriculum
parameters: Languages, codes and technologies].
Brasília, BR. Retrieved on February 28, 2019
<http://portal.mec.gov.br/seb/arquivos/pdf/pcn_
estrangeira.pdf>>

January 2020 23

RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 23 27/01/2020 18:56

 ARTICLE 3
RODOLFO MATTIELLO
holds a BA in Languages from
Pontifícia Universidade Católica
de Campinas, Masters in Applied
Linguistics from the University of
Edinburgh specialized in Language
Acquisition under the Usage-based
perspective with interest in Cognitive
Linguistics, specialization degree in
Lesson Planning from the University
of Oregon, Education Technology
for EFL Classes from Iowa State
University, and he also co-authored
the book ‘Formação de Professores’
(Paco Editorial). Founder of Mattiello
Consultoria Acadêmica, a center
for teachers’ development, and of
BELíngue, an online English school.
24 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 24
PLEASE, DRAW
THE WORD
‘HOUSE’
There is a great chance you already asked your students to draw or
maybe designed a lesson in which students were required to show
off their artistic skills regardless of their age. The value of such
activity when teaching infants is commonly known: they love drawing
and it is a tool to check whether the students are in accordance with
what has been taught. As for adult learners, they are more hesitant
in performing this kind of task, but the reason for applying it is
similar. To check their understanding. However, there are linguistic
reasons for having students draw and they are related to their
acquisition of a foreign language.
When developing their mother tongue, infants tend to make
mistakes regarding pronunciation, syntax and also semantics/
pragmatics. Children can understand linguistic intent and
reproduce an utterance after frequent exposure (Tomasello, 2003),
but before she performs accurately, the infant will use an idiom (for
instance) in contexts that adults may not understand. Before a child
uses an idiom properly, she will firstly generalize it and think that
the idiom can be generally used in any situation - just like children
do when they first learn a verb and then every word is turned into
one in their speech. This early linguistic behavior displays lack of
understanding of the meaning of the idiom and of what it performs
when used: therefore the context is also inappropriate. "When people
repeatedly use the same particular and concrete linguistic symbols
to make utterances to one another in "similar" situations, what may
emerge over time is a pattern of language use" (Tomasello, 2003:
99), i.e. when infants are exposed to adult speech, linguistic patterns
are created in their minds, meanings are generated and, until they
are able to define an accurate meaning, there are attempts that
27/01/2020 19:01

society will be responsible to shape and polish the
utterances. This can be seen in excerpts below.
Excerpt 1 "Two and a Half Men"
season 8, episode 8
Jake: I'll tell you what's a great movie. Jackass
2. I know watcha thinking, sequel suck,
but not that one. There's this part.... [he
describes the passage]
Megan: It sounds puerile.
Jake: Oh yeah, it's totally puerile. Unless...
puerile isn't good. In which case it's totally
"unpuerile".
Excerpt 2 "Two and a Half Men"
season 8, episode 8
Evelyn: As a matter of fact I had a date.
Alan: What happened?
Evelyn: He cancelled.
Jake: Wow. Got dumped on your birthday? That's
so puerile... Or is it?
Speech is not a mere tool used to express
feelings, make requests, etc. Whenever a person
speaks, there is creation of meaning in the
mind of the interlocutor (Gee, 2013). That is the
very first experience a child has while paying
attention to adults' utterances, they take the
representation described by the utterance and
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 25
RODOLFO MATTIELLO
its linguistic features like sound patterns and
reproduce the instance as soon as they find an
opportunity to do so. For concrete instances that
may not cause any problem, even though the mind
representation (meaning) of, for example, the word
'house', may be connected to one's experience
of 'house', i.e. the mental image and feeling that
the word triggers is built on the experiences the
interlocutor (a child, for instance) has had related
to houses (Gee, 2013). This means that linguistic
meanings are formed based on one's personal
take on what was orally said and that is the
reason two drawings of a word by two different
people will unlikely be the same. Children, while
building their language, use their perception to
"look for evidence in language use - distributional
patterns, reduced pronunciation, performance in
experiments introducing nonce linguistic forms"
(Tomasello, 2003: 108).
"These experiences (perceptions, feelings, actions,
and interactions) are stored in the mind or brain,
not in terms of propositions or language but in
something like dynamic images tied to perception
both of the world and of our own bodies, internal
states, and feelings" (Gee, 2013: 137) - whether
a child or an adult. As a result, when the
idiom 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do' is
performed the interlocutor will pay attention to
every aspect related to that production in order to
January 2020 25
22/01/2020 07:52
 ARTICLE 3
learn that expression. By the time one is exposed
to it again or wishes to use the idiom, that
moment either comes back to mind or a new and
personal reconstruction of that image surfaces
making understanding or use of the expression
possible. Therefore, meaning is in fact a personal
representation of a situation in which one was
exposed to a specific linguistic production (Gee,
2013) and this is a mind strategy that is found in
people (both infants and adults).
It is important to highlight that the propositional
aspect of the construction is what makes
children acquire the language and not the
language itself (Dabrowska, 2009). Regarding
a second language acquisition process, this
association of proposition also happens in
tandem with the native language. Our native
language is one of the codes we have for mental
26 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 26
representations – images are more common
– and we join whatever representation we have
in our mind to the linguistic representation we
already possess.
While taking an English course, teachers are
responsible for making sure students access
their "database" that was developed through
consolidation of L1 and connect it to the new
content. Students then will either link a new
situated meaning to another already present
in their mind representation or directly use a
representation that was used for L1, now for
L2. The former is more likely to happen since
learners are having a novice experience and
thus they will create a brand new meaning
according to the situation they are in and connect
it to that built upon their native language. In
case of a concrete construction with words
27/01/2020 19:03
 RODOLFO MATTIELLO

such as 'house', students may directly link it to REFERENCES

what they understand as a house. Therefore,
having drawing activities with learners is really Dobrowska, E. (2009). Words as constructions.
interesting while teaching a second language for In V. Evans & S. Pourcel (Eds.), New directions
they will show the mind representation of both in cognitive linguistics (pp. 201–223). https://doi.
concrete and abstract language with a variant org/10.1075/hcp.24.16dab
task of role plays, (video) games, or writing tasks
Gee, J.P. (2013). Reading as situated language:
that require learners produce the new content
A sociocognitive perspective. In D.E. Alvermann,
so that teachers can have an input of their
N. J. Unrau, & R. B. Rudell (Eds.), Theoretical
understanding.
models and processes of reading, 6th ed. (pp.
If learners don't have opportunities for producing 136-151). Newar, DE: International Reading
in the newly learnt language, teachers will not Association.
have evidence of their situated meaning, whether
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language:
they reconstructed a meaning accordingly or not,
A usage-based theory of language acquisition.
generalized a feature correctly or incorrectly and,
Boston: Harward University Press.
more importantly, if they are able to access their
mind representation in order to communicate.

January 2020 27

RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 27 27/01/2020 19:04


BRAZ-TESOL EVENTS
This second semester had
events taking place in many
cities and also online. Here are
some highlights.
------------------------------
The folks from the state of Rio
de Janeiro definitely proved
they can be ultra busy and
super productive at the same
time! After taking up office in
May, the hard-working board
experimented with 2 pocket,
4-hour events for smaller
audiences in greater Rio de
Janeiro, taking the association
to the teachers based in
28 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 28
SECOND
SEMESTER
2019
those areas. The event in São
João do Meriti attracted 37
participants in August, while
the one in Duque de Caxias in
September was attended by
66 teachers. Not so "pocket",
after all, right? Rio also
organized a full-blown event
in the capital city under the
theme “Awareness for Change”.
Showing that the organizers
themselves have an awareness
of things we need to change,
they urged the 110 attendees
to bring their own cups to
reduce plastic waste. Plus,
they opened the opportunity
for sessions in Portuguese as
well, and handsome discounts
were given to public school
educators and college students.
The Child Care service put the
minds of teachers who brought
their little ones at ease so that
they could enjoy everything
the event had to offer in terms
of learning and networking.
In the build-up to this event a
BT Rio Teachers Group was
formed on WhatsApp to keep
the communication channel
between local members
and the board actively open.
Somehow they found time to
launch the BT Rio Chapter
Podcast in June and to hold two
webinars in October, one with
guest Claire Venables and the
other with T. Veigga. As if that
were not enough, they launched
a new logo in line with the
colors and the spirit of the
association. Phew!
27/01/2020 19:09

Maringá now has a chapter
under the leadership of Andréia
Poppi Maia. Their inaugural
event on October 12 attracted
almost 200 participants under
the theme “Empowering
English Teachers: Continuous
Professional Development
in the Spotlight”. Quite an
impressive debut! May this new
chapter help teachers in the
North of Paraná develop more
and more.
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 29
SECOND SEMESTER 2019
Two new Special Interest
Groups were founded! The
Public Schools SIG had
its official launch during
the Southern Cone TESOL
Conference, and the new The Brasilia Chapter gave
Translation SIG held its first participants an opportunity
event in Brasilia in September.
to reflect with its innovatively
As you can see in their
themed “Failure Fest”. In this
manifesto, “The Public Schools
happy hour event, speakers
Special Interest Group was
shared the critical moments
conceived as a consequence
that helped them reflect about
of the pressing demands
on ELT professionals since their own teaching and develop.
the approval of the BNCC Participants also opened up
and the implications of its and shared their stories in
implementations thereafter in groups, proving that we can be
the short, mid, and long terms stronger when we admit being
for technical and teaching vulnerable.
staffs in public schools in
Brazil”. The Translation SIG,
on the other hand, held its first
event in Brasilia, aiming to
foster discussions on the use
of the first language in second
language acquisition and help
teachers be more aware of the
field of translation.
January 2020 29
27/01/2020 19:11
 INTERVIEW
ARQUIVOS VIVOS
DO BRAZ-TESOL
E PROFESSORAS
APAIXONADAS
PELA PROFISSÃO

Quem esteve em Curitiba para a Southern Cone TESOL Conference

pôde sentir o carinho com que o evento foi preparado. O que talvez
não se tenha percebido foi um certo ar emocionado de despedida,
sendo esse o último evento da diretoria do Chapter da cidade. O
BRAZ-TESOL Curitiba Chapter, um dos primeiros braços regionais
do BRAZ-TESOL, foi fundado em 1997 e, ao longo de seus 20 e
poucos anos, manteve regularidade nos eventos locais e ainda
hospedou três Southern Cone TESOL Conference. Já é uma história
impressionante vista de fora, mas os bastidores são ainda mais.
Duas das incríveis voluntárias que fundaram o Chapter ainda
estavam à frente dele literalmente décadas depois: Carmem Koppe
e Florinda Scremin, a quem chamamos ternamente de Flô. Arquivos
vivos do BRAZ-TESOL e professoras apaixonadas pela profissão,
Carmem e Flô contam a história do Chapter e outras curiosidades
neste bate-papo delicioso.

30 BT Newsletter

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Como começou o Curitiba Chapter?
O Curitiba Chapter iniciou em 1997, quando a
então presidente do BRAZ-TESOL Sara Walker
colocou como meta de sua gestão a expansão
da Associação por meio de Regional Chapters.
Através da Profª Marisa Riva de Almeida, da
UFPR, foram feitos convites para professores
e coordenadores de diferentes setores de
ensino de inglês: escolas de idiomas, escolas
regulares públicas e particulares, faculdades e
universidades, e professores particulares. Na
primeira reunião estiveram presentes cerca de
40 pessoas, dessas somente três arregaçaram
as mangas e iniciaram a organização do primeiro
evento: Piri Szabo, Marisa Almeida e Florinda
Scremin.
Naquele encontro, que aconteceu em abril de
1998 no Colégio Estadual do Paraná, já contamos
com a colaboração das professoras Malu Castro
Gomes, Rosa Figueiredo, Izabel Corção e Carmen
Koppe. Assim ficou formado o primeiro board do
Curitiba Chapter, tendo Marisa como presidente.
Foi um belo evento. Na época, havia muita
competição entre as escolas e foi bonito ver
professoras de diferentes escolas de idiomas
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 31
CARMEM KOPPE E FLORINDA SCREMIN
pondo a mão na massa e ajudando para um algo
maior: um encontro de professores. A nossa
grande convidada do evento, além de Sara Walker,
foi Anna Szabo.
Os desafios que o Chapter enfrentou ao longo
dos anos mudaram? Se sim, como?
Foram muitos e constantes os desafios, e eles
mudaram muito ao longo destes 22 anos! De
início não existiam projetos para desenvolvimento
de professores, raras eram as escolas e até
editoras que trabalhavam nessa área. Por isso,
o primeiro evento teve a participação de 110
professores! E nos subsequentes, a participação
foi aumentando, chegando a 260 em evento
regional.
Durante esses 22 anos foram muitos os eventos,
pois quase sempre tivemos dois por ano. O
Chapter cresceu bastante e era um propagador
de metodologias, técnicas e novas tendências.
Depois, houve um "boom" de cursos e de
treinamentos oferecidos gratuitamente, sendo
que os eventos do Chapter precisavam ser pagos
devido aos gastos com coffee-break ou aluguel de
espaço. Por isso, com a finalidade de atrairmos
January 2020 31
27/01/2020 19:15
 INTERVIEW
mais participantes, criamos diversos tipos de
encontros e imersões, e procuramos organizar
eventos também em conjunto com a Associação
de Professores do Paraná [APLIEPAR].
E a vida continuou mudando! A correria ficou
imensa, e os professores têm cada vez menos
tempo para poder participar presencialmente.
Assim, o último evento do regional contou
com somente 64 participantes. Foi um tanto
frustrante.
Assim mesmo, acreditamos que fizemos uma
diferença no meio da educação da língua inglesa.
Tivemos um grande parceiro durante todos
esses anos: a PUCPR. Foi a instituição com que
sempre podíamos contar. A coordenação do
departamento de Letras, apesar de ter mudado
muitas vezes, sempre nos apoiou. Com a parceria
de oferecermos gratuidade aos professores e
alunos de letras, o espaço sempre foi sem custo
para nós, o que ajudou muito.
Durante esses 22 anos, fomos agraciadas com a
possibilidade de organizar as três Conferências
do Southern Cone TESOL que aconteceram no
Brasil. Aprendemos muito com a organização
desses eventos, pois geraram diferentes tipos de
desafios.
__ Com a de 2001, porque nunca tínhamos
realizado algo do porte de uma conferência
internacional. A primeira meta era de 500
participantes, passamos para 750 e tivemos
a presença de 1300 pessoas, tudo organizado
através de e-mails e de telefonemas!
Essa conferência foi rica em atividades
diversificadas: café da manhã com seu
autor favorito, passeios noturnos e jantares,
apresentações artísticas, ‘quizzes’, parceria
com a Secretaria de Educação, e muito mais!
Apesar das dificuldades de comunicação na
32 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 32
época (internet discada), houve participantes
de vários países, até da Turquia!
__ A de 2011 trouxe outros desafios, com
bastantes cobranças. Retomamos a parceria
com a Secretaria de Educação e pudemos
oferecer a oportunidade para diversos autores
nacionais lançarem seus livros. Como atividade
diferenciada, houve o almoço com seu autor
favorito. Não tivemos tantos participantes
como esperávamos, mas mesmo assim foi uma
convenção maravilhosa.
__ A de 2019 - os tempos e o público mudaram
muito! Os desafios foram grandes também,
porém foi possível formar um time com a
diretoria nacional e o escritório central. Todos
foram maravilhosos, e aqui é necessário fazer
uma menção especial a Gleice Mori, que foi
excepcional. Foram longas negociações com
a PUCPR e, de repente, um temporal inundou
e interditou o auditório principal, o Tuca. O
que fazer? O board veio para Curitiba. Olha
esse auditório, aquele outro, a cancha de
esportes. Mudamos de venue? Como? Agora?
Finalmente, a solução: uma tenda. Volta a
negociar com a PUC. Aqui não pode, lá não
dá e finalmente achamos o lugar perfeito. E
foi muito bom. Novamente gostaríamos de
mais participantes, mas acredito que todos
saíram satisfeitos. Foram quatro dias intensos.
Ótimas plenárias e apresentações também.
Dificuldades em montar nossa Conferencinha,
mas na última hora conseguimos também e lá
vieram voluntárias maravilhosas para ficar com
nossas crianças.
Enfim, foi um ótimo momento para encerrarmos
nossas participações depois de longos 22 anos.
Mas nenhum arrependimento. Só temos a
agradecer a todas as pessoas que passaram por
nossas vidas durante todos esses anos. Amizades
lindas!
27/01/2020 19:16

Alguma história divertida desses muitos anos
que vocês gostariam de compartilhar com os
nossos leitores?
Muitas histórias, nem todas divertidas.
Infelizmente, até com um caso de agressão física
tivemos de lidar uma vez.
Mas, sem dúvida, o melhor de tudo foi a grande
amizade que formamos desde então com as
"pioneiras" e com as que foram chegando ao
longo dos anos. Muitas entraram, muitas saíram,
mas o núcleo sempre estava lá.
No Southern Cone TESOL Conference de 2001,
por razões de ordem maior, das oito pessoas do
Comitê Organizador ficamos somente a Malu
e Florinda para a cerimônia de encerramento.
Pouco antes de entrarmos no auditório, nos
abraçamos e começamos a chorar! Alguém
que nos viu assim exclamou: Por que choram?
Deu tudo certo! Foi um evento maravilhoso! Ao
que respondemos em uníssono: Bem por isso!
Estamos muito felizes que tudo deu certo! Só
quem organiza eventos sabe das dificuldades que
ocorrem nos bastidores!
Como é fazer parte de uma liderança
feminina quando, apesar da nossa área ser
majoritariamente composta por mulheres, os
cargos de poder geralmente são ocupados por
homens?
Como devem imaginar, não foi fácil, mas muito
bom ao mesmo tempo. O Chapter teve alguns
homens que vieram e saíram. Suas estadas não
foram longas, mas sempre bem-vindas. Alguns
logo que chegavam viam que não conseguiriam
ficar sob a liderança feminina. Devo dizer que
somos um grupo de mulheres fortes e também
não aceitávamos bem que viessem impor algo
que não estava no nosso "script". Assim mesmo,
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 33
CARMEM KOPPE E FLORINDA SCREMIN
os que fizeram parte do chapter tanto como do
board quanto só como voluntários foram sempre
uma ajuda muito boa que nos ensinou muita
coisa.
Os cargos masculinos de poder também nos
ajudaram. Tivemos o então secretário de
educação e vice-governador em 2011 na plenária
de abertura (na época estava atuando como
governador). O board do BT quase sempre nos
ajudou. Alguns diretores de escolas também
sempre estiveram do nosso lado. Realmente, não
acredito que tivemos problemas. As mulheres do
board sempre se saíram bem.
Quais as diferenças entre os profissionais
que se juntaram ao Chapter no início de sua
formação e os de agora?
Primeiramente, gostaríamos de mencionar a
grande SEMELHANÇA entre os de "antanho" ou
de "outrora" e os "hodiernos" – quais sejam, a
vontade, a garra e o amor por compartilhar e pelo
desenvolvimento profissional dos professores
que vierem a participar dos eventos organizados
pelo Chapter. Esta semelhança é que fez e está
fazendo o Chapter ter continuidade. Isto nos deixa
(ao grupo de outrora!) muito tranquilas, pois
deixaremos o Chapter em muito boas mãos!
Ser voluntário do BRAZ-TESOL é uma decisão
muito séria a ser tomada, pois requer um
“trabalho extra” que vai impactar a sua vida e
o seu dia a dia, porque além das atribuições
e das responsabilidades da função no Board,
você também tem outras de ordem pessoal e
profissional em paralelo. E vemos no futuro
Board esta determinação!
Mas, respondendo à pergunta, há uma grande
DIFERENÇA entre os profissionais de 1998
e os de agora que até fica engraçado falar,
January 2020 33
27/01/2020 19:19
 INTERVIEW
pois os novos nem têm ideia do que isso
significa. Naquela época tivemos que aprender
muitas coisas muito novas para nós que
estamos acostumados a quadro-verde e giz,
ao mimeógrafo, à fita K7 e ao retroprojetor!
Aprendemos a trabalhar com um computador: do
Word, planilhas em Excel (!) e mandar e-mails até
a contratar uma montadora de estandes e como
negociá-los com as editoras.
Hoje, os profissionais já trazem muitos desses
conhecimentos inerentes. E vão precisar aprender
e desenvolver outras habilidades de como
negociar, administrar conflitos, usar ferramentas
de marketing, fazer orçamentos, etc.
Quais os desafios da nova gestão no momento
atual?
Acredito que o grande desafio da gestão atual é
(re)despertar o interesse dos professores pelos
eventos e (re)conscientizá-los das oportunidades
que o Chapter regional representa, como
desenvolvimento profissional e networking.
Também é preciso unir os teachers de todos os
segmentos, já que “the more we are, the stronger
we become”!
Como ter feito parte do Chapter as mudou como
profissionais? Que lições levarão?
Quando iniciamos em 1998, éramos somente
professoras: nos preocupávamos com
nossos alunos – se estavam aprendendo e se
desenvolvendo.
Ter escolhido formar e fazer parte do Chapter
fez uma grande diferença em nossas vidas. E
nos profissionalizou, pois fazer parte de uma
associação é um dos itens básicos de uma
profissão!
34 BT Newsletter
RevistaBrazTesol_Jan2020.indd 34
CARMEM KOPPE E FLORINDA SCREMIN
Não só éramos associadas como também
resolvemos nos dedicar a organizar eventos onde
pudéssemos compartilhar aquilo que sabíamos
e proporcionar a outros professores essa mesma
oportunidade.
Além disso,
__ Aprendemos que pode existir colaboração entre
os diferentes nichos de ensino de idiomas
__ Aprendemos a ver cada uma das instituições de
ensino de Curitiba como cooperadores para o
desenvolvimento profissional na área de ensino-
aprendizagem de idiomas
__ Aprendemos a ver o "big picture", a administrar,
a negociar, e a nos adaptar
__ Conhecemos muitas pessoas – fizemos muito
networking!
Fazer parte do BRAZ-TESOL foi uma recompensa
e um desafio em nossas vidas! Houve um antes
- BT e um pós - BT. E acreditamos que o que
mais nos impactou foi termos nos conhecido. A
Amizade, com A maiúsculo, que já dura mais de 22
anos! Foi uma experiência sem igual. Começamos
sem saber muito (ainda não sabemos), mas
a experiência, a amizade, o crescimento que
tivemos não há palavras que expliquem. Só temos
a agradecer.
Agora será só ir aos eventos e assistir com calma
as plenárias, escolher bem os workshops e
apresentações e sentir que cumprimos um dever.
Obrigada por nos envolver nesse projeto.
Flô e Carmem, nós que agradecemos por seu
trabalho incansável. Com sua dedicação e seu
esforço, vocês ajudaram a forjar não só o chapter
como toda a associação. Que seu legado de amor
à profissão e companheirismo seja sentido por
muitas décadas mais!
27/01/2020 19:22
 VENUE: MACKENZIE

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