Showing papers in "Letras & Letras in 2010"

Computer-mediated task design: language student teachers' expectations and realizations

Abstract: This paper analyzes how ESL student teachers in the U.S. and EFL student teachers in Germany negotiated their task of creating joint task-based language teaching (TBLT) unit s via computer-mediated communication (CMC). More specifically, the researcher triangulated data such as pre-course questionnaires, post-course questionnaires, and synchronous and asynchronous CMC transcripts in order to analyze and contrast participantsi expectations before the project and their realizations after the project. Following the call for implementing technology into language teacher education through model learning (Hubbard & Levy , 2008; Willis, 2001), student teachers jointly created TBLT units via Moodle over a ten-week period. These student teachers first read about and discussed TBLT criteria and then collaboratively evaluated and re-designed tasks in English language textbooks. This project aimed at enabling participants to share perspectives about teaching contexts and practices in other countries and to learn about technology and TBLT through virtual communities of practice (Lave & W enger, 1991). Consequently, student teachers not only became more proficient users of technology , but also grew from the unique opportunity of collaborating with their future colleagues abroad. By the same token, the project raised numerous questions with regard to technology training, task design, and institutional contexts.

Technology and english language teaching in brazil

Abstract: Most prior research on technology use in English teaching has focused on individual countries. There has been less research that looks at this topic in a broad global perspective and includes the perspectives of diverse teachers throughout the world. As part of a study in 14 countries in the Americas and Asia, this paper examines technology access and use in English language teaching in Brazil. Based on quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey, telephone interviews, and case studies, the paper describes the access and use patterns in Brazil in comparison to that which exists in other countries, as well as the attitudes of Brazilian educators toward technology use in English teaching. Brazilian educators in the study sample were principally located in private sector schools. Within the confines of the study sample, Brazilian teachers have among the highest level of access to, use of, and interest in technology of teachers in any of the countries studied. The strong preference of Brazilian educators for open source resources and technologies matches well with preferences among English language teachers in other countries. This study suggests that Brazilian teachers merit having an important voice in the international field of technology and language learning.

War of the worlds: postcolonial identities in Afro-American speculative fiction

Abstract: Based on the concept of postcolonial literature as the writing that investigates the literary production of women and other minority groups in relation to the colonial discourse, this article aims to analyze how the Afro-American writer Octavia E. Butler uses speculative fiction to expose and subvert colonial discourse through hybridism. First, it is discussed how science and its biased attitude towards black people became institutionalized in modern Western culture. After this, the text examines the influence of this ideology upon the science fiction narrative. Finally, the article analyses Butler’s creation of postcolonial identities in the short story “Bloodchild” (1996) and in the novel The Parable of the Sower (1993) as a criticism of dominant representations of gender and race.