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- Changing teachers’ attitudes towards ICT-based language learning tasks: the ETALAGE Comenius project (the Portuguese case)Publication . Lopes, AntónioMany foreign and second language teachers are reluctant about shifting from traditional language instruction to TBLT. Another challenge has been the use of ICT in the classroom, a problem addressed in previous Comenius projects. The ETALAGE aimed to build on the achievements of such projects and to address these challenges, by collecting, re-designing, adapting and disseminating samples of good practice of ICT-based language learning tasks (A1-B2 CEF levels) in primary and secondary education. Partners produced in-service teacher training courses adjusted to local needs. Independent experts in language teaching monitored the quality of the products at a national level. This paper explains the project setup and its implementation in Portugal, describing a) the specific challenges and constraints that the local reality poses to an international project like this and; b) the perceptions of the Portuguese trainees in pre- and post-course surveys concerning the use of ICT in TBLT.
- Reinventing America on the battlefields of Spain or following the party line: conflicting perceptions of the Spanish Civil War in the present and in the pastPublication . Lopes, AntónioIsolationism and neutrality are two of the recurrent themes in the study of the history of the U.S. foreign policy in the interwar years. The trauma of the Great War, which had swept away 130.000 U.S. lives and had cost $30 billion, had led public opinion to strongly oppose any involvement with European affairs. Besides, the urgent need for economic recovery during the dismal years of the Great Depression did not leave Roosevelt much room for manoeuvre to influence international events. His positions regarding the intentions of the Fascist states remained, at best, ambivalent. These facts notwithstanding, about 2800 U.S. citizens crossed the Atlantic and rushed in to help democratic Spain, which was on the verge of becoming one more hostage in the hands of the Fascism. They joined the other British, Irish and Canadian volunteers and formed the XV International Brigade. 900 Americans never returned home. This alone should challenge the commonly held assumption that the American people were indifferent to the rise of the Fascist threat in Europe. But it also begs other questions. Considering the prevailing isolationist mood, what really motivated them? With what discursive elements did these men construct their anti Fascist representations? How far did their understanding of the Spanish democracy correspond to their own American democratic ideal? In what way did their war experience across the Atlantic mould their perception of U.S. politics (both domestic and foreign)? How far did the Spanish Civil War constitute one first step towards the realization that the U.S. might actually be drawn into another international conflict of unpredictable consequences? Last but not the least, what ideological, political and cultural complicity existed between the men from the English-speaking battalions? In order to unearth some of the answers, I intend to examine their letters and see how these men recorded the historical events in which they took part. Their correspondence emerged from the desire to prove their commitment to a common cause and spoke of a common war experience, but each letter, in its uniqueness, ends up mirroring not only the social and political background of each individual fighter, but also his own particular perspective of the war, of world politics and of the Spanish people. We shall see how these letters differ and converge and how these particular accounts weave, as in an epistolary novel, a larger-than-life narrative of outrage and solidarity, despair and hope.
- Linking content and language-integrated learning (CLIL) and task-based language teaching (TBLT) in an effective way: a methodological proposalPublication . Lopes, AntónioCLIL and TBLT are approaches that have increasingly captured the attention of both teachers and researchers, and many of the latter have already discussed the ways in which they can be brought together. One of the challenges encountered in the implementation of CLIL has been the discrepancy between the level required to carry out the work for content learning and the students' actual level. One of the solutions may lie in resorting to TBLT, where language is regarded as action and the learner seen as a social actor engaged in real-life-like activities. However, in CLIL, the task being proposed to the students has to be appropriate to their level and their ability to internalise conceptual knowledge. In order to bridge some of the methodological gaps between CLIL and TBLT, a framework for designing content-oriented tasks, based on the one advanced for the project PETALL, has been developed to help teachers plan their CLIL activities. After a theoretical introduction to the principles of Task-based Learning and its integration with CLIL, a template designed to systematise the task is provided and discussed.
- Designing technology-mediated tasks for language teaching: A methodological frameworkPublication . Lopes, António; Ruiz-Cecilia, RaulPETALL (Pan-European Task-based Activities for Language Learning) is a European-funded project aiming at the promotion of foreign languages learning through ICT-based tasks. For that purpose, the project consortium has offered teacher training courses and has produced samples of best practices in which technologies play a major role. These tasks have been trialled and evaluated in the neighbouring countries in a network of collaborative partnerships in teaching and research, which allowed the designers of the tasks to receive constructive feedback from peers and end-users (teachers and learners). This article first provides an overview of the project (namely its rationale, literature review, implementation and evaluation processes, and the dissemination and exploitation strategies), before explaining in greater detail the procedures employed by the consortium in the setting-up of a methodological framework to be used in the designing and trialling of ICT-based tasks. The different stages of the designing process are described, as well as the criteria for the validation of the proposed samples. The template used by the designers is explained and an analysis of the set of tasks is also provided. In the end, some closing remarks based on the outcomes of the project are given.
- Texting, Textisms and Teaching PortuguesePublication . Gomez-Camacho, Alejandro; Lopes, António Manuel BernardoThis study examines the perception of digital Portuguese spelling and its relationship to the teaching of Portuguese as L1 and L2. 85 undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of education and communication participated in the study through a 35-item questionnaire, validated in both theoretical and the empirical terms. The qualitative analysis of the results showed a high rejection of the use of textisms at the graphic and phonological levels, which are regarded as being associated with standard Portuguese spelling mistakes. However, the multimodal elements of digital Portuguese were accepted as resources for the teaching of the language.