Dossiers socioculturaels para niveles avanzados de portugués como lengua extranjera

Abstract

The proposal for sociocultural dossiers springs from the necessity to give continuity to the objectives of the basic and intermediate levels of Portuguese for Foreigners at the Centro de Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras (CELE) at the UNAM. The sociocultural themes reflect the students ’ interests towards the target culture and were defined through research carried out at the aforementioned institution. The immediate beneficiaries of the project are the Portuguese students and teachers at the CELE (approximately 500 students). We believe; however; that this didactic material could be useful for other institutions which teach Portuguese as a foreign language in Mexico or in other countries. We depart from a sociocultural focus which promotes the development of cultural and communicative competence within an analytical-critical perspective that supports creativity in the use and acquisition of Portuguese. In respect to the concept of culture; the sociocultural focus of Claire Kramsch (1995) has been followed as well as some key concepts like intercultural communication (Knapp; 1987); the understanding of cultural elements (Reis; 1994); the concept of creativity (Franchi; 1990); and pedagogical grammar (Akerberg; 1997). The content is.organized by thematic units that include different types of authentic materials of sociocultural character; didactic materials for the exploration of these materials; in addition to pedagogical grammar. The objective of the pedagogical grammar is to use the linguistic code in relation to communication and better performance in the target language. The pedagogical grammar support uses the thematic aspects as the content of the grammatical exercises taking advantage of the information to promote reflection on linguistic aspects.