BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 9 march 2005

and similarities of the TL and NL and predict the areas where they

would have problems since I can help them a great deal because

I know the characteristics of and speak their NL. All in all, since we

teachers cannot entirely motivate learners to correct themselves,

the activities I proposed and my own attitude to error treatment

seem to motivate my students to do that.

Through the research I conducted, I came to the conclusion

that communication depends on a certain level of accuracy.

However, I believe this paper will help demystify the idea that

mistakes are synonymous with failure. Fossilized mistakes, which

are a habit of speech influenced most of the times by NL, impair

students’ communication skills; however, it is inevitable that the

students would make them, even after being corrected. We, as

teachers, can make these students perceive as well as reflect on

their own mistakes by raising their awareness to become more

responsible for their learning and for self-correction.

I hold no illusions about having the final word on this topic but

it is axiomatic that the teacher should create a positive learning

environment and provide optimal feedback. “As part of a definition

of ‘learning a second language’, ‘successful learning’ of a second

language for most learners, involves, to a large extent, the

reorganization of linguistic material from an IL to identify with a

particular TL.” Selinker (1974, p. 44) and also “lies in the feedback

that a learner receives from others…” Douglas (1994, p. 218)

All in all, teachers will support learning if correction is used

positively rather than some kind of criticism or punishment, so

asking students how they feel about being corrected may be

considered to be a good way to approach students about error

correction since, as a rule, they want and expect mistakes to be

corrected in the classroom. By showing interest in the learner, the

teacher can encourage fluency but it is experience that will

determine when, how, and how much to correct mistakes.

ACTIVITY 1Try to correct the mistakes below and write down in your Learning

Diary the mistakes you want to get rid of.

Spelling1 I'm planing to go to the movies on Wednesday.

2 It's easyer to travel by bus.

3 My mom is a layer.

4 My holyday was fine.

5 I studyed a lot yesterday.

6 Of corse I like her.

7 It's a nice oportunity to travel.

8 Wich one is yours?

9 Are you redy?

10 My writting is terrible.

Vocabulary (Wrong Word)1 She told she was sick.

2 I made a test yesterday.

3 He said me I was wrong.

4 I ever go to the theater on weekends.

5 I went to German on business last week.

6 I've been playing tennis actually.

7 I did a lot of mistakes.

8 I'm telling you the true!

9 Thank you for all things you did.

Preposition1 I went to Canada for to study.

2 I want learn English fast.

3 John arrived to England 2 days ago.

4 I entered in the room at 2 o'clock.

BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 10 march 2005

5 She's looking forward in meeting you.

6 It depends of the weather.

7 They called to the airport.

8 That book is for me read.

9 It's OK for me.

10 I have to call to my mom.

Grammar1 Did you like your trip to Cancun? I enjoyed a lot.

2 I'm work at Philco.

3 The culture activities are on Friday.

4 Where did you born? I born in Santos.

5 I looking for a new job.

6 London is more good than Oxford.

7 I'm very interesting in Modern Art.

8 Can you tell me where did you eat?

9 My city is bigger and crowded.

10 People who lives in Brazil is happy.

11 This is the first time is possible for me to write

12 I'd like to know how does it work.

13 She told about the trip.

14 Do you like to go to the movies with me?

Verb tense1 How long do you study at this school? I study here

since last month.

2 Last night I have bought a book.

3 I phone you as soon as I'll arrive.

4 I have difficulty to understand her.

Portuguese influence1 She went to the park with your husband.

2 I'll let you know how he looks like.

3 I have 30 years old.

4 The most of the people went home.

5 Because this he's not here.

6 I like very much chocolate.

7 I want that you meet my sister.

8 They take a walk all days.

9 I pretend to visit Montreal on my vacation

10 He calls me all time.

11 I stayed happy when I saw her.

12 How long time have you worked here?

13 Have a lot of traffic in São Paulo.

14 I don't have sure.

15 I and my husband.

16 I didn't like nothing.

17 The final of the book is great.

18 I travel at work.

19 I wrong it a lot.

As your teacher pronounces the words below, see which ones

you have the most difficulty with and write them down in you

Learning Diary

Pronunciation1 called 14 chocolate

2 electricity 15 mobile

3 rarely 16 feminism

4 dangerous 17 available

5 theater 18 purchase

6 island 19 used to

7 museum 20 other

8 world 21 culture

9 country 22 sea

10 office 23 popular

11 lawyer 24 calculator

12 examine 25 event

13 maintenance

Word stress1 police / policy 9 difficulty

2 develop(ment) 10 Japan

3 fortunately 11 visit

4 approximately 12 agriculture

5 television 13 detail

6 recently 14 hotel

7 interesting 15 discount

8 immediately 16 independent

ACTIVITY 2: My Learning DiaryAs soon as you NOTICE an error, write it down here. Try not to

make this mistake again.

At the end of the course, check if you are still making the same

mistakes, notice what kind of mistakes you are making the most.

Talk to your teacher to see if there is anything you can do about it.

BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 11 march 2005

Fabíola Novella Massaro has been an EFL teacher for over 11 years.She holds a COTE certificate (Cambridge) and a postgraduate degree in

English (UMESP). She is currently a teacher at Cel-Lep/Sto. André.The writer would like to thank Elizabeth Pow for revising this article.

ACTIVITY 3: E-mail extractsExtract 1Que bom que sua mãe pode vem. Meu pai fala que eu dar meu

tempo a vocês esta vez.

Eu estava esperando qualquer coiza de vocês… vocês não me

escreverão… Meus paes estavão quasi ligando de novo. Você

mando um E-mail?

Extract 2Meu pai troci o cachorro. Ele tem um cheiro disgraçado.

(…)

Eu não explicei como agente está viagando. De motor home!

(…)

Eu sei que algem nunca esquece mas agora olhando para atrás,

eu gostaria de fazer tudo de novo. Queria falar desculpa.

Extract 3Eu mandei uma otra e-mail, mas não deu certo… Talvez eu posso

ir para Brasil quando tenho emprego!!! Não se preocupa de

presentes, vocês fizaram tanto para mim, deixa!

(…)

Quando Scott está perto de mim eu como direito e fiquo legal. Faz

quasi dois anos que nao me preocupa de meu “weight”. Se ele

está longe, o circulo comiença.

Extract 4Meu pai está aqui. Ele está gritando para bems ao Brasil!! Ele viu

o jogo na TV, no “replay”, e está muito feliz.

Extract 5Aqui em Manitoba é bonito, mais não egual ao Brasil. É incrivel

aqui! Para primeira vez, eu vi um urso de perto e assisti o morto…

nossa, que lição grande… é uma situação muito controversial

aqui, matar um urso.

Taken from Lorrayne Morris’ E-mails

Adapted by Fabíola N. Massaro

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What I said/wrote Correct form

How to express your strenghts:write apowerful RESUME

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BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 12 march 2005

SummaryWriting an impressive resume, either in English or in Portuguese, is

the first step to get a job interview. New ways to organize

qualifications are tools that have to be mastered by most people in

order to talk and write about their experience and select the most

relevant items to include in a successful resume.

Hiring an employee is a complex process that involves trained

and specialized Human Resources personnel and tools. They select

appropriate resumes, conduct interviews, tests, and other activities

specific to the job opening.

The purpose of a resume is to get an interview, to motivate an

employer to include you in the recruiting process. Here, we will offer

some useful tips, as well as vocabulary both in English and

Portuguese to boost your qualifications.

As a general rule, a good resume should have the following

qualities:

✔ It should be well organized so that it can be read in up to 10

seconds. The length has to be up to 2 pages. It should look

attractive.

✔ It should emphasize the strengths, accomplishments, and

qualifications of the candidate to the job.

The main components of a resume are:

✔ Heading (cabeçalho): includes full name, complete address and

telephone numbers. In Brazil some people include age, marital

status and nationality. In the US this information is not stated

because it can be discriminative.

✔ Job Objective (cargo pretendido): Specific job objectives should

reflect your experience. Candidates with little experience should

state broader areas. Adjust the job objective to the actual

position you’re looking for.

✔ Work Experience (experiência professional): This is the core of

your resume. A successful and innovative format is to organize

your qualifications under broad skills relevant to the job rather

than use the traditional reversed chronological order. This kind

of resume lists your experience by job functions and is

especially useful when you have limited experience, you are

changing careers or you are looking for your first job. It states

any major accomplishments, responsibilities, potentials, and

competences under broad skill categories. Your employers will

be listed separately. Thus, you can organize all your strengths

and highlight your professional achievements, and abilities

without linking them to specific employers that not necessarily

add value to your resume.

To list your accomplishments, you should use action verbs that will

by Vicky Weischtordt – PUC-SP

help you create a well defined image of your performance. Here

are some useful verbs that may be included:

analyze analisar

conduct conduzir

coordinate coordenar

create criar

design elaborar

develop desenvolver

direct dirigir

evaluate avaliar

implement implementar

manage gerenciar, administrar

organize organizar

perform desempenhar, realizar, executar

plan planejar

prepare preparar, elaborar

specialize especializar

supervise supervisionar

train treinar

write redigir, elaborar

Also, there are other trendy buzz words that may be included:

teamwork trabalho em equipe

results oriented voltado para a obtenção de resultados

customer focused centrado no cliente

partnership parceria

leadership liderança

problem solver / solução /

problem solving resolução de problemas

value-added solutions soluções que agregam valor /

de valor agregado

take risks / risk-taker correr riscos

innovative inovador

creative criativo

persuasive persuasivo

responsible / responsável /

responsibility responsabilidade

marketing strategies estratégias de marketing

cultural fluency fluência cultural

competence competência

ability habilidade

skill capacidade

knowledge conhecimento

BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 13 march 2005

outstanding excepcional

excellent excelente

impressive impressionante

extremely extremamente

specialized especializado

Full Name

Full Address

Phone / Fax / Cell Phone

Objective [Cargo Pretendido]: __________

Highlights of Qualifications [Destaques]

__ years’ experience in __________

Masters word processor ___, database, Internet , ___ [state all relevant information]

Graduated in ___ [state course and university if it is a good one]

Fluent English and Spanish

Professional Experience [Experiência Profissional]

Organizational and Planning Skills [Organização e Planejamento]

Developed __________

Prepared __________

Organized ___________

Conducted ___________

Interpersonal / Communication Skills [Comunicação e Relacionamento Interpessoal]

Strong leadership abilities

Highly cooperative team member

Well-developed __________

__________

Computer Skills [Informática]

Masters e-business softwares, __________

Experienced user of ___________

[You may include any Skill Categories that best describe your experience or that you may find necessary for the target job.]

Employment History [Cargos Exercidos] [List your employers]

Year Position Employer

Education [Educação / Escolaridade]

Course College / University / Technical Course

Specialization Courses

Language Courses

Professional Events / Seminars / Congresses

Date and Signature

accountability credibilidade, responsabilidade,

confiabilidade

proficient proficiente, experiente

technical knowledge conhecimentos técnicos

Don’t be shy to use intensification and effective adjectives such as:

Now, let’s examine an outline of this kind of resume:

Hope this will be useful and you all get wonderful jobs!!!

Vicky

Victoria Claire Weischtordt is a Professor at PUC-SP

BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 14 march 2005

If your experience is similar to mine, many of you have had

students come to you and say that “I want to learn English in

order to speak and understand so that I can travel, but I don't

want to take more classes of grammar”. This comment usually

comes from students who have had years of grammar classes,

yet found themselves unable to speak and understand

afterwards. Well, let me offer a viewpoint based on an objectives-

driven classroom approach to possibly help you assist students

seeking this type of classroom instruction. Before continuing, I

would like to say that I consider all of you as experts in your own

specialties and hope that in some small way, the ideas, teaching

perspective, and experiences that I share with you now will

benefit you in your teaching.

During my teaching and research of English as a Foreign

Language (EFL) at my school, Interlanguage in Barretos, I found it

essential during the initial student contact to clarify the student's

primary learning objectives. That is, learning objectives relative to

the FOUR distinct abilities that one acquires when learning

English. Those four abilities are listening, speaking, reading, and

writing. The manner in which these abilities are acquired has been

and remains of utmost importance to me.

For example, if the student expressed an interested in the

objective: to pass the college entrance examination only, I would

describe a series of steps that I would take in order to impart

English grammar, structure, vocabulary, and reading skills

appropriate for pre-college preparation. The preparation

necessary in order to pass the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign

Language) as well as other standardized examinations for

entrance in a college or university outside of Brazil is similar but

NOT the same as for the Vestibular.

As a footnote for new, foreign teachers teaching in Brazil, the

Vestibular is an examination that can allow a student to study at

an elite, private Brazilian school, or permit a student to study at a

state or federal school that is tuition-free. So, as you can imagine,

the majority of students compete diligently to pass and be

accepted into one of these latter two types of higher education

institutions. Many of my students come to Interlanguage with the

objective to learn English based on the desire to pass this

examination.

Student Objectives –

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EFL CLASSESDriven

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Skill Objectives

On the other hand, if the student wants to listen and speak

well in order to visit the United States, Canada, England,

Australia, or some other English-speaking country, the overall

approach would be centered around multiple listening, speaking,

and reading opportunities with the intention to develop

functional fluency. There, of course, would be some grammar,

but it would be as little as possible in order to concentrate on

spoken English acquisition.

Similarly, should a student only wish to correspond by

facsimile, letters, contracts, or other written documents in

English, and express no desire to speak, or understand more than

the most basic aspects of the other 3 acquired abilities, then the

student's course would be composed mainly of many reading,

vocabulary-building, grammar, structure, and writing

opportunities. The end result of this course would be for the

student to compose written correspondence at a standard level of

written English within a given performance level either agreed

upon mutually, or established by the teacher. The table below

shows a sampling of student-driven objectives relative to specific

language skills.

Listening Exchange Student;

TOEFL;

Travel

Speaking Exchange Student;

Travel

Reading Exchange Student;

Vestibular;

TOEFL;

Travel;

Prepare & Send Faxes/Letters

Writing Vestibular;

TOEFL;

Prepare & Send Faxes/Letters

BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 15 march 2005

Please keep in mind that a natural English methodology is

based upon the belief that the day-to-day subjects will be

“student-centered”. “Why student-centered?” you may be asking

yourselves. Student-centered instruction is important so as to

maintain a reasonably high level of student interest, interaction

and thus, attention. Especially in classes with adult EFL students,

we can and should draw upon the experiences of the adult

learner. The learner's professional and personal experiences also

tend to enrich the EFL classes.

Besides the need to identify student objectives, it is equally

important to ascertain the student's PRESENT level of English – if

any – during the initial meeting. I recommend that the teacher use

some type of standardized written placement test that measures

with reasonable validity and reliability whether the student is at

the BASIC, INTERMEDIATE, OR ADVANCED level of English.

It is important to realize that if the student wants to acquire or

increase his or her level of listening comprehension, the teacher

may use audio cassette tapes, video cassette tapes, and DVDs.

These classroom tools can give the teacher a general idea of the

student's level of listening comprehension. Working from the

perspective of developing the student's listening ability, EFL

lessons should contain specific objectives designed to further

enhance this capability.

Even though these listening comprehension tools are very

useful, my experience has led me to believe that the student's

level of spoken English is best identified through open

conversation. However, it is important to pace your rate of speech

and speak in a level-appropriate vocabulary; this manner of

speaking should allow the teacher to interpret at what point the

student can and cannot understand the GENERAL MEANING of

your conversation and/or questions. For instance, you may ask

the student: "How old are you?" and "How are you?" to see if the

student can discriminate the difference between the two

sentences and respond correctly. After awaiting the student's

response, ask the student if he or she understood some words, all

words, or the overall meaning. Short, simple sentences will reveal

the student's level of spoken English very rapidly.

Nevertheless, it is also important to remember that some

students will be nervous and a bit stressed when asked to speak,

especially in front of their parents or spouses, so consider this when

reaching a conclusion about the students’ level of spoken English.

Finally, I have found it productive to explain and show the

student the various learning materials that will be used to meet

the student's learning objectives. Showing the course book,

exercise sheets, supplemental information sheets, cassette

tapes, and video tapes goes a long way toward creating a sense

of professionalism in the mind of the student, and it demonstrates

your interest in fully informing the student of the multiple learning

tools that will be utilized to assure the systematic and logical

acquisition of English through the EFL program.

Gary E. Cain, Director, Interlanguage American School of English (17) 3323-2465 (or) (17) 9773-1144 Barretos, SP

E-mail: garyecain@hotmail.com Holds earned Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Business Education

from Bowling Green State University, USA. Has owned, operated, and taught in this private EFL school for over 12 years.