02 fev 2017

by | in Career, Reflections about Education

The word feminism is not new, though the understanding of the concept seems to have changed. We shifted from the image of women burning bras in the 60’s to the powerful image of the most recent Women’s March in the United States and in other countries demanding equal rights. I emphasise the word equal and quote the Brazilian philosopher Mario Sergio Cortella in a video snippet that went viral some time ago. In this snippet[1] he briefly and eloquently explains why feminism is not the opposite of machismo....

02 nov 2016

by | in Reflections about Education

A couple of months ago a friend of mine reported on his page on Facebook a situation that had happened to his son at school. It was a Portuguese lesson and the focus was defining and non-defining relative clauses. To cut a long story short, my friend’s son defended that that the sentence My father who treats clients well is bankrupt was as correct as My father, who treats clients well, is bankrupt as, in the boy’s words, it was perfectly possible to have two fathers. After all,...

05 abr 2015

by | in Teacher Development

Almost 4 years ago, on April 7th 2011, the first BrELT Chat took place. I must have wondered what that #breltchat at the end of tweets meant, but eventually I figured out that my Twitter friends were using that hashtag to talk about language teaching in Brazil. Later I joined a few of those debates and, even though I struggled with the tool or maybe with my internet connection, I just loved the fact that there were people in my country willing to talk about those topics after-hours. About...

08 out 2014

by | in Classroom Experiences, Lesson Ideas

We all know how much students like sending instant messages and using Facebook and Whatsapp to interact with friends. So, why not use free social networking websites to practise language items? The idea sounds great but protecting our students' privacy is a priority at school. And that's absolutely right! Our aim was to have our 7th graders at Colégio A. Liessin Botafogo practise the use of linking words and the Present Perfect tense + vocabulary, such as physical appearance and expressions used when shopping for clothes, in a lively and fun...

01 set 2014

by | in Reflections about Education, Technology

I've decided to address a very controversial issue in my blog post. Well, it seems it is not controversial at all for most of the people, but it is something that has puzzled me for a while. This is not going to be a very long post as I do not have any answers to the questions I would like to raise. We are all online all the time. Most of us have a Facebook profile, post pictures on Instagram, tweet, blog, have a Pinterest account, have a LinkedIn...

10 fev 2014

by | in Career

Last week we followed a discussion about the university professor who posted a photograph on Facebook of a passenger at Rio de Janeiro airport with extremely prejudiced and harmful comments regarding his social class. The nature of the event was already particularly offensive but caused even greater discomfort because the authors work in education. Fortunately the reactions against the professor and her friends were so intense and immediate that a formal apology was published the following day. However, as the Academic Manager of a large institution, I believe...

13 jan 2014

by | in Technology

Olá a todos! Primeiramente, gostaria de dizer que é uma honra participar desse projeto da Richmond voltado para professores. Para meu texto de estreia, pensei em escrever um pouco sobre o que resolvi chamar de iTeacher. Não por considerar o professor mais um “i” gadget qualquer, mas por relacioná-lo a uma postura frente às constantes revoluções tecnológicas que vivemos. Parece ser injusta a nossa luta contra as tecnologias disponíveis aos nossos alunos. Muitas de nossas salas de aula, ainda mal equipadas, não são atraentes aos nossos alunos que chegam...