Opção verbal para o ensino da língua

Abstract

Globalisation, new technologies, especially the Internet, chat rooms and social networks, as well as the fact that the English language is spoken by over 470 million speakers as a mother tongue and as a second language and can even reach a billion counting the speakers of English as a Foreign Language, is increasingly contributing to accentuate the differences from Standard English. These phenomena, to which we can add ‘Instant Messaging’ and ‘Street Talking’ (parallel culture), have been emphasizing the difficulties in the process of teaching / learning English as a Foreign Language. The main problems detected over time were related to the teaching / learning of verbal and aspectual forms that have no equivalent in the Portuguese case. The English language has only two tenses, the Present Simple tense and the Past Simple tense, whereas the other forms are called aspectual or modal forms which include progressive forms, Present and Past Continuous, the perfect, Present and Past Perfect and modality as well. We know that in Portuguese there are several forms of verbal inflection, the Present, Past and Future, taking on various combinations as the Pretérito Perfeito Simples, Pretérito Perfeito Composto, Pretérito Imperfeito and the Pretérito Mais-que-Perfeito Composto, to name a few. Both linguists and grammarians consider as essential the proper use of language both in written and spoken language. Speaking a language well is, according to Greenbaum, using it correctly, the so-called Standard English, so that the message is clearly understood and recognized by the listener. There are also several exams required in the various levels of education. In Cambridge ESOL, for example, the requirement regarding the correct use of British English is extreme. In Portugal, the greatest difficulty at the level of Foreign Language learning and a source of high level of failures is related to the learning of verb forms in general, and particularly the - Present Perfect - because there is no direct equivalence between the various tenses, as cited above, and because the Present Perfect means that any situation occurred in the past is perfective, completed. Therefore we intend to show that it may not be so, that there is another possible and simpler approach, contributing in so doing, to a path of success. This work aims to show how we can clearly and objectively examine one of the points, as noted above, that presents more difficulties for learners of English as a Foreign Language: teaching and learning the Present Perfect. We also hope that this work may in some way, help our colleagues facilitating the most enjoyable moments of interaction in the teaching / learning process of this aspectual form. Thus, language teachers, getting a good combination of language and skills, may stimulate in the learner an enthusiasm for languages which will be for the rest of his life.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Isabel Salazar Casanova (Supervisor)