LEARNING HOW TO WRITE IN ENGLISH

Writing a Research Project Proposal    

Project Description                                                        Péricles Mendes da Silva Júnior

Title: The Importance of Learning English Language in Brazil: Under the Vision of Public Schools’ Students.

I. Introduction

To speak a second language is an interesting experience and a great opportunity to increase a personal knowledge. It gives a better linguistic competence and a cultural dynamism since new values and cultures are presented during the process of learning. From this process of knowing new cultures comes the respect and admiration for them, and a sense of critic vision and valorization of the students` own culture. And knowledge in a second language, especially English, make the holder more integrated in the world, making the life easier and pleasant.  

II. Objectives

This research will target a specific group of students from public schools, trying to show their real perceptions and expectations about the importance of learning English Language in regular classes. It will also compare these perceptions among different levels in order to delineate a profile not only per age but per amount of knowledge acquired too.

My expectance with this research is, like a future English teacher, to know what are the real necessities and the wish of these students. This kind of profile would help the teachers to understand and help the students in a better way.  

III. Justification  

The diverse considerations about why studying English is the main motive of choosing this theme. The students have different perspectives and reasons to study English, and when the teacher is able to see and understand these motivations everything gets easier during the process of teaching-learning. Once established the students’ goals the teacher can work on motivation starting from this specific objective. Factors like age and level should be considered because they can affect the opinion about the importance of studying English in Brazil.

Another concern of mine is about Public Schools, the idea I have made about them after my first semester of practicing is the worst as possible, but I only observed classes in one school. Are the others the same? How is the real condition of public schools in the matter of English language learning? Are the teachers prepared for this reality? These are some questions I would like to answer with this research and certainly others will appeared during the course and will be answered.

IV. Theoretical Framework

The importance of this theme can be verified by the numbers of authors that have written about it. TUDOR (2001) believes that the learning of English language is connected to the stimulus. TOTIS (1991) said that is almost impossible to learn the four skills of a second language in Brazil in the actual context, and he emphasizes the necessity of a more rigorous legislation about the theme. COSTA (1987) thinks that cognitive processes of language learning are the main point to learn the English language and it is as important as any subject in the curriculum.

Almost the totality of Brazilian’s public schools has English language in their curriculum. This choice is justified by the increasing importance of this language in the world in the last decades.

According to BROWN (1994) motivation is probable the most used term to justify the success or not in a complex task like learning a second language. And it is not wrong to say that the chances to have success increase a lot if the learner has any kind of motivation. This idea is proved by numbers, studies, and experiments.

There are many kinds of motivation and we can divide them in two big groups:

Group 1: Instrumental Motivation – the learner wants to learn a second language to fill some specific technical need like career, translations or read technical literature. Integrative Motivation – the learners want to know or integrate themselves in a new culture. Assimilative Motivation – occurs when the learners besides to integrate to a new cultures want to be part of it.

Group 2: Intrinsic Motivation – apparently without tangible reward, it comes from the learner, usually looking for personal satisfaction. linked to the ego the reward usually comes like recognition. Extrinsic Motivation – the learner needs some tangible reward like money with a better job, prices, grades, and even to avoid punishment.

It seams that motivation is probable the most important point in learning a second language, so it will be an important part in this research.   

V. Methodology

I intent to visit as many as public schools I can during this research. And I will observe classes in different levels and timetables. I will take notes about students’ attitude during the classes and I will apply questionnaires. After this phase I intent to organize the information will have collected dividing them in groups of age, levels and kind of motivations. Then I will draw some graphics in order to make easier to write the analyses and the conclusion.

VI. References cited

BROWN, H. D. Principles of language learning and teaching. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1994.

COSTA, D. N. M. da. Por que ensinar Língua Estrangeria na escola de 1 grau. São Paulo: EPU, EDUC, 1987.

TOTIS, V. P. Língua Inglesa: Leitura. São Paulo: Cortez, 1991.

TUDOR,  I. The dynamics of the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

The Lottery 

By Shirley Jackson  (1919-1965).

 A classic short story by Shirley Jackson first published in the June 26th, 1948 in The New Yorker, an American magazine. It caused an incredible impact at that time because of its plot. A lot of people got shocked and they complained with negative response. But later this short story became one of the most popular in the USA and they adapted it to the theater, to the TV and to the cinema too.     

The story took place in a square of a small American town, where the locals were gathering to participate in an event, the lottery, in June 27. The kids were collecting stones making a big pile of them in the corner, the adults who have arrived were talking agitatedly about daily matters and waiting for the others. The lottery was conducted by Mr. Summer, he used a very old black wooden box with pieces of paper inside and one of these papers had a black dot in it. The winner would be the one who took this piece of paper. Nobody knows when this tradition began nor who did it, but they are still following it. The lottery have two parts, first the head of each family draws and they choose a family, and then this family draws among them to choose one member of it to be the winner. So this person is stoned in the middle of the square by the others residents including his or her family. They have done this for a long time in order to ensure a good harvest and they believe if they stop the tradition they would be punished, so they keep this horrible ritual for the everybody’ welfare.

Reading this short story, written long time ago and looking at our actual society, I infer that human beings might not change their essence, but only the way they act in certain situations. Though we have developed so much in many areas, we are still keeping the feeling of surviving above any other feeling. Could this feeling transform us from normal people into monsters? Reading this story you may have some answers.    

You can read this short storie in this site. http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

Directed by Tony Scott, producted by Jerry Bruckheimer, composed by Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii. And starring by Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, Jim Cavaziel, Adam Goldberg, and Bruce Greenwood. DÉJÀ VU is an action movie with a lot of science fiction in it. It was released in 2006 in the USA and 2007 in Brazil.

Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was called in to recover evidence in the aftermath of a terrible explosion on a New Orleans ferryboat that has left 543 people dead. During the investigation he found out that Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), one of the victims, was killed several hours before the explosion. Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer), head of a very special FBI unit that was investigating the bombing too, noticed that agent Carlin was very clever and knowing of the local, so he invited him to work with them. This unit was formed mostly by scientists and they have developed a machine that could show the past from more than four days ago by several cameras from satellites. Carlin used the machine to find the bomber by following Claire’s last steps and sending clues back in time to him. He reached the point to send himself back a few hours before the bombing, an action we could consider like a modern heroism.  

Déjà vu is a sensation everybody felt at least once, to already have been in a place that we know for sure we never had. This film will make the audience think about of the possibility to find some true in it, even the incredulous ones will have a chance to oppose. But how  will they explain the Déjà vu sensation they felt? That is why this movie is so interesting.

        The characteristic I like best in myself and which is the one that have helped me a lot in my life is determination. When I want something, I go after this goal and I do  everything that is possible to  reach it without regrets. Even if this  determination drives me to the wrong way, I take it. But mostly I have had more good results than bad ones. 

        I was a teenager when I quit the college to work. I was taking business administration at UCG when I got a good job in another city. So I moved and abandoned the course, my determination to work made me  take this decision. Later, when I was established there, I started a computer science course. After a year I had to move back to Goiânia, so I quit college again. Some years later I transferred my computer science course to Goiânia and continued it at Faculdade Anhanguera, but once again I had to leave it. I got unemployed and I decided to move abroad.  

        So I lived in the United States for almost five years. I did not study as much as I could when I was there, and this is the only regret I have. And when I came back I decided to take this course and now I am determined to finish it. I am very happy with it, although I am a bit worried about be a teacher. I think that is too much responsibility, but I am determined to take it.      

        Determination has helped me a lot, and after all these experiences I have seen that even the bad ones taught me a lot. I have learned that every event in my life  came on the  right time. Today I have the  independence I had dreamed before I had left my country, and a lot of experience I would never get if I  had not tried. If I could go back in time, for sure, I would fix  some errors  I have done, but most of the  decisions I have made I would keep them. 

THE UNIVERSITY ROLE

            Go to the university is getting easier, but this achievement can be a trap. A lot of new institutions has been created, but without a minimum quality required to an educational institution. When I say easier, I am not talking about financial facilities to go through and get a degree, but about so many private and expensive options we have had. So, it is getting easier for those who can afford it.  

        Most of the new institutions are private and the biggest part of them aims just one objective, to gain more and more money, so they leave the educational goals behind. That is why go to a good public university is getting so hard, especially for those who can not prepare themselves properly. 

            Our city is a good example of this problem, about twenty years ago we had no more than a dozen superior education institutions and today they are more than twenty. Of course not all of them are bad institutions, but most of them are not able to form good professionals and conscious citizens. However even the good public universities are changing their philosophy and surrender themselves to the market and they are beginning look at the education like a commodity.  

            Like we can see in our Federal Universities this new government project called REUNI. This project intent to increase the numbers of students that will enter into the university creating new courses and increasing the numbers of vacancy in the courses that already exist. Although the enterprise is important, the way it has been put into practice seems to be wrong because it aim to numbers not quality.   

            So they are trying to make easier for those who do not have the same chances as the privileged part of our society to go to good universities, but they must realize that they have to keep these universities good as they have been. Otherwise we will have equalization by the  bottom  and the society will lose the good reference it has today for a education method where the formation of the human being is the priority.

     Brazil has a great potential for sports, but we do not have the support we need. The government and the big companies does not care about. They only care about some visible sports those will give them some exposure in the media in return. But we are a brave people, and we always can see some examples about someone that brakes all difficulties to do something to our sport, and these efforts reflect in our national spirit like we could see in this Olympics Games.

     Most of our athletes do not have the minimum support they need but even so they are still trying, they do not give up. We could see in many kinds of sports a regression, the results were worst than the previews editions and in others sports we just keep our level, so we did not have any advance.  

     But the reality is very sad. A lot of money were spent, more than six hundred and fifty millions reais, the double of the last edition, and the results were worst. It is proved that the  Brazilian Olympic Committee did not have competence to manege this money, or the government do not have competence to chose its advisers. Whatever the problem is, it is serious and must be solved.

     Something has to be done, but what? We feel so impotent facing this people, because they are so dirty, unscrupulous and shameless that make the people scare. Unfortunately this reality is not only on sports but everywhere the politics’ decisions are necessary.

     John, a photographer, was very worried about his new work. He had to find a good place and an interesting theme for his new exposition, which will take place in December. It was the last week of October and he did not have diceded  yet. So he talked to some friends and one of them gave him a good idea that he loved.

     He would take pictures of a group of homeless children who lived under the bridge near the biggest shopping mall in the city. Next morning he got up earlier than usual and started his project. During ten days he took a lot of pictures of that group of chidren and then he began the worst part of his job, select the photos. After two weeks he had the selection done and by December 1st his exposition was open.

     It was a wonderful success. Not only because the photos were amazing,  but mostly because the great impact they caused in everyone who went to that shopping mall, the exposition took place there at the main hall, nobody could imagine such problem so close to them.

HI! I’m Péricles, this is my first time blogging and I’m a litlle bit lost. I am an English student and my goal here is learning how to write in English.