Resenhas

Revista Brand New Routes – Editora Disal
A DISAL Editora acaba de lançar “Muito Prazer – fale o português do Brasil”, curso de português para estrangeiros. O livro aborda de forma clara e objetiva habilidades de conversação, gramática, vocabulário, pronúncia, compreensão auditiva, leitura e escrita. Com 472 páginas, 2 CDs e novo enfoque para o ensino e o aprendizado do Português, combina as melhores características das abordagens mais modernas de ensino de língua estrangeira. Principais ferramentas:

• Temas de grande interesse e utilidade para se familiarizar com os costumes dos brasileiros que integram conversação, gramática, vocabulário, pronúncia, compreensão auditiva, leitura e escrita.
• Informações culturais que estimulam discussões e propiciam oportunidades de comparação à própria cultura, muito valiosas na aprendizagem de uma língua estrangeira.
• Reforço da aprendizagem nas unidades de revisão.
• Seções de pronúncia do Português com os sons de maior dificuldade para o estrangeiro, que são explicados de maneira clara e sucinta em exercícios de prática contextualizada.
• CDs de áudio para se ouvir e repetir os exercícios.
• Respostas de todos os exercícios e a transição dos textos de áudio encontram-se ao final do livro.

PublishNews
O sotaque não vai dar pra esconder, mas o livro Muito prazer - Fale o português do Brasil (Disal, 472 pp., R$ 135), de Gláucia Roberta Rocha Fernandes, Telma de Lurdes São Bento Ferreira e Vera Lúcia Ramos, promete ajudar bastante quem deseja e precisa falar português. A obra é um curso para estrangeiros que tem como objetivo capacitar o aluno, de qualquer nacionalidade, a aprender o português falado no Brasil e a comunicar-se com precisão e fluência. O livro combina as melhores características das abordagens mais modernas de ensino de língua estrangeira. Além disso, o material apresenta o léxico e a gramática essenciais para uma boa comunicação em português por meio de atividades estimulantes e contextualizadas, que apresentam a linguagem em uso na comunicação dos brasileiros.

Blog – Brazilian Portuguese
A new book has been published recently by the Brazilian publishing group DISAL. Its a 400 page textbook, with 2 CDs, for estrangeiros learning Portuguese. I can honestly say its the best manual for learning Brazilian Portuguese I’ve laid my hands on so far… You can actually browse the first chapter here: http://www.disal.com.br/mtoprazer And, tomorrow (Friday 13th!) of March there is an e-lecture on the DISAL website by the authors on how to teach past, present and future to foreigners. Useful. I’m working at that time so I hope it will (and my friends assure me it should) be available for download afterwards.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned this book and said I would write a review. Here it is. I guess it’s natural for me to approach Brazilian Portuguese textbooks for English people in a similar way to how I view English textbooks for Brazilians. I do this in my job as an English teacher, and there are many, many poor textbooks but a few excellent ones too. “Muito Prazer” is, fortunately, a Brazilian Portuguese example of the latter, in my opinion. I would have no hesitation recommending this publication to learners of the language. It was certainly the sort of book I’d been hoping to see and use. 
I’m going to be quite objective about this and list the many pros and few cons below and then conclude, briefly. 

Why I like this book (the pros):

• The book is substantial (400 pages long), nicely presented (something you can’t take for granted in language textbooks) and nicely illustrated.
• The 2 CDs-worth of listenings are short, sharp and generally reflect possible real-life situations well.
• Explanations of new language are clear and simple, don’t rely on linguistic jargon and are rarely given in isolation without examples. New Grammar or vocabulary is introduced in small portions, tested with useful and appropriate exercises and activities and then slowly built on through the book. In other words, it is an integrated approach to learnign the language and this is a good thing.
• Students are not expected to “remember” everything and so helpful hints and reminders with references to pages earlier in the book are given.
• helpfully notes anomalies and irregularities to the principal rules.
• The activities only test what has been presented (which is not always a given in other textbooks).
• Authentic material is used in the readings. Articles are sometimes pulled from real website pieces.
• Each of the 20 units addresses a related theme – sport, health and body etc.
• The book does NOT forget pronunciation and includes some helpful pages on the topic.
• The book uses examples of Brazilian culture, geography and history to teach the language.
• The new language is presented in practical situations
• buying tickets, viewing an apartment, meeting people.
• Useful reference sections at the back, scripts, answer pages and so on make it possible for someone (with a reasonable grasp of latin languages or previous exposure to Portuguese) to use this book without outside input and expect to attain an Upper Intermediate level appreciation of the language by the end of the 20 units.

Things that could be improved (or the cons).

• The readings are often far too short. Basically, make sure you are reading widely in addition to the material in the book. But, this is not surprising as the writers probably didn’t want to waste space in the 400 page tome.
• Related to the above, the questions for the readings are often too easy. For example, the reading might ask what the cost of an item is from the menu. Attaining the answer does not really demand comprehension of Portuguese – a child who only knows English would easily work it out.
• Occasionally, vocabulary is presented as a list with no explanation as to meaning. (This is when I have to call my wife to help! – or keep a dictionary handy!)
• Not really a con, but the book is designed for group use. Several activities involve talking to partners and this may not be possible.
• Related to the above, the answer section provides no clues as to what answers may or not be right when it involves the opinion of the reader (or his partner). For example, the book might ask you to write about your favourite colour. You want to check how you did, but the answer pages only say “Answers may vary” instead of giving examples of possible responses.
• Just a small thing. The book relies on Dialogues to introduce or present new language. Generally, they’re quite good and they’re not long but it would have been nice if there was some kind of task to do with these dialogues (fill in gaps / listen for an answer to a question) – otherwise, you may find yourself asking “why am I listening to these people?” or “why am I reading this?” which undermines motivation to learn. To sum up, the cons are not very weighty if you are self-motivated in your learning, augment your use of the book with authentic reading material and have someone (a teacher? a native speaker?) to talk to and quiz about the tricky bits, and check your writing. I’m already half way through the whole thing and really enjoying it. So, if you’re learning Brazilian Portuguese, put this on your Christmas list.

Dave Maclure

Blog – Francisco Gomes de Matos
Com MUITO PRAZER recebi o volume e os 2 CDs que compõem esta auspiciosa iniciativa editorial da Disal. Como um dos pioneiros da área de Português Língua Estrangeira, logo busquei alguns dos atributos desse trabalho a três mentes. Destaco dez:

Poderia continuar, mas creio já ter indicado meu PRAZER em conhecer esse esforço de três colegas que atuam em favor do que chamo internacionalização da língua portuguesa. Como resenhador, exerço também meu direito de questionar: Senti falta de um vocabulário português-inglês para ajudar mais a compreensão dos aprendizes, pois estes irão depender de sua capacidade cognitivo-linguística e do processamento dos visuais no livro. Desejável, também, teria sido, a inclusão de um apêndice com algumas das siglas-chave na cultura brasileira. No Quadro de Pronomes Pessoais – Caso Reto – a forma “a gente”, por lapso, aparece ao lado de “ele, ela”, em vez de na companhia de “nós”. Aliás, “a gente” poderia ter sido explicado como equivalente informal de “nós”.Em suma, um livro que sabe honrar a tradição de ensino de português entre nós. Felicito as autoras e a Disal Editora. Que este valioso e inspirador material seja usado com PRAZER e PROVEITO.
Francisco Gomes de Matos é professor Emérito, UFPE-Recife. Ex-professor de Português para Estrangeiros. Co-autor de livros na área de PLE. Presidente do Conselho Deliberativo, Associação Brasil América, Recife.