Silvana Serrani - Universidade Estadual de Campinas

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Research Projects >> Current Projects

The Trans-cultural and Discursive Components in Language Curriculum

2003 - present
Project sponsored by the CNPq (National Council of Scientific and Technological Research of Brazil)

Reseacher

Silvana Serrani

Introduction - Context for the Research

As a member of Committees for the evaluation of language teachers' formation courses at private colleges in Brazil, between 1999 and 2003, it has been my observation that:

a) There is a contradiction between what is stated about the socio-cultural component in the introductory remarks of language pedagogical projects and the effective language curricula. In the former the relevance of the socio-cultural component is underlined, but in practice is left to spontaneous teachers' initiatives. The explicit language curriculum is predominantly organized following morphological or syntactical patterns of the language system.
b) Effective trans-cultural perspectives were practically non-existent in most pedagogical projects examined.

Goals and Main Procedures of the Project:

To develop a proposal for the socio-cultural component in a discourse-oriented multi-dimensional curriculum (Stern, 1993). To study the requirements for teachers' formation regarding the implementation of that kind of curriculum. Case studies will be carried out in classroom settings. Curriculum prototypes will be implemented in courses of Spanish as a foreign language in the institutional setting of a Brazilian University.

Partial results published in:

Serrani, Silvana (2004) “Culture maternelle, reformulation discursive et enseignement des langues au Brésil”. Cahiers du français contemporain 10, Lyon, França, ISSN 0765 -068X, pp. 51-65.

Serrani, Silvana (2004) “Profesor de lenguas como interculturalista”. Lenguas Vivas 3-4, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp. 4-14.