Questões de Língua Inglesa da VUNESP

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

    In teaching, “fidelity” refers to closely following specific procedures for how to teach a lesson or respond to student behavior. For example, following a curriculum to fidelity might mean a teacher is required to read from a script, use a certain tone or expression, or teach from a designated page in a guidebook on a specific day. While prevalent across the country, this kind of micromanaging is more common in schools that serve low-income and minority students. 

    I’m a former elementary school teacher in the United States and I now study how teachers make ethical decisions. This includes how they observe their students and try to help them – regardless of whether their decisions align with a prescribed curriculum.

    In a recent study, I interviewed 12 teachers about how they deal with problems that arise in the classroom every day. These teachers discussed how they came up with responses based on best practices they had learned from their own experience as teachers. They also spoke of the knowledge acquired in professional development courses. 

    Of the nine who worked in public schools, however, all but one of the teachers were influenced by pressure to follow a curriculum to fidelity. This kindergarten teacher described how, when she was teaching preschool, her students who lived in a rural area did not understand references to crossing busy city streets in a book she was required to read as part of the curriculum. She brought her students outside to the parking lot to practice street crossing and listen to the noises of local traffic. This was not part of the curriculum. Had the teacher followed the curriculum strictly, the students may not have been able to grasp the lesson from the book.

    Research shows that flexibility in teaching methods and curricula allows teachers and students to participate more fully in the learning process – and even promotes a more democratic society. Instead of mandating that teachers stick to the curriculum word for word, schools should trust teachers and ask why they want to teach. Working with teachers should begin with the belief in their good intentions.

(Cara Elizabeth Furman. http://theconversation.com, 11.12.2024. Adaptado)

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

    In teaching, “fidelity” refers to closely following specific procedures for how to teach a lesson or respond to student behavior. For example, following a curriculum to fidelity might mean a teacher is required to read from a script, use a certain tone or expression, or teach from a designated page in a guidebook on a specific day. While prevalent across the country, this kind of micromanaging is more common in schools that serve low-income and minority students. 

    I’m a former elementary school teacher in the United States and I now study how teachers make ethical decisions. This includes how they observe their students and try to help them – regardless of whether their decisions align with a prescribed curriculum.

    In a recent study, I interviewed 12 teachers about how they deal with problems that arise in the classroom every day. These teachers discussed how they came up with responses based on best practices they had learned from their own experience as teachers. They also spoke of the knowledge acquired in professional development courses. 

    Of the nine who worked in public schools, however, all but one of the teachers were influenced by pressure to follow a curriculum to fidelity. This kindergarten teacher described how, when she was teaching preschool, her students who lived in a rural area did not understand references to crossing busy city streets in a book she was required to read as part of the curriculum. She brought her students outside to the parking lot to practice street crossing and listen to the noises of local traffic. This was not part of the curriculum. Had the teacher followed the curriculum strictly, the students may not have been able to grasp the lesson from the book.

    Research shows that flexibility in teaching methods and curricula allows teachers and students to participate more fully in the learning process – and even promotes a more democratic society. Instead of mandating that teachers stick to the curriculum word for word, schools should trust teachers and ask why they want to teach. Working with teachers should begin with the belief in their good intentions.

(Cara Elizabeth Furman. http://theconversation.com, 11.12.2024. Adaptado)

Leia o texto a seguir para responder à quest:

      When we set out to study pandemic-related changes in schools, we thought we’d find that learning management systems that rely on technology to improve teaching would make educators’ jobs easier. We believed technology would mean positive stimulus to teachers. Instead, our data and analyses showed that teachers whose schools were using learning management systems had higher rates of burnout.

      During the phenomenon of the covid-19 pandemic, when schools across the country were under lockdown orders, schools adopted new technologies to facilitate remote learning during the crisis. These technologies included learning management systems, which are online platforms that help educators organize and keep track of their coursework.

     We were puzzled to find that teachers who used a learning management system such as Canvas or Schoology reported higher levels of burnout. Ideally, these tools should have simplified their jobs. We also thought these systems would improve teachers’ ability to organize documents and assignments, mainly because they would house everything digitally, and thus, reduce the need to print documents or bring piles of student work home to grade.

   However, the data told a different story. Instead of being used to replace old ways of completing tasks, the learning management systems were simply another thing on teachers’ plates.

(David T. Marshall, Teanna Moore & Timothy Pressley, 01.07.2025. Disponível em: https://theconversation.com. Adaptado)

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

    Practice often receives an unfair treatment in the field of applied linguistics. Most laypeople simply assume that practice is a necessary condition for language learning without giving the concept much further thought, but many applied linguists deliberately avoid the term practice. For some, the word conjures up images of repetitive drills in the factories of foreign language learning, while for others it means fun and games to entertain students on Friday afternoons.

    Practice is by no means a dirty word in other domains of human endeavor, however. Parents dutifully take their kids to soccer practice, and professional athletes dutifully show up for team practice, sometimes even with recent injuries. Parents make their kids practice their piano skills at home, and the world’s most famous performers of classical music often practice for many hours a day, even if it makes their fingers hurt. If even idolized, spoiled, and highly paid celebrities are willing to put up with practice, why not language learners, teachers, or researchers?

(DEKEYSER, Robert. Practice in a second language. Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology. Cambridge, 2007. Adaptado)