Ensino e Aprendizagem de PLE

Learn Portuguese: Portuguese at LASA 2013 in Washington, DC

I gave my presentation, Collaborative Virtual Work in the Production of Pedagogical Material for Portuguese as a Foreign Language, as part of a panel “Empowering Portuguese Instructors and Communities through Training and Collaboration” organized by Luis Gonçalves from Princeton University and chaired by Marta Almeida from Yale. I spoke in English and Portuguese, about the virtual tools I used and the Portuguese-teaching community I’ve found online and offline, for collaboration on the 3 books published by Atlantico Books, Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 1, and Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 2.

Apresentadoras do Nosso Painel: Valeria Sasser, Tatiana Dutra e Mello, Elena Como (na direita)

Valeria Sasser and Tatiana F Dutra e Mello, both from IBEC in San Francisco, California, presented their research paper “New Paradigms Regarding the Portuguese Language and the Lusophone Diasporas in the United States.” Valeria fez uma pesquisa pequena sobre a LP aqui nos EUA e sugeriu ações para que os esforços de Brasil e Portugal não sejam repetidos e que sejam feitos colaborativamente, alem de sugerir a LP como língua de produção científica.

A slide from Valeria & Tatiana’s presentation

I went to the panel about Brazil’s Landless Movement, “Toward a New Social Contract in Bolivia and Brazil?”
and caught an interesting presentation discussing the insecurity of families receiving the Bolsa Família, by Gregory Morton from the University of Chicago. He connected the MST to Bolsa Família, and discussed the dependence created by Bolsa familia on government funding–how this is a demobilizing force for the poor. The MST prefers to work on long-term solutions, getting land for the landless, as opposed to the perceived short termedness of Bolsa Família. Jonathan Devore from the University of Michigan presented about the proliferation of acampamentos de sem-terras and internal conflicts–of sem-terras invading sem-terras, when squatter groups encounter “official” MST and the MST steals the acampamento from them. Devore detailed the contentious encounters between different factions of sem-terras. He discussed the identity of the sem terra, and the idea of identity transformation as people are indoctrinated into the MST.

I also attended an afternoon panel, “How to Achieve Authentic Communication in Portuguese with Task-Based Activities” with 3 presenters, Marta Almeida, Celeste Dolores Mann, and Luis Goncalves. Marta Almeida showed a very nice short video of her students presenting a short play based on Jô Soares’ “O Xango de Baker Street”, and discussed the process of having the students prepare for the presentation. Celeste demonstrated the interactive electronic “books” her students created and talked about the experience of helping very shy students to become more comfortable in public-speaking situations in her Portuguese class, and also shared some of the written evaluations (in Portuguese) that her students gave. Luis spoke about the importance of giving positive and encouraging feedback, and especially about giving personalized feedback on the papers students receive back from the teacher.

Luis Gonçalves & Celeste Dolores Mann

About LASA:

The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) is the largest professional Association in the world for individuals and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. With over 7,000 members, forty-five percent of whom reside outside the United States, LASA is the one Association that brings together experts on Latin America from all disciplines and diverse occupational endeavors, across the globe.

Com mais de 7.000 sócios, 45% dos quais residindo fora dos Estados Unidos, a LASA é uma associação que reúne especialistas de todas as disciplinas e profissões que dedicam-se ao estudo da América Latina em todo o mundo. A missão da LASA é promover o debate intelectual, a pesquisa e o ensino sobre a América Latina e Caribe e seus povos em todas as Américas, promover os interesses do seu quadro diversificado de sócios e incentivar a participação cívica por meio do aumento de uma rede de relacionamentos e debate público.

Con más de 7.000 socios, de los cuales el cuarenta y cinco por ciento reside fuera de Estados Unidos, LASA es la asociación que reúne a los expertos en Latinoamérica de todas las disciplinas y a diversas iniciativas ocupacionales de todo el mundo. La misión de LASA es fomentar en todo el continente americano el debate intelectual, la investigación y la enseñanza sobre Latinoamérica, el Caribe y sus pobladores; promover los intereses de su membresía diversa e incentivar el compromiso cívico a través de la construcción de redes y del debate público.

Learn Portuguese: Empowering Portuguese Instructors and Communities through Training and Collaboration

Aqui está a apresentação que dei no congresso da Associação de Estudos Latino-Americanos (LASA) em Washington DC, no dia 30 de maio, 2013. Super-obrigada a Luis Gonçalves por ter organizado o painel:

Apresentadoras do Nosso Painel: Valeria Sasser, Tatiana Dutra e Mello, Elena Como (na direita)

Bom dia Amigos! Meu nome é Elena Como, e moro em Nova Iorque, onde abri minha empresa, Atlantico Books, em 2005. Trabalho com livros em português!

But before I found Portuguese, I started with Spanish. Like many Americans, I studied Spanish at school. I’m from California, so by the time I started learning Spanish formally, I already knew a lot of Spanish words, like abuelita, the grandma of my nextdoor neighbors. Quesadilla, burrito and taqueria are part of the standard Californian vocabulary, and we learned the Spanish months of the year and numbers up to ten in kindergarten. I loved studying Spanish too, and found it very fulfilling. But then, little by little, I began to discover and fall in love with Portuguese. My sister and I made some Brazilian friends who shared their music with us–and one thing I’ve always loved was understanding song-lyrics in any language! I joined a capoeira class during my senior year of high school, and singing those simple songs in Portuguese, “Dona Maria, como vai você?” “Oi, sim sim sim, oi não não não!”, inspired me to dig deeper.

I studied as much Portuguese as I possibly could in college, at the University of California in Santa Cruz, including 2 semesters at PUC-Rio de Janeiro as an exchange student. I double-majored in Mathematics and Brazilian Studies. And later, after a move to New York City, I began importing books in Portuguese for clients in North America, through my company, Atlantico Books. Back when I was a student of Portuguese, and later when I was working with Portuguese language book imports for Portuguese students and teachers, I found that there was a need for more materials in Portuguese at the intermediate level–for students who are able to read short essays and articles, but not quite ready for a whole book in Portuguese.

Today I will share with you some of my experiences with our growing tribo internacional de profissionais na area de ensino de português como língua estrangeira, some of the tools I’ve found for collaborating with the tribo, and how our collaboration became these 3 books: Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 1, and Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 2.

Through Atlantico Books, my connections with Portuguese teachers grew–because we’d be in touch regarding the books that they would need from Brazil and Portugal for their upcoming classes. We would communicate over the phone or email, and sometimes I got to meet them when I would visit a Portuguese class, or a Meetup in Portuguese, or a Workshop or Conference. I’ve been to classes and events in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Utah, California, and of course Washington DC. A visit in person is always the best way to connect, as you know because you came here! But it was also helpful to stay in touch over email, FaceBook, Fale Português, the Luso-Africa H-Net group, and more recently through the google network, Google+, where the video-conference tool “hangout” is pretty neat. There are also lively text bate-papos on Fale Portugues and some video bate-papos there. By making use of all these different ways to reach out, I’ve stayed up-to-date with what’s going on in the Portuguese-teaching world and also found new materials from Brazil and Portugal to share with the my contacts.

Through my interactions with this international “tribo de PLE”, I was inspired to organize new Readers for Portuguese students at the intermediate level. In 2009, during celebrations of the centenário for Machado de Assis, with the help of various Portuguese Professors and other academics, Atlantico Books released its first publication, Missa do Galo e Outros Contos de Machado de Assis. This first book includes 8 popular Contos by Machado de Assis along with added resources for students. Eva Bueno at St. Mary’s University in Austin, Texas and Selma Vital at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri were instrumental in that collaboration. For Missa do Galo, we also have 3 of the contos in audio-format available for download to MP3-players, so students can read and listen at the same time. I worked with Eva and Selma and some others to design study questions, vocabulary lists and footnotes and even some grammar lessons to enhance the reading of these Contos for students. Missa do Galo e Outros Contos has been taught at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and the University of Florida in Gainesville.

In 2011, we released the first book in a new series, “Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Vol. 1”, which is a collection of original articles in Portuguese, about the Portuguese-speaking world, also with study questions, vocabulary, and footnotes. The “tribo” wanted current articles to present to students about the Portuguese language and the cultures of the Lusophone world, and they were also happy to write those articles for the book! These collaborations are a win-win-win, because Atlantico adds a new Portuguese reader to its repertoire, students get a new resource, and the academics add another publication to their resumes. Some of the diverse topics in Ao Redor 1 include: “Portugal e a Comunidade Digital” by Anita deMelo, who is now teaching Portuguese at West Point. Anita’s article is a short history and analysis of prose and poetry and Blogging in Portugal. There’s an article about the Brazilian Movimento Sem-Terra by Malcolm Mcnee, who teaches Spanish and Portuguese at Smith, another about the Profeta Gentileza from Rio de Janeiro by Ana Corazza, a Portuguese teacher and journalist in Rio de Janeiro, and “A Transformação de armas em enxadas: um projeto de Moçambique e modelo global de manutenção da paz” by Amy Schwartzott, an art histortian at Coastal Carolina University, about a wonderful disarmament and art project in Mozambique. Ao Redor 1 has been taught at UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois, and Utah Valley University, and other institutions.

A great article for intermediate students in Volume 1 is Eva Bueno’s “Meio Bugre”. Eva é do nordeste do Brasil, e conta uma memória da sua infância:

“Acho que foi quando eu fiz seis anos, quando meu pai me ensinou uma música que até hoje é uma de minhas preferidas, “Encosta tua cabecinha.” O refrão da música diz,

Encosta tua cabecinha no meu ombro e chora
E conta logo sua mágoa toda para mim!

A simplicidade deste refrão o fez fácil de aprender. Eu uma vez aprendi a música e seguia cantando pra todos que quisessem e até pra quem não quisesse ouvir. Eu ficava cantarolando o dia inteiro, e quando meu pai chegava do trabalho, eu estava esperando-o no portão, e já subia à carroça e começava a cantar. Meu pai tinha que se apressar em seu ritual de fim de dia pra poder trazer o cavaquinho para a varanda, pra nós dois podermos cantar. E eu queria sempre a mesma música.” (p. 56, Ao Redor do Mundo, Leituras em Português Vol. 1)

She goes on to tell a story her father told her, about how his family massacred a local indian tribe, all except for one baby girl, who was raised by his family and eventually married his grandfather. She introduces the subject of race in Brazil in this article:

“Não sei, até hoje, se esta é uma história verdadeira ou foi invenção de meu pai. Mas é bem possível que minha família, como muitas no Brasil, tenha tido seu início com a eliminação dos nativos e a apropriação da mulher indígena. Mesmo sem ter documentos pra provar uma coisa ou outra, esta história viaja comigo por minha vida, me lembrando sempre de meu pai, das nossas canções, da nossa camaradagem, e do fato de que nós dois–entre todos da nossa casa que têm olhos azuis e verdes–nós dois, de cabelos pretos e lisos e olhos castanhos, contadores de histórias e cantadores de música caipira, compartilhamos a camaradagem de sermos meio bugres.”
(p. 58, Ao Redor do Mundo, Leituras em Português Vol. 1)

In the collaboration for Volume 1, we mainly used email and facebook to communicate, but for the next book, Volume 2, which we released in January in print and in March for Kindle, we used Facebook quite a bit more. I created a private facebook group for “Ao Redor 2”, and through it we discussed what kinds of articles we should have in the new book–when I suggested an article about Cesária Évora, for instance, a member of the Facebook Group, Isabel Ferreira, offered to write it with one of her students. Through the online and immediate collaboration, we connected writers with editors and gathered some very interesting topics, to make for another great reader for Portuguese students.

One new thing that happened this time, was a few articles that were delivered to me with study-questions before the article as well as after. So for the Cesária Évora article, a question “Antes de Ler” was “Existe algum estilo de música muito típica da sua cultura?”. These “Antes de Ler” questions were designed to prepare students for articles that may be about topics the student isn’t yet familiar with, which is especially helpful when the reading is in a student’s second or third language. The questions also help a teacher to introduce the new topic–because the teacher can ask these questions in class, to begin a discussion, before assigning the reading at home. We decided to adopt the “Antes de Ler” style for all of the articles, and it made the book more dynamic.

In organizing the articles, I relied again on the “tribo” to help name the sections of the book. They helped me come up with the headings we eventually decided on: Figuras Emblemáticas, which includes some historic figures like the explorers Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral and Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Cônsul Português que salvou milhares de judeus e outros refugiados do holocausto), and also some famous composers and musicians like Cesária Évora, Caetano Veloso, Amália Rodrigues, and Chiquinha Gonzaga. These articles are the easiest reading, so they belonged at the beginning of the book. Then part two is Comunidades e suas Culturas, which presents readings about many different communities where Portuguese is spoken, including the Ironbound or “Ferry Street” community of Portuguese-speakers of Newark New Jersey in an article by Luis Gonçalves, rituals in Guiné-Bissau, a legend of Goa, and an explanation about the Diaspora of Açorianos, who have immigrated to Canada, Bermuda, California, and Hawaii. The last part is Nossa Língua Portuguesa, where we present more advanced articles by linguists. One interesting one is an explanation about the different creole-languages in Africa and Asia, which exist today because of the arrival of the Portuguese in those places, written by Francisca Paula Soares Maia, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. We also have articles discussing Portuguese and Galego, and the variations of Portuguese within Brazil, and variations between Brazil and Portugal.

The collaborators are diverse, originating from different parts of Brazil, Portugal, the USA, and Africa, and living all over the world. We have a mix of seasoned Professors and academics still working on their degrees, a poet, and a few younger students, under the guidance of their teachers.

I am grateful to the enthusiastic tribo for their collaboration, which made these three books possible. I highly recommend Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 1, and Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 2 for Portuguese students, former students, and anyone interested in studying the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking World. Please take a look and consider these titles for your upcoming Portuguese classes. Obrigada pela atenção!

Click Here to Get all 3 Readers at a discount!

1. Missa do Galo e Outros Contos
2. Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português Vol. 1
3. Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Vol. 2

Organizados por Elena Como
Editado/Publicado por Atlantico Books

Alunos da Universidade de Huelva, Espanha

Nestes 3 livros, você encontrará: contos da literatura brasileira (Missa do Galo e Outros Contos) e artigos recentes não-ficção (Ao Redor 1 & 2)! Cada artigo e conto vem acompanhado de perguntas de compreensão, vocabulário, e sugestões de mais pesquisas.Tudo em português.

In these 3 books you will find: classic Brazilian short stories (Missa do Galo e Outros Contos) and recent non-fiction articles (Ao Redor 1 & 2). Every article and short story comes with study questions, vocabulary, and suggestions for further readings. Entirely in Portuguese.

Mergulhe no universo lusófono e conheça as peculiaridades dos países falantes da língua portuguesa, por meio da leitura dos textos compilados em Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Vol. 2. Os diversos temas farão com que qualquer pessoa se apaixone ainda mais pela língua portuguesa.   

“Ao Redor” Volume 1:

Paperback (Brochura, First Edition, 2011)  Preview online here.

ISBN: 9780984058013, 154pp

Portugal in focus:

• A Liberdade e os Libertos, de S. Oliveira
• Um passeio pela Faculdade de Letras, de Robert Simon
  
• Portugal e a Comunidade Digital, de Anita Melo
  

Brazil in focus:

• Uma Visão Alternativa para o Campo: Os Sem Terra e a Luta pela Reforma Agrária, de Malcolm McNee
• O dialeto caipira, de Walter Praxedes
• Meio Bugre, de Eva P Bueno
  
• Reflexões sobre a gramática tradicional e a língua portuguesa falada no Brasil, de Giselle Menezes Mendes Cintado com Frederico José Menezes Mendes
  
• Por que eu aprendi português, de Elena Como
• Mulheres negras por elas mesmas, de Rosângela Praxedes
  
• Homens de letras, Mulheres de papel, de Selma Vital
  
• Como Surgem os Acordos Ortográficos? de Francisca Paula Soares Maia 
• Gentileza: Um homem, suas ideias e a história, Ana Corazza
• Ensaio Sobre a Cultura da Marvada Carne, de Jordano Quaglia  
• Gaijin, Gaijin, de Eva P Bueno 

Guiné-Bissau:

•  A culinária da Guiné-Bissau, de Giselle Rodrigues Ribeiro e Domingos Quiante 

Mozambique:

• Transformação de armas em enxadas: um projeto de Moçambique e modelo global de manutenção da paz de Amy Schwartzott
  

Angola

• Mário Rui Silva e a música de Angola, de Carlos Alberto Alves

Artigos em “Ao Redor” Volume 2:
ISBN: 9780984058020
2013, 1st Ed, 179pp,

Preview online here.

DOWNLOAD TO YOUR KINDLE HERE

*Figuras Emblematicas*

• Do Vasco ao Adam: Descobertas das Novas Fronteiras (Adam Mahler)
• Paixão: sina e esperança (Dário Borim Jr.)
• Cesária Évora, a Diva dos Pés Descalços (Isabel Cristina Rodrigues Ferreira, Karina Nogueira)
• Chiquinha Gonzaga: O legado da maestrina (Celeste Dolores Mann)
• O cônsul desobediente (Ana Tavares)
• Calma, Que o Brasil é Nosso (Sónia Oliveira)

*Comunidades e suas Culturas*

• O Estabelecimento de uma Nova Comunidade Portuguesa: Observações sobre a Comunidade Lusa em Atlanta (Robert Simon)
• Goa… (Marilia Gazola)
• O casamento – uma imposição para meninas e jovens da Guiné-Bissau (Giselle Rodrigues Ribeiro)
• Dos Açores para o resto do mundo (Graça Borges Castanho)
• Joias do Brasil: reconhecimento e valorização das riquezas nacionais (Ana Corazza)
• Duas vozes jovens de Moçambique (Giselle Rodrigues com Leilo Albano)
• Rituais em Guiné-Bissau (Isabel Cristina Rodrigues Ferreira, Cila Tâmara da Silva)
• Ironbound em Newark, New Jersey: um pequeno Portugal  (Luis Gonçalves)

 *Nossa Língua Portuguesa*

• Português e línguas em contato (F. Paula Soares Maia)
• Língua brasileira, variação e preconceito (Neide Munhoz Albano)
• As duas beiras do Minho (Cláudia Coelho)
• O português no Brasil: expressão da diversidade (Anielle Souza de Oliveira)
• Língua portuguesa ou língua brasileira? O discurso literário nacionalista e a política linguística estatal (Regina Castro McGowan)

Assis, Machado de/Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Vol. 1  PB [2009,1st Ed,128pp]
ISBN: 0984058001

Conheça os contos muito interessantes do mestre da literatura brasileira, Machado de Assis!

Este livro é uma nova coleção de Contos de Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908). Machado de Assis foi um escritor brasileiro cujos temas continuam a ser relevantes hoje, mais de que um século após a sua morte. Os personagens nos contos e romances dele enfrentam situações complicadas, como o relacionamento amoroso e a traição, a pobreza, e a busca de identidade. Mesmo depois da passagem de tantos anos, se pode entender os sentimentos destes personagens. Cada conto vem acompanhado de notas de rodapé, vocabulário, perguntas de compreensão, sugestões de pesquisas e tarefas para alunos.

AudioBook: Get your Portuguese audio downloads here!
Audiobook to accompany 3 contos from Missa do Galo e Outros Contos!
OR: Get Book plus CD of AudioBook here.

Os contos nesta coleção são:

• A Missa do Galo
• A Cartomante
• O Espelho
• Casada e viúva
• Noite de Almirante
• Teoria do medalhão
• Pai Contra Mãe
• Silvestre

Readers for Portuguese Students: Books for Intermediate Portuguese Students

Looking for some informative reading in Portuguese? These 3 “readers” are designed for adolescent and adult Portuguese students who want to do more reading in Portuguese.

Bom dia Amigos! Meu nome é Elena Como, e moro em Nova Iorque, onde abri minha empresa, Atlantico Books, em 2005. Trabalho com livros em português!

But before I found Portuguese, I started with Spanish. Like many Americans, I studied Spanish at school. I’m from California, so by the time I started learning Spanish formally, I already knew a lot of Spanish words, like abuelita, the grandma of my nextdoor neighbors. Quesadilla, burrito and taqueria are part of the standard Californian vocabulary, and we learned the Spanish months of the year and numbers up to ten in kindergarten. I loved studying Spanish too, and found it very fulfilling. But then, little by little, I began to discover and fall in love with Portuguese. My sister and I made some Brazilian friends who shared their music with us–and one thing I’ve always loved was understanding song-lyrics in any language! I joined a capoeira class during my senior year of high school, and singing those simple songs in Portuguese, “Dona Maria, como vai você?” “Oi, sim sim sim, oi não não não!”, inspired me to dig deeper.

I studied as much Portuguese as I possibly could in college, at the University of California in Santa Cruz, including 2 semesters at PUC-Rio de Janeiro as an exchange student. I double-majored in Mathematics and Brazilian Studies. And later, after a move to New York City, I began importing books in Portuguese for clients in North America, through my company, Atlantico Books. Back when I was a student of Portuguese, and later when I was working with Portuguese language book imports for Portuguese students and teachers, I found that there was a need for more materials in Portuguese at the intermediate level–for students who are able to read short essays and articles, but not quite ready for a whole book in Portuguese.

Today I will share with you some of my experiences with our growing tribo internacional de profissionais na area de ensino de português como língua estrangeira, some of the tools I’ve found for collaborating with the tribo, and how our collaboration became these 3 books: Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 1, and Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 2.

Through Atlantico Books, my connections with Portuguese teachers grew–because we’d be in touch regarding the books that they would need from Brazil and Portugal for their upcoming classes. We would communicate over the phone or email, and sometimes I got to meet them when I would visit a Portuguese class, or a Meetup in Portuguese, or a Workshop or Conference. I’ve been to classes and events in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Utah, California, and of course Washington DC. A visit in person is always the best way to connect. But it was also helpful to stay in touch over email, FaceBook, Fale Português, the Luso-Africa H-Net group, and more recently through the google network, Google+, where the video-conference tool “hangout” is pretty neat. There are also lively text bate-papos on Fale Portugues and some video bate-papos there. By making use of all these different ways to reach out, I’ve stayed up-to-date with what’s going on in the Portuguese-teaching world and also found new materials from Brazil and Portugal to share with the my contacts.

Through my interactions with this international “tribo de PLE”, I was inspired to organize new Readers for Portuguese students at the intermediate level. In 2009, with the help of various Portuguese Professors and other academics, Atlantico Books released its first publication, Missa do Galo e Outros Contos de Machado de Assis. This first book includes 8 popular Contos by Machado de Assis along with added resources for students. Eva Bueno at St. Mary’s University in Austin, Texas and Selma Vital at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri were instrumental in that collaboration. For Missa do Galo, we also have 3 of the contos in audio-format available for download to MP3-players, so students can read and listen at the same time. I worked with Eva and Selma and some others to design study questions, vocabulary lists and footnotes and even some grammar lessons to enhance the reading of these Contos for students. Missa do Galo e Outros Contos has been taught at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and the University of Florida in Gainesville.

In 2011, we released the first book in a new series, “Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Vol. 1”, which is a collection of original articles in Portuguese, about the Portuguese-speaking world, also with study questions, vocabulary, and footnotes. The “tribo” wanted current articles to present to students about the Portuguese language and the cultures of the Lusophone world, and they were also happy to write those articles for the book! These collaborations are a win-win-win, because Atlantico adds a new Portuguese reader to its repertoire, students get a new resource, and the academics add another publication to their resumes. Some of the diverse topics in Ao Redor 1 include: “Portugal e a Comunidade Digital” by Anita deMelo, who is now teaching Portuguese at West Point, which is a short history and analysis of prose and poetry and Blogging in Portugal, an article about the Brazilian Movimento Sem-Terra by Malcolm Mcnee, who teaches Spanish and Portuguese at Smith, another about the Carioca Profeta Gentileza by Ana Corazza, a Portuguese teacher and journalist in Rio de Janeiro, and “A Transformação de armas em enxadas: um projeto de Moçambique e modelo global de manutenção da paz” by Amy Schwartzott, an art histortian at Coastal Carolina University, about a wonderful disarmament and art project in Mozambique. Ao Redor 1 has been taught at UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois, and Utah Valley University, and other institutions.

A great article for intermediate students in Volume 1 is Eva Bueno’s “Meio Bugre”. Eva é do nordeste do Brasil, e conta uma memória da sua infância:

“Acho que foi quando eu fiz seis anos, quando meu pai me ensinou uma música que até hoje é uma de minhas preferidas, “Encosta tua cabecinha.” O refrão da música diz,

Encosta tua cabecinha no meu ombro e chora
E conta logo sua mágoa toda para mim!

A simplicidade deste refrão o fez fácil de aprender. Eu uma vez aprendi a música e seguia cantando pra todos que quisessem e até pra quem não quisesse ouvir. Eu ficava cantarolando o dia inteiro, e quando meu pai chegava do trabalho, eu estava esperando-o no portão, e já subia à carroça e começava a cantar. Meu pai tinha que se apressar em seu ritual de fim de dia pra poder trazer o cavaquinho para a varanda, pra nós dois podermos cantar. E eu queria sempre a mesma música.” (p. 56, Ao Redor do Mundo, Leituras em Português Vol. 1)

She goes on to tell a story her father told her, about how his family massacred a local indian tribe, all except for one baby girl, who was raised by his family and eventually married his grandfather. She introduces the subject of race in Brazil in this article:

“Não sei, até hoje, se esta é uma história verdadeira ou foi invenção de meu pai. Mas é bem possível que minha família, como muitas no Brasil, tenha tido seu início com a eliminação dos nativos e a apropriação da mulher indígena. Mesmo sem ter documentos pra provar uma coisa ou outra, esta história viaja comigo por minha vida, me lembrando sempre de meu pai, das nossas canções, da nossa camaradagem, e do fato de que nós dois–entre todos da nossa casa que têm olhos azuis e verdes–nós dois, de cabelos pretos e lisos e olhos castanhos, contadores de histórias e cantadores de música caipira, compartilhamos a camaradagem de sermos meio bugres.”
(p. 58, Ao Redor do Mundo, Leituras em Português Vol. 1)

In the collaboration for Volume 1, we mainly used email and facebook to communicate, but for the next book, Volume 2, which we released in January in print and in March for Kindle, we used Facebook quite a bit more. I created a private facebook group for “Ao Redor 2”, and through it we discussed what kinds of articles we should have in the new book–when I suggested an article about Cesária Évora, for instance, a member of the Facebook Group, Isabel Ferreira, offered to write it with one of her students. Through the online and immediate collaboration, we connected writers with editors and gathered some very interesting topics, to make for another great reader for Portuguese students.

One new thing that happened this time, was a few articles that were delivered to me with study-questions before the article as well as after. So for the Cesária Évora article, a question “Antes de Ler” was “Existe algum estilo de música muito típica da sua cultura?”. These “Antes de Ler” questions were designed to prepare students for articles that may be about topics the student isn’t yet familiar with, which is especially helpful when the reading is in a student’s second or third language. The questions also help a teacher to introduce the new topic–because the teacher can ask these questions in class, to begin a discussion, before assigning the reading at home. We decided to adopt the “Antes de Ler” style for all of the articles, and it made the book more dynamic.

In organizing the articles, I relied again on the “tribo” to help name the sections of the book. They helped me come up with the headings we eventually decided on: Figuras Emblemáticas, which includes some historic figures like the explorers Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral and Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Cônsul Português que salvou milhares de judeus e outros refugiados do holocausto), and also some famous composers and musicians like Cesária Évora, Caetano Veloso, Amália Rodrigues, and Chiquinha Gonzaga. These articles are the easiest reading, so they belonged at the beginning of the book. Then part two is Comunidades e suas Culturas, which presents readings about many different communities where Portuguese is spoken, including the Ironbound or “Ferry Street” community of Portuguese-speakers of Newark New Jersey in an article by Luis Gonçalves, rituals in Guiné-Bissau, a legend of Goa, and an explanation about the Diaspora of Açorianos, who have immigrated to Canada, Bermuda, California, and Hawaii. The last part is Nossa Língua Portuguesa, where we present more advanced articles by linguists. One interesting one is an explanation about the different creole-languages in Africa and Asia, which exist today because of the arrival of the Portuguese in those places, written by Francisca Paula Soares Maia, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. We also have articles discussing Portuguese and Galego, and the variations of Portuguese within Brazil, and variations between Brazil and Portugal.

The collaborators are diverse, originating from different parts of Brazil, Portugal, the USA, and Africa, and living all over the world. We have a mix of seasoned Professors and academics still working on their degrees, a poet, and a few younger students, under the guidance of their teachers.

I am grateful to the enthusiastic tribo for their collaboration, which made these three books possible. I highly recommend Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 1, and Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Volume 2 for Portuguese students, former students, and anyone interested in studying the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking World. Please take a look and consider these titles for your upcoming Portuguese classes. Obrigada pela atenção!

Click Here to Get all 3 Readers at a discount!

1. Missa do Galo e Outros Contos
2. Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português Vol. 1
3. Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Vol. 2

Organizados por Elena Como
Editado/Publicado por Atlantico Books

Alunos da Universidade de Huelva, Espanha

Nestes 3 livros, você encontrará: contos da literatura brasileira (Missa do Galo e Outros Contos) e artigos recentes não-ficção (Ao Redor 1 & 2)! Cada artigo e conto vem acompanhado de perguntas de compreensão, vocabulário, e sugestões de mais pesquisas.Tudo em português.

In these 3 books you will find: classic Brazilian short stories (Missa do Galo e Outros Contos) and recent non-fiction articles (Ao Redor 1 & 2). Every article and short story comes with study questions, vocabulary, and suggestions for further readings. Entirely in Portuguese.

Mergulhe no universo lusófono e conheça as peculiaridades dos países falantes da língua portuguesa, por meio da leitura dos textos compilados em Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Português, Vol. 2. Os diversos temas farão com que qualquer pessoa se apaixone ainda mais pela língua portuguesa.   

“Ao Redor” Volume 1:

Paperback (Brochura, First Edition, 2011)  Preview online here.

ISBN: 9780984058013, 154pp

Portugal in focus:

• A Liberdade e os Libertos, de S. Oliveira
• Um passeio pela Faculdade de Letras, de Robert Simon
  
• Portugal e a Comunidade Digital, de Anita Melo
  

Brazil in focus:

• Uma Visão Alternativa para o Campo: Os Sem Terra e a Luta pela Reforma Agrária, de Malcolm McNee
• O dialeto caipira, de Walter Praxedes
• Meio Bugre, de Eva P Bueno
  
• Reflexões sobre a gramática tradicional e a língua portuguesa falada no Brasil, de Giselle Menezes Mendes Cintado com Frederico José Menezes Mendes
  
• Por que eu aprendi português, de Elena Como
• Mulheres negras por elas mesmas, de Rosângela Praxedes
  
• Homens de letras, Mulheres de papel, de Selma Vital
  
• Como Surgem os Acordos Ortográficos? de Francisca Paula Soares Maia 
• Gentileza: Um homem, suas ideias e a história, Ana Corazza
• Ensaio Sobre a Cultura da Marvada Carne, de Jordano Quaglia  
• Gaijin, Gaijin, de Eva P Bueno 

Guiné-Bissau:

•  A culinária da Guiné-Bissau, de Giselle Rodrigues Ribeiro e Domingos Quiante 

Mozambique:

• Transformação de armas em enxadas: um projeto de Moçambique e modelo global de manutenção da paz de Amy Schwartzott
  

Angola

• Mário Rui Silva e a música de Angola, de Carlos Alberto Alves

Artigos em “Ao Redor” Volume 2:
ISBN: 9780984058020
2013, 1st Ed, 179pp,

Preview online here.

DOWNLOAD TO YOUR KINDLE HERE

*Figuras Emblematicas*

• Do Vasco ao Adam: Descobertas das Novas Fronteiras (Adam Mahler)
• Paixão: sina e esperança (Dário Borim Jr.)
• Cesária Évora, a Diva dos Pés Descalços (Isabel Cristina Rodrigues Ferreira, Karina Nogueira)
• Chiquinha Gonzaga: O legado da maestrina (Celeste Dolores Mann)
• O cônsul desobediente (Ana Tavares)
• Calma, Que o Brasil é Nosso (Sónia Oliveira)

*Comunidades e suas Culturas*

• O Estabelecimento de uma Nova Comunidade Portuguesa: Observações sobre a Comunidade Lusa em Atlanta (Robert Simon)
• Goa… (Marilia Gazola)
• O casamento – uma imposição para meninas e jovens da Guiné-Bissau (Giselle Rodrigues Ribeiro)
• Dos Açores para o resto do mundo (Graça Borges Castanho)
• Joias do Brasil: reconhecimento e valorização das riquezas nacionais (Ana Corazza)
• Duas vozes jovens de Moçambique (Giselle Rodrigues com Leilo Albano)
• Rituais em Guiné-Bissau (Isabel Cristina Rodrigues Ferreira, Cila Tâmara da Silva)
• Ironbound em Newark, New Jersey: um pequeno Portugal  (Luis Gonçalves)

 *Nossa Língua Portuguesa*

• Português e línguas em contato (F. Paula Soares Maia)
• Língua brasileira, variação e preconceito (Neide Munhoz Albano)
• As duas beiras do Minho (Cláudia Coelho)
• O português no Brasil: expressão da diversidade (Anielle Souza de Oliveira)
• Língua portuguesa ou língua brasileira? O discurso literário nacionalista e a política linguística estatal (Regina Castro McGowan)

Assis, Machado de/Missa do Galo e Outros Contos, Vol. 1  PB [2009,1st Ed,128pp]
ISBN: 0984058001

Conheça os contos muito interessantes do mestre da literatura brasileira, Machado de Assis!

Este livro é uma nova coleção de Contos de Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908). Machado de Assis foi um escritor brasileiro cujos temas continuam a ser relevantes hoje, mais de que um século após a sua morte. Os personagens nos contos e romances dele enfrentam situações complicadas, como o relacionamento amoroso e a traição, a pobreza, e a busca de identidade. Mesmo depois da passagem de tantos anos, se pode entender os sentimentos destes personagens. Cada conto vem acompanhado de notas de rodapé, vocabulário, perguntas de compreensão, sugestões de pesquisas e tarefas para alunos.

AudioBook: Get your Portuguese audio downloads here!
Audiobook to accompany 3 contos from Missa do Galo e Outros Contos!
OR: Get Book plus CD of AudioBook here.

Os contos nesta coleção são:

• A Missa do Galo
• A Cartomante
• O Espelho
• Casada e viúva
• Noite de Almirante
• Teoria do medalhão
• Pai Contra Mãe
• Silvestre