Learn Portuguese at Tufts University
Posted by Elena Como with Atlantico Books on December 8, 2011 · Leave a Comment
Students explain what is in o quarto (the bedroom), using new vocabulary, in Cristiane Soares' Portuguese class (Tufts)
Recently I visited Cristiane Soares and her Portuguese students at Tufts University’s Medford/Somerville Campus. I sat-in on a beginning Portuguese class and an intermediate Portuguese class. Tufts’ Portuguese Program has about 66 students now, with 4 semesters of Portuguese offered.
The beginning Portuguese students I visited were learning new vocabulary: vocabúlario sobre a casa (about the home). They reviewed many important words, like the furniture in the house as well as names of rooms:
Salas de casa: cozinha (kitchen), banheiro (bathroom), sala de estar (living room), quarto (bedroom, etc.
Sala de Estar (Living Room)
Móveis nas salas de casa: congelador (freezer), geladeira (refrigerator), lava-louça (dish washer), pia (sink), cadeira (chair), mesa (table), etc.
Cristiane had the students cut and paste images from Ikea catalogs onto butcher paper on the wall, and then write the new vocabulary words with the images. It was lots of fun and a great way to cement the new vocabulary! They were also learning the present progressive tense, gerúndios (falar –> falando). It was a very fun class!
Students in Cristiane’s intermediate Portuguese class were reviewing an article they’d read about the expeience of being a tourist, and they formed groups to discuss these questions:
1) O que é uma turista? (What is a tourist?)
2) Que tipo de turista você é? (What type of tourist are you?)
3) Quais são as principais características de um turista segundo o artigo? (What are the main characteristics of a tourist, according to the article)
They were also reviewing the rules for forming plural nouns in Portuguese–which can be quite tricky!
Tufts University
It was a pleasure to get to see the beautiful Tufts University campus in fall. The Portuguese Program in the The Department of Romance Languages at Tufts is committed to educating students in the corresponding languages and cultures, both at home and abroad. Students acquire fluency in at least one Romance language and have a firm grasp of the literatures of its countries or regions, as well as an understanding of the role those literatures play and have played in the broader dialogue between cultures, arts and societies.