Vestibular e ensino de língua estrangeira (Inglês) em uma escola pública

Abstract

This article offers contributions to the analysis of the relationship between entrance examinations and secondary level teaching in that it investigates the potential of the exams in offering guidelines for teaching. The data comes from a project conducted in three settings of EFL teaching at secondary school level aimed at investigating the washback effect of the EFL reading comprehension test, which is part of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) entrance examination initiated over a decade ago. The article discusses how the exam and the concept of reading which underlies it have been interpreted and used as guidelines by the EFL teacher in a public school scenario. The methodology triangulates data from classroom observations, interviews with the teacher and students, and analysis if test samples and the test program. The results show that the impact is greater on what the teaches (content) than on how he teaches (approach and methodology). Implications for language teacher education are discussed