Development of phonological awareness in PAL/PFL: analysis of didactic material and pro¬posed activities in integrated tasks

Abstract

In the acquisition of a foreign language, one of the fundamental as­pects is the development of learner’s phonological awareness, that is, one must develop their ability to ‘think about’ and ‘manipulate’ the sounds of language (ALVES, 2012). In this sense, the present study aims at analyzing a textbook of Portuguese as an additional / foreign language (PLA / PLE), in order to (1) verify opportuni­ties for phonological awareness development in the manual and (2) propose activities for the development of phonological awareness in integrated tasks. These tasks were planned with the scope of assisting the learner in understanding the functioning of the lan­guage and culture in acquisition, as well as the variable processes of Brazilian Portuguese. The analysis of the manual is based on Alves (2012), ALLEGRO (2014), JANOWSKA (2014), TORRE­SAN (2010), PUREN (2014), CALABRÒ (2015). The obtained results allow us to conclude that, despite the opportunities for eli­citing phonetical and phonological aspects that the manual offers, these opportunities are very limited to auditory discrimination and pronunciation training, and there is neither room for discussion of phonological variation in Portuguese spoken in Brazil, nor any pro­posals for activities that help the student to think about phonologi­cal patterns that characterize Brazilian Portuguese.

Keywords

• Português Língua Adicional/Estrangeira
• Consciência Fonológica
• Abordagem Orientada para a Ação
• Desenvolvimento de Materiais.