Talk:Portuguese/Contents/BPL1

Structure
Is it worth thinking about using the same structure as the "European Portuguese" version of this book? The current proposed structure looks rather forensic. I liked the way the European book introduced the various aspects of the language, and I thought it provided quite a good model for teaching. I would like to use this book to learn Brazilian Portuguese. Of course, that means I won't be able to help with the Portuguese itself, but I hope to help with the English-language parts of the book. Mjkaye 16:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the structure of the European Portuguese course is not bad. Here's another structure to consider: Bite-sized language lessons. Also, there's a Wikibook on creating a good language course in which you may find some ideas. Junesun 18:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Judith. I take it the book you were referring to is Authoring Foreign Language Textbooks, which looks like an excellent resource. Also, seeing your German Language work reminded me that the German Wikibook has impressed a lot of people, and that would be a good book to emulate, although that's rather ambitious. I also like the ideas you put forth in your "Bite-sized" structure. It seems to have the right ideas. It would be good to know what Barrinha thinks, as he seems to have started things off. I'm also aware that all I've done so far is talk about things, and not really contributed anything to the book.

Anyway, we seem to have a few choices:
 * Bite-sized
 * Pronunciation and useful phrases
 * Introducing yourself
 * Asking about others
 * To be (I am, you are, it is, etc.)
 * Voicing your opinion

Etc., etc.
 * German Wikibook Emulation
 * Introduction with general information about Brazilian Portuguese (actually, I think this would be very useful)
 * Introducing yourself; pronouns; articles
 * Preferences; telling time; dates
 * Food; polite and formal conversation
 * Review 1
 * Clothing; shopping; description; colours
 * Family; possessives; description
 * School; school subjects
 * Review 2

The German Wikibook features a lot of the culture, and that seems to define a lot of the structure. I think this is no bad thing.


 * European Portuguese Wikibook Emulation
 * Saying Hello & "I am", "You are"
 * I Like & description
 * What Are You Going To Do?
 * Where Do You Come From? Description and nationality
 * Going Shopping. Clothes; polite conversation; "I want"
 * The Train. Asking questions
 * What Time Is It? & counting
 * Meeting People. & knowledge
 * Getting The Groceries. Shopping; comparisons.
 * My House. "I have"; "there is".

Mjkaye 13:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Just one thing: you make it appear like it's a choice between topics (whether to have a lesson "Introducing yourself" first and then the verb "to be" and then "Numbers" or the like) when the lesson topics are actually the most variable part. The choice of order of topics only depends on which topics require what vocabulary / grammar as a pre-requisite. That is the only reason why you will find it immensely difficult to start a course with a lesson "At the airport" and so much easier to start a course with a lesson about small-talk or introductions.

The main thing to discuss is how to present whatever topic you choose for the start. That is for example: how many new words or new grammar are presented in one lesson? Should we have a lesson text or will sentences appear at various places within the lesson as illustration? Should we provide cultural information? If so, how much per lesson? Should we declare the goals of each lesson, so that the student knows what he will learn? Then you can worry about the order in which grammar is presented, which will also necessitate thinking about the topics. E. g. if you decide to introduce just regular verb endings in the present tense in the first lesson, you will need to think of a topic that does not require irregular verbs (e. g. "to be" - hard to avoid that!), other tenses, other moods, declensions, adjectives or the like. I have written a lot of language-learning material and I always found it easiest to first think of more or less natural conversations for common situations and then of the vocabulary / grammar requirements they have and then choose the topic that has the least requirements. This has three advantages:
 * 1) There will be a natural progression.
 * 2) The student will immediately learn something of practical value. He may even try out what he learned on his foreign friends. This will motivate him more than a lesson on how to say e. g. "The fat man is rich" or the like could. (common in language courses that think of grammar only)
 * 3) The student will not be overwhelmed with grammar or vocabulary. Nothing is more discouraging than when you still don't understand the lesson text after having studied the involved grammar and vocabulary for 2 hours. On the other hand, being able to move on quickly is very motivating, because the amount of lessons you do mark your progress.

I will include cultural information in the German Bites, I just didn't see a good opportunity to do that when I first wrote the lessons. Now I can think of some.

I think the German Wikibook is quite good, however it teaches more than 50 new words in the first lesson and the students also have to memorise 3 conjugation tables, the definite article and the indefinite one. That is quite a load and will take time to absorb, time during which the student always has to return to the same page and re-read and re-do everything. Not very motivating, but it's the standard in a lot of commercial textbooks, too. In the bite-sized lessons I try to really go step by step, not introducing more grammar or vocabulary than absolutely necessary while still teaching useful things to say. Since the students' taste varies in terms of how many new words per item of grammar they like, I also include lists with optional vocabulary that I won't take for granted in the next lessons but that some might want to learn. Or they can learn selectively only words that they deem useful for their personal situation. I always hated it when my textbooks required me to learn words that I knew I would never use. Also, one thing you should try not to imitate from the German Wikibook: they often don't offer word-by-word translations but instead asks students to memorise the whole expression. That promotes parroting rather than true understanding of the language. Probably unintentional, German native speakers might not believe that beginning students might not be able to spot the word for "profession" if you give them the equivalent of "What is your profession?". But it's counter-productive when you tell them "die Nummer lautet" is "the number is" and people start believing that "lautet" is the same as "is" when actually it's closer to "sounds".

In response to your e-mail: I don't know any Portuguese yet, however I would like to learn it and I can already understand a lot of the words and grammar because I major in Romance Languages. I speak German (native), English, French, Esperanto, Latin, Italian, Mandarin Chinese and Modern Greek, in order of proficiency. I also dabble in a couple of other languages, such as Arabic, Dutch, Indonesian, Korean, Swahili, Spanish, Thai... I'm interested in all of the world's languages.

Junesun 16:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you've managed to explain, much better than me, what I was actually trying to say. The thing I liked about the European Portuguese version was that they had found practical conversations, in which to introduce grammar and vocabulary, and do so in a logical manner that has each lesson building on the knowledge from the previous one. Your notes about some of the methods used in the German book are useful, and it would be good to avoid some of those pitfalls.

I hope that we can make a top-class, professional book. One that is one of the most useful on the subject. To that end, I have started addressing the format of the first lesson. However, the decided structure is likely to have a significant impact on that chapter. I have made a new template, called "Language Table" (I'm sure there's a better name for it), to be used for vocabulary, verb, and dialogue tables. This is taken from the "German Table" template. Hopefully that can be used to make things more consistent and more easily read.

I wonder if this discussion should be moved to a proper "Planning" page.

I think the natural conversation approach is definitely the best method, and of course that does mean working out the grammatical content of each conversation, in order to work out the best order of the lessons. It would also be good to introduce cultural information through those dialogues and scenarios.

You're right about the way I presented the options. Your response made it clearer to me exactly what I was looking for, and it was the conversational approach. As you say, the order of the topics is less important.

I'm not sure I'd be too fond of having a lesson text, rather than shorter dialogues, but you probably have a better idea than me of what works best. As far as the format of the individual lessons are concerned, I think that both Authoring Foreign Language Textbooks, and your bite-sized lessons provide excellent templates (if using your format would persuade you to work on this book, I think that would be a good reason ;-) ). I think for the first lesson, "Introducing Oneself" would be a good topic, with a similar dialogue to that found in the European Portuguese section. And I agree that shorter lessons, with less vocabulary, would be most effective. As the Portuguese grammar Wikibook develops, it should provide a good supplement for those wishing to do more in depth studying (I'm pretty sure it's meant to be based on Brazilian Portuguese).

Mjkaye


 * I'm glad you find my comments useful.

I use "lesson text" to refer to the part of the lesson that contains a coherent set of sentences in the foreign language. This could be a dialogue, monologue, comic, poem, newspaper article, free text... I think for the beginning student dialogues are most useful, since everyday situations typically require dialogues. However, at a more advanced level you will want to use texts instead, as students learn how to write or understand texts. It would sound artificial to introduce the "written style" language in a conversation. Just like there are some things that are never written (e. g. "whaddaya know?"), there are also some things that are never said (e. g. long hypotactic sentences and certain verb forms).

I'd be glad to contribute to this course, however, as you know, I don't know any Portuguese yet. I can write/improve grammar explanations or tips for learning, advise on the structure or make sure that nothing is left unclear in the lessons, but I can't presume to teach Portuguese. We will definitely need a native speaker. Have you tried contacting people from the list of volunteer translators in Wikipedia? They might be interested. I found that most people are flattered if you try to learn their language and they will try to help.

Btw, the sound samples at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Portuguese_pronunciation could be a start for the explanation of pronunciation. It would be better to have a Brazilian native speaker record exactly what is needed for the course.

Junesun 18:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I've created a Planning page, for a more structured continuation of this discussion. I've tried to write down some of the conclusions we've come to. Please correct anything I've got wrong, and add anything else you'd like.

Sorry about the confusion regarding the "lesson text". Your comments about suitable texts for different levels definitely sound right.

When talking about your contribution, I was thinking about the grammar explanations, structure, and such; especially given your expertise with languages. Unfortunately, I can't write the actual Portuguese either. I can help to make explanations clear, and with structure, and also with technical aspects, such as making templates.

Contacting a translator is a good idea. I'll see if I can do that. As you say, we definitely need a native speaker.

Those sound samples look like a good resource. :-) Especially as most of them use Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation. And you're right that we should have a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker to record the various dialogues and the vocabulary. In fact, I think it should be stressed that the speaker should be a native speaker.

Hopefully, with these resources, we can make a great Wikibook. :-)

--MJKaye 10:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Verbs
I like having a new verb taught each lesson. However, in my opinion we should group them in accordance with their English counterparts, i.e., one lesson for "to be" (ser and estar) and another for "to have" (ter and haver). Missionary (talk) 02:27, 23 April 2010 (UTC)