Orientador(a): Ana Cristina Biondo Salomão / Resumo: O ensino de inglês enfrenta alguns questionamentos sobre qual é a "melhor" variedade para ser ensinada. Algumas dúvidas sobre escolher o inglês americano ou britânico são comuns entre professores (enquanto outras variedades raramente são mencionadas como uma escolha possível para a sala de aula). Entretanto, é necessário encorajar os alunos a ter um comportamento mimético com relação ao seu aprendizado, almejando apenas ter a pronúncia parecida com a de um falante nativo? Essas questões são relevantes se considerarmos que a maioria das interações não acontece envolvendo falantes nativos. É desejável que linguistas aplicados, professores e materiais didáticos sejam críticos sobre a concepção da língua inglesa e sobre sua importância no cenário internacional atual. Como podemos ensiná-la? Como língua estrangeira ou como língua franca? Neste trabalho, discutimos o atual papel do inglês ao redor do mundo e como alguns aspectos influenciaram a confecção de materiais didáticos, buscando compreender possíveis impactos na representação dos falantes não nativos para os usuários do livro. Nosso objeto de pesquisa se trata do primeiro livro da série Global (Macmillan) e analisamos como é apresentada a língua inglesa e seus múltiplos falantes. Baseamo-nos na bibliografia sobre Inglês como Língua Franca e preparamos questões norteadoras para guiarem nossa análise sobre aspectos linguísticos, sociais e culturais da representação do falante não nativo presente no material. O resultado de no... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The teaching of English faces some questioning about which is the "best" variety to be taught. Some queries about choosing American or British varieties are common among teachers (while other varieties are rarely mentioned as a possible choice for classrooms). However, is it necessary to encourage students to have a mimetic behavior towards their learning, just aiming to have a native-like pronunciation? This investigation is important if we consider that most interactions do not happen involving native speakers. It is desirable that applied linguists, teachers and classroom materials are critical about the conception of English and its importance in the current international scenario. How can we teach it? As a foreign language or as a Lingua Franca? In this work, we discuss the current role of English worldwide, and how some of the mentioned aspects have influenced the coursebooks confection, trying to understand its possible impacts on the representation of non native speaker to the users of the book. Our corpus consists of the first coursebook from the Global series (Macmillan) and we are going to analyze how it presents the English language and its huge number of speakers. Based on the bibliography on English as a Lingua Franca, we developed an analysis matrix to investigate the social, cultural and linguistic aspects of the representation of non-native speakers in the material. The result of our analysis shows that, even though there is the non-native speaker in the mate... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

The problem of poor reading skills is a serious one in South Africa, with negative implications for learners’ educational achievement. The failure of learners to read at age- and grade-appropriate levels presents a major challenge to the teaching of reading in South African schools. It is against this background that this study aimed at ascertaining the positive impact of the Reading to Learn methodology in improving the literacy levels of learners in a Grade 10 English First Additional Language classroom in a township school. Reading ability levels were established via a passage extracted from a Grade Platinum English First Additional Learner’s book. Pronunciation and word recognition formed the basis of the reading assessment. Reading translates into writing, so the learners were also assessed in comprehension and creative writing. The results indicated that the learners’ reading abilities were weak, the methodology used to teach reading led to research findings that caused the study to yield findings that suggest that RtL may be the solution to reading problems in the classroom. In addition the study revealed that the ability to read corresponds with cognitive development. The study therefore calls for the adoption of RtL to assist in alleviating reading problems in the classroom.