Portuguese/Contents/BP/Planning

Welcome to the Planning page for the Brazilian Portuguese section of the Portuguese Wikibook.

The motivation for having this page is to put our heads together, and come up with a structure that will create a world-class text for learning Brazilian Portuguese. This will include defining lesson topics for the different levels, and agreeing on a consistent structure for the individual lessons.

It may also be wise to consider the requirements of a print (PDF) version. In order to make this printable version truly useful, it could be accompanied by a version of the audio files designed to be burned to CD, possibly in ISO form. The ISO may have to be hosted offsite, because of the file size.

Please see this talk page for the discussion which led to the creation of this page. Also see Authoring Foreign Language Textbooks for our inspiration on how to write this book.

Please observe the following guidelines:

Place your comment at the bottom of the list;
Title the comment (by placing the title between equals signs like this: == title ==);
Sign your name and date (by adding four tildes: ~~~~). (The initial version of this page has been written by --MJKaye 10:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC))

Let us know your thoughts and suggestions. Those are what will make this a high-quality book.

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Purpose and Audience

The proposed aim of this section of the Portuguese book is to be a complete learning resource for those wishing to learn Brazilian Portuguese.

All lessons, at all levels, should be easily digestible, and aid ease of learning. The initial focus will be on the Basic level lessons, which should be accessible to anyone who has no prior knowledge of Brazilian Portuguese. The Basic level lessons should also be accessible to anyone who has no prior experience of learning a foreign language. Completion of the Basic level should enable the reader to ask essential questions of native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, and engage them in rudimentary conversation. It should introduce verb conjugation, and use of the more common tenses.

The Intermediate level should introduce more grammar, some of the less common tenses, and concentrate more on written Brazilian Portuguese.

The scope of the Advanced level should probably be defined when some work has been done on the Intermediate level. If the Portuguese grammar Wikibook develops, it could provide a good supplement for those wishing to study the grammar in more depth, especially as it seems to be based on Brazilian Portuguese.

Lesson Roadmap

This has not been planned in any detail.

There should probably be an introduction to the language, with differences and similarities to English, and an overview of how the language is constructed.

The first lesson at the Basic level should probably be on "Introducing Yourself". This will probably cover "Ser" ("to be"), and touch on verb conjugation.

As suggested by Junesun, each lesson should probably be based around a dialogue from a real-life situation, which can be used practically. This dialogue should introduce grammar and vocabulary, building on the knowledge gained in previous lessons. This should produce a text which gives knowledge for practical situations, and introduces progressively more detailed aspects of the language. These dialogues may be replaced by texts from the intermediate level. Hopefully, we will be able to have audio versions of these dialogues, read by native Brazilian Portuguese speakers, to accompany each lesson.

What probably needs to happen, is that we decide on some lesson dialogues and scenarios to use, then work out the grammar and vocabulary content of each, and, therefore, the order in which they should be presented. They may well need to be massaged to fit the sequence, and present the best information. It would be useful if these dialogues and scenarios introduced cultural information. Please make suggestions for these dialogues here.

It is probably appropriate to have a Review every 4 or 5 lessons.

Lesson Formats

The lessons should be consistent in their format. This makes the reader more comfortable, and reduces distraction.

They should be short, providing an easily digestible amount of information. They should also be reasonably self-contained, reducing the need to flick between pages, while also building on the knowledge from previous lessons.

An excellent suggestion for the basis of the chosen format is found at Bite-sized language lessons.

The lesson format would probably follow this sort of structure:

Goal - a description of what you can expect to learn in this lession
Dialogue (or text) - the dialogue on which this lesson will be based.
New words - an explanation of any new words introduced in the dialogue
Grammar / word usage explanations
Exercise(s)
Exercise answers
Extra vocabulary for optional study

For consistency, it is proposed that Dialogue, Vocabulary, and Verb tables use the Language table template. This will also make it easier for accompanying audio files to be uploaded. Note that this convention may well change to use the (as yet unwritten) Brazilian Portuguese Table template, but this switchover will be taken care of by the template author.

Target Standards

The book (course) should probably aim to conform to certain education standards. An example of this may be the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The Basic level could be broken into the A1 and A2 levels, of that standard; the Intermediate level broken into B1 and B2, and the Advanced level broken into C1 and C2.

The use of such a standard would clarify the goal of each level, and aid in defining the scope of each lesson. However, given that this course covers Brazilian Portuguese, it may be more appropriate to use a non-European standard. Suggestions are encouraged.