The history of teaching and learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in Brazil started in the 1970s and has spread in the country throughout the Brazilian National ESP Project, which stands as a signpost for the tenets of the approach adopted. It is possible to identify some of the legacies of this Project in the way ESP has been developed in the country or what Celani (2005, p.17) called “a specifically Brazilian approach to ESP”. (RAMOS, 2008)

Judge the sentences about the legacy of ESP in Brazil as (T) True or (F) False:

( ) It relates to the weight given to the knowledge teachers and students brought to the classroom that generated a crucial change in their roles: teacher and students became co-collaborators, responsible for their own development. As a consequence, this view also came to affect, in succeeding years, how the roles of teacher and learners are to be understood in English teaching and learning in general.

( ) It relates to the use of Portuguese as the classroom language. At that time this use was considered heretical by most teachers. Today it has become a well-established procedure applied in the classroom by both ESP teachers and many General English teachers.

( ) It provided conditions to optimize the teaching and learning of reading in a foreign language for students who needed to develop such a skill not only in English but also in Portuguese, as it was found afterwards. For this reason, the methodology developed by the Project brought as a contribution to English teaching and learning a course in which using authentic texts is organized to proceed from general comprehension to detailed comprehension.

( ) After almost thirty years, it is still the preferred reading course throughout the country. A proof of this is that now such “ESP” courses are seen in many current textbooks lately published in Brazil. Besides, some of the sample materials compiled in the Resource Packages are still used due to the evident usefulness they offer to the teacher who wants to argue in favor of strategies as a preliminary requirement for the teaching of reading. In this case, thus, it is not restricted to the area of ESP but English teaching and learning in general.

( ) Another merit of the Project was materials production. At the time when materials used in the classroom meant a textbook, and a textbook that generally emphasized vocabulary (or specific vocabulary), decontextualized sentences and sometimes non-authentic texts, it seems quite a victory to change from this perspective to a strategy-skill based one. This perspective guided the production of materials and the participating teachers were better prepared to produce their own materials. If it was not the case, they had to learn how to evaluate and adapt materials in order to customize them to their specific group of students.

Choose the CORRECT sequence.