Contemporary Portuguese language - the way you want to teach it

The first Portuguese language textbook that allows the instructor to choose to teach either Brazilian or European Portuguese.
A functional selection of language features, supported by a variety of visual stimuli, allows instructors to conduct classes in Portuguese from the very first day.
NEW - Completely updated to reflect the 1990 Acordo Ortográfico (spelling reform), ensuring students learn how to accurately read and write in Portuguese today.

Balanced, communicative approach

Students learn to communicate effectively in spoken and written Portuguese through a variety of guided and open-ended activities.
Ponto integrates cultural information and promotes exchange at every stage of instruction.

Connect with culture

Offers learners a rich variety of insights into cultural, social, and political realities of the entire Portuguese-speaking world.
NEW - All readings have been thoroughly reviewed and in many cases revised to reflect changes in society and the most recent cultural data available (for example, new census figures).
À primeira vista, the opening section of each chapter, provides a richly contextualized, culture-based framework for learning and practicing new language.
Vamos viajar segments, two per chapter intersperced throughout the Estruturas sections, integrate cultural understanding with structurally targeted language practice.
- The readings expand the thematic scope of the chapter by allowing for a more elaborate exploration of cultural, social, and political realities.
- The activities emphasize comprehension and comparing the environments and experiences of US students with those discussed in the reading, while retaining as much as possible the focus on the grammar.
Horizontes section focuses on exploring the geographic and cultural diversity of the Portuguese-speaking world through a combination of textual and visual elements.
- Following the principle of cultural contextualization, the essays of Horizontes are composed in the linguistic variant of the respective country (BP for Brazil and EP for Portugal, Lusophone Africa, and East Timor).
- Topics are integrated into a geographically defined sequence in which students explore the Portuguese-speaking world step by step, beginning with cities and regions of Brazil, and continuing through Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor, and Portuguese-language communities in the United States.
- Para responder segments test comprehension and invite students to explore the various aspects of the cultures studied.
- Para navegar segments use targeted internet activities to encourage students to expand the scope of cultural information presented in the readings.

Explore grammar

Grammatical structures are presented as a means to effective communication.
NEW - Vamos analisar exercises in the “Estruturas” section precede each formal grammar explanation and introduce students to new grammar structures in a contextualized manner.
Concise grammar explanations are focused on usage and presented in both the Brazilian and European Portuguese, immediately followed by practice of each new structural item within a contextualized framework.
- Student activities are uniform where possible and divided into two separate tracks where necessary.
- In their communicative practice, students are never required to acknowledge or negotiate the language variant they are not actively studying.
Contextualized and personalized, the exercises focus students’ attention on a variety of useful tasks and provide practice for communicating effectively in pairs or small groups in a variety of real-life situations.
Activities reinforce the vocabulary introduced in the À primeira vista section and in previous chapters.

Build vocabulary

Tight integration of vocabulary and grammar presentation and exercises reinforce the focus on usage and real-life situations.
NEW - Projeto final section in each chapter allows for review and consolidation of the vocabulary and main grammatical structures introduced in each chapter while engaging students in meaningful task-oriented communication that takes them through a series of interconnected assignments (for example, various stages of planning a party).
Comprehensible input is provided through a wide variety of language samples (dialogs, brief narratives, captions, advertisements, etc.).
Within each thematic grouping, activities provide opportunities to practice new vocabulary and in some cases preview grammar points that are formally presented later in the chapter.
Vocabulary is presented in both the Brazilian and European variants and, while contextualized language samples feature the culturally appropriate variant, in most cases this variant is Brazilian Portuguese.
Para escutar listening activities recycle vocabulary in an authentic conversational framework, while helping the students to build listening comprehension skills.

Develop skills

Extensive culture-based Encontros sections, at the end of each chapter, create authentic and meaningful environments for skill-development in each area and bring together the chapter vocabulary, structures, and cultural content.
Para escutar develops students’ ability to understand spoken Portuguese in a variety of authentic contexts.
- Approximately 70% of the recordings are in Brazilian Portuguese and 30% in European Portuguese.
Para conversar includes open-ended speaking activities based on authentic situations and written texts that help students learn to express and discuss their own needs and interests, providing many opportunities for personalized expression.
Para ler helps students to become independent readers by introducing basic strategies for understanding meaning and extracting specific information.
- Pre-, during-, and post-reading activities develop student ability to read a variety of authentic texts in Portuguese (from simple documents such as advertisements to the extended discourse of brochures, newspaper and magazine articles, letters, literary texts, etc.).
- While privileging Brazilian Portuguese, the Para ler section also exposes students to texts written in European Portuguese, with the aim of developing an interpretive competence matching the variety of real-life sources students are likely to encounter outside of classroom.
Para escrever provides step-by-step activities in which students learn to compose messages and memos, postcards and letters, journals, simple expository paragraphs and brief essays.
- Pre- and post-writing activities guide students through critical steps in the writing process, including brainstorming (to develop ideas for topics); defining one’s purpose, means of communication, tone, and reader; making an outline; revising; and conferencing and peer editing.

Ponto de Encontro: Portuguese as a World Language, 2nd edition

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