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Humanities Resource Center (HRC)

Macalester College

This accelerated course broadens and deepens Portuguese language proficiency begun in Accelerated Portuguese or its equivalent and covers the material normally covered in a two-semester sequence. Brazilian usage emphasized. The course simultaneously builds critical-thinking skills through the analysis of cinema, short stories, music, and popular culture of Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking African nations, while enhancing language and organizational skills through compositions, oral presentations, and group activities. This course is appropriate for students who are highly self-motivated, able to learn foreign languages quickly, and have successfully completed Accelerated Beginning Portuguese or the equivalent. Three class hours per week plus tutorial. Successful completion of this course satisfies the Macalester College foreign language proficiency requirement. Prerequisite: Successful completion of Accelerated Portuguese, or the equivalent, and permission of the instructor.

As most courses, this one has several, somewhat overlapping, goals. Briefly, they are:

• To provide review and practice of some of the primary linguistic structures of Brazilian Portuguese. The focus of the course will always be on the four communication skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing the language.
• To solidify students' command of Portuguese object pronouns, the present, past, future, and conditional (indicative) tenses , the present, future, and imperfect (subjunctive), imperatives, the personal infinitive, irregular verbs, past participles, POR vs. PARA, etc.
• To use selected short readings, music, and film to explore Brazilian culture in discussion and writing.

The course requires the following book, which is available at Ruminator Textbooks. Each person should have his or her own copy of the book.

• King, Larry D. and Margarita Suñer. Para a frente: An Intermediate Course in Portuguese.

• Any Portuguese-English/English-Portuguese dictionary (the more complete the better)

Students will see one film in class and at least one film in the lab. These films will be discussed and will form the basis for discussion and writing assignments. Possible course films are the following:

• O pagador de promessas
• Bye Bye Brazil
• Terra Estrangeira

• One hour per week of lab is required of each student.
• The lab is an informal but vitally important part of the course. It provides opportunities to discuss difficult points of language and cultural issues, work on written assignments, as well as simply practice one's spoken Portuguese.
• Bruno Coelho, the course assistant, conducts the weekly lab session. This session will be held on dates that are mutually acceptable to both students and course assistant.

There will be two primary kinds of required writing assignments.

• Informal writing assignments to be completed both in and out of class.
• Formal writing assignments will be completed out of class. It is assumed that all formal writing assignments submitted will be the result of multiple rewrites. Formal writing assignments should not be rough drafts. Students are encouraged to use all resources available to assist them in the process of writing and research. The primary sources available to students are:
  1. Your textbook,
  2. Other classmates and roommates,
  3. Bruno Coelho, the course assistant, and
  4. Your professor.

Formal writing assignments will receive a grade, which in most cases will be considered final. If a student is dissatisfied with the grade, however, it may be possible to rewrite the paper once, after consultation with the professor.

There will be periodic short quizzes on textual materials. Generally, but not always, quizzes will be announced and will be simple measures of one's attention to detail. They will not emphasize sophisticated interpretation or analysis.

Each student, together with another student, will complete a term project. Briefly, this project will be a recorded interview with a native speaker of Portuguese on a topic of relevance to the course. Please consult the term project web page for more details.

There will be three 60 minute exams. They will cover portions of Chapters 1-3, 4-7, and 8-10, respectively, from Para a frente!.

Work is due on specified dates. Informal papers will not be accepted late. Formal papers will be accepted up to 24 hours late, but in this case the grade will be lowered. Students will not be allowed to make up quizzes due to unexcused absences, and exams and term project phases cannot be postponed except for illness, injury, or some other unexpected and extraordinary circumstance.

Because a language course depends on full participation for the success of both the individual and the group, class attendance is required. More than three unexcused absences will lower one's grade for participation.

The final grade will be computed on the basis of the following categories. For more specific grading criteria on individual areas of assessment, follow the links below.

Participation	15%
Quizzes and Lesser Written Materials	10%
Formal Papers	15%
Term Project	30%
Exams	30%