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The Exploratory Practice Centre |
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REPORTS FROM RIO |
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REPORT OF RIO DE JANEIRO EP GROUP ACTIVITIES JANUARY-FEBRUARY
2004 (Composed
by core members of the EP Group in Rio)
Escola
da Ponte, Vila das Aves, near Porto, in Portugal
Inspired
by Jose Pacheco’s presentation by about the Escola da Ponte, a
Summerhillian school in Vila das Aves, near Porto, in Portugal, some members
of the Rio de Janeiro Exploratory Practice Group visited the school on
January 21st 2004. In
the morning, they were shown around the school by XXX, a 10 year-old
learner. In a very mature way, he explained how they organize their organize
their school time according to negotiated learner objectives, how they work
with the teachers in small groups of up to 8 students, what resources they
use, their rights and obligations, how they exercise their citizenship
skills in their weekly democratic learner assemblies, among many other
things. Before lunch, they were invited to join a group of university
teacher-learners who were also visiting the school for an informal talk with
Jose Pacheco, the project director. In
the afternoon, the members of the EP Group Rio joined the school staff at
their weekly meeting (there are no classes on Wednesday afternoons so that
the teachers could meet with Ademar, the Head of the school, and with Jose,
the Director of the project. The meeting was a very rich opportunity for
observing Portuguese colleagues at work, from an interactional and a
professional perspective, among many others, of course. The
visit has certainly offered lots of food for thought. The group is planning
to elaborate on the connections between EP and the Escola da Ponte
philosophy that inspired the visit for their presentation at the upcoming
BRAZ-Tesol 2004 conference, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Santa
Teresa de Jesus, Braga, Portugal
This
visit resulted from the interest that sister XYZ, a visiting Portuguese
educator working temporarily in the Santa Teresa de Jesus school in Rio,
manifested in the EP work carried out by Solange Fish, who works in this
school and who is one of the EP teachers in the Rio group. Very intensive
and friendly e-mail negotiations between Solange and sister Roque, the EP
group’s Portuguese host at the Santa Teresa de Jesus school in Braga,
Portugal, paved the way for an extremely enjoyable poster session and
discussion with a fantastic group of xxxth students.
ISCAP While in Portugal, they are also planning a one-day workshop at ISCAP (Cristina Pinto da Silva’s workplace) and another workshop at the Portuguese sister institution of a school at which an EP teacher works in Rio. The possibility of sharing our EP work with friends and colleagues in Spain is being considered, while the opportunity of having an EP presentation and/or discussion with Modern Language teachers (and learners) at Leicester University (Simon Gieve’s workplace) has already come up. The group has already been invited to present at the beginning of the academic year at PUC-Rio and to participate in the Semana de Letras at PUC-Rio, where in 1998, the group built the Labyrinth installation. Some
EP practitioners, who are using the EP paradigm in their MA and PhD
research, are thinking of proposing an Exploratory Practice Symposium to
present their work at the 14th INPLA (Intercâmbio de Pesquisas
em Lingüística Aplicada), in April 2004, at PUC-São Paulo, Brazil. The Rio de Janeiro EP Group is already beginning to plan the second event of “Teachers and Learners Working Together within EP”, on 18-19 June 2004, at PUC-Rio, Brazil. The group would, however, consider it a challenge to participate in some way in the event that Zongjie refers to in his e-mail message. Based on the 2003 experience, the Rio de Janeiro EP Group is also planning a series of 7 EP fortnightly workshops that will lead to teacher and learner presentations in the 18-19 June 2004 Event. For the second academic term, 2004.2, another series |
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