ENGLISH INVADES BRAZIL

Idiomas

03/11/2014

The possibilities and probabilities of using English in Brazil in real non-oral communication situations are enormous as business and entertainment, tourism and trade, the sharing of technologies and information and academic wealth between nations is commonplace in today's globalized world with English in the background.


Learning to read in English does assist in raising students' awareness of language, its purpose, and does in fact contribute to the development and improvement of their native language (L1). Reading in English (L2) is in fact essential, as the modern Portuguese language is not in itself derived from just Portuguese:

Several English Terms have invaded the language used by Brazilians in their daily lives and have been officially adopted by the media, business, technical and academic segments of society.


In IT, for instance, Brazilians are continually exposed to situations that require some skill in instrumental English, fundamental for their understanding: specific terminology of a field, especially the terms that do not have counterparts in Portuguese and therefore no translation, or whose versions are not frequently used; understanding an instructions manual to service or install software or programs today require knowledge of English. This is the real situation today and the tendency is for the English language to continue to invade the communication language of Brazilians in their everyday lives.


Also, note that speakers of other languages make English their means of communicating with speakers of others languages through texts via the Internet and other means of communications. For innumerous reasons (professional, commercial and educational) people need to follow the news and information in foreign media. Often, they require information fresh from the source in order to promptly take action and such information may not and is often not readily available in Portuguese.



Among those who wish to continue with their studies after high school, technical school, or college, there is the need to develop their skills in English in order to successfully assimilate the ever growing wealth of information added into courses today. Graduate and post-graduate students for instance must be able to read in English before they can engage in research, which most certainly involves reading technical and scientific literature in languages not their own, and even when such literature originates from a language other than English, the author often chooses to translate it into English to share it with others around the world.


It is therefore clear that while the need for TESOL focusing on instrumental English is essential in Brazil, the need to have some level of oral skills in English is on its way to becoming as essential, if not primordial - Brazil is to receive international events such as the the Olympics, several International Forums and Conferences have been hosted for decades here, and its tourist and foreign trade industries have continually thrived over the years, where the English Language is the #1 language of communication between Brazil and the rest of the world.