Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese

This paper seeks to identify and reflect on the difficulties Slovene students face when writing in European Portuguese, in order to present didactic strategies tailored to address such challenges. Acknowledging that writing is a complex and cognitively demanding task, our research stresses the impo...

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Main Authors: Blažka Müller, Cláudia Silva
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani) 2024-12-01
Series:Vestnik za Tuje Jezike
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/19310
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author Blažka Müller
Cláudia Silva
author_facet Blažka Müller
Cláudia Silva
author_sort Blažka Müller
collection DOAJ
description This paper seeks to identify and reflect on the difficulties Slovene students face when writing in European Portuguese, in order to present didactic strategies tailored to address such challenges. Acknowledging that writing is a complex and cognitively demanding task, our research stresses the importance of fostering learners’ written and linguistic competencies, abilities that are deeply intertwined. As such, the first part of our theoretical framework provides a description of general difficulties associated with writing in a second language. Subsequently, it contrasts linguistic domains in Portuguese and Slovene, while offering insights into common issues Slovene students encounter when writing in Portuguese. A qualitatively assessed pilot study, involving 1st- and 2nd-year university students, tasked with expository writing, confirmed that the issues identified in our review of the literature – concerning format, information, lexis and syntax – are areas that demand extra attention and time. In terms of grammar, more specifically, the analysis we carried out has proven that there are word classes and syntactic structures in Portuguese which pose challenges for Slovene students, due to their unfamiliar features. According to our results, problems with determiners, their contraction with prepositions, past verbal tenses and the placement of pronouns were particularly significant. Based on these domains, we suggest the use of didactic strategies which acknowledge writing as an iterative process, aimed at helping students overcome their difficulties, while developing self-regulatory, metalinguistic, and creative problem-solving skills. Our scientific contribution lies in the promotion of pedagogical actions based on the efficient contrast between languages, the creative use of digital resources and materials presenting authentic discourse. 
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spelling doaj-art-a96d0814efcb4fe693547f2248e564262025-08-20T02:39:44ZdeuUniversity of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani)Vestnik za Tuje Jezike1855-84532350-42692024-12-0116110.4312/vestnik.16.403-418Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in PortugueseBlažka Müller0Cláudia Silva1Faculty of Arts of University of LjubljanaUniversity of Aveiro This paper seeks to identify and reflect on the difficulties Slovene students face when writing in European Portuguese, in order to present didactic strategies tailored to address such challenges. Acknowledging that writing is a complex and cognitively demanding task, our research stresses the importance of fostering learners’ written and linguistic competencies, abilities that are deeply intertwined. As such, the first part of our theoretical framework provides a description of general difficulties associated with writing in a second language. Subsequently, it contrasts linguistic domains in Portuguese and Slovene, while offering insights into common issues Slovene students encounter when writing in Portuguese. A qualitatively assessed pilot study, involving 1st- and 2nd-year university students, tasked with expository writing, confirmed that the issues identified in our review of the literature – concerning format, information, lexis and syntax – are areas that demand extra attention and time. In terms of grammar, more specifically, the analysis we carried out has proven that there are word classes and syntactic structures in Portuguese which pose challenges for Slovene students, due to their unfamiliar features. According to our results, problems with determiners, their contraction with prepositions, past verbal tenses and the placement of pronouns were particularly significant. Based on these domains, we suggest the use of didactic strategies which acknowledge writing as an iterative process, aimed at helping students overcome their difficulties, while developing self-regulatory, metalinguistic, and creative problem-solving skills. Our scientific contribution lies in the promotion of pedagogical actions based on the efficient contrast between languages, the creative use of digital resources and materials presenting authentic discourse.  https://journals.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/19310second language writingPortuguese as a Second Languagelinguistic skillsdidacticsSlovene university students
spellingShingle Blažka Müller
Cláudia Silva
Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese
Vestnik za Tuje Jezike
second language writing
Portuguese as a Second Language
linguistic skills
didactics
Slovene university students
title Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese
title_full Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese
title_fullStr Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese
title_full_unstemmed Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese
title_short Slovene Students’ Writing Skills in Portuguese
title_sort slovene students writing skills in portuguese
topic second language writing
Portuguese as a Second Language
linguistic skills
didactics
Slovene university students
url https://journals.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/19310
work_keys_str_mv AT blazkamuller slovenestudentswritingskillsinportuguese
AT claudiasilva slovenestudentswritingskillsinportuguese