ABOUT CLICABRASIL

Hi, I am Vivian Flanzer, the Portuguese language coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin and the creator of ClicaBrasil.  I was born and raised in Brazil.

I developed ClicaBrasil in 2010 as a classroom tool for our Portuguese language courses here at UT-Austin. People all over the world are now using it for different purposes: self-study, classroom instruction, tutoring, or as a pastime. I hope you find it as useful and informative as well.

ClicaBrasil was developed for intermediate level learners of Portuguese. The units in ClicaBrasil integrate reading, writing, listening and reading comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, oral communication, and cultural activities. Numerous video clips (157, to be precise!) that show different Brazilians speaking about their lives, their culture, and their country support and enhance these activities.

The views and opinions expressed in these videos are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect my own nor the University of Texas at Austin’s.

Tips for the Learner:

Click the Unit Index to discover the content of each unit. Click on the Grammar Bank to find clear and concise grammar explanations. For a better understanding of the intricacies of the spoken vs. written language, listen to the videos in the units and do the accompanying activities available in PDF files. Don’t forget to check your answers in the “respostas.”

Each Unit starts with a Pano de fundo (Backdrop) section, where you can learn about the unit’s specific socio-cultural scenario; it ends with an Aproximando o foco (Zooming in) section, where you can explore these aspects more extensively. You will also find a Leitura (Reading) and a Gramática (Grammar) section in each unit. All the sections have activities with an answer-key in downloadable PDF files that dialogue with the videos and/or the readings.

To the right of each video, you will find a short glossary (Termos úteis), a Portuguese transcription, and an English translation. You can choose to show or hide these texts.

Tips for the Instructor:

There are several ways to use ClicaBrasil. I encourage you to personalize these materials according to your students’ needs. Feel free to skip a unit or a section, or to do them in a different order. It is always a good idea to select which activities you will do in class (as a group, in pairs, or individually) and which you will assign for homework. I suggest you ask your students to check the answer-key before submitting their homework, so they can clear up any doubts in class. Some activities offer “suggested answers” because they reflect personal views or subjective opinions. My students have reported that the “suggested answers” have inspired them to discuss the units in class after doing the homework. You might also consider adapting some activities to your students’ needs. For example, if you think a composition activity would make more sense in your course as a class discussion, go for it!

I have a lot of fun reinventing the way I teach each ClicaBrasil unit and I hope you do too. I would love to hear about you and your experiences teaching with this tool, so please don’t hesitate to contact me to tell me about your experiences!

About the Transcriptions

All the videos in ClicaBrasil are non-scripted. In fact, they were recorded during informal conversations between me and Brazilians from all walks of life. In transcribing the videos, we were faithful to their speech, maintaining all the hesitations, interruptions, repetitions, and pauses that occur in common speech. In other words, what you hear in the videos is what you read in the transcriptions. In instances where a grammatical mistake occurs in the speech, we inserted the corrected form in parentheses in the transcription, as in the example:

“as roupa (roupas) do pessoal”

If a term was omitted, we inserted it in brackets:

“eu posso escolher a hora [em] que eu trabalho”

However, for reductions, typical of colloquial spoken Portuguese but unacceptable in formal written language, the corresponding formal grammatical forms were not inserted in the transcriptions.

Glossary of reductions in colloquial spoken Portuguese:

Cê: você

Né: não é?

Pra: para ou para a

Pro: para o

Prum: para um

Pruma: para uma

Tá: está (v. estar)

Tamos: estamos (v. estar)

Tão: estão (v. estar)

Tava: estava (v. estar)

Tavam: estavam (v. estar)

Tô: estou (v. estar)