Digital nomads-Portuguese for Business - Video

28 April 2021

Lecturers
Students

Business & Communication
International Relations
Tourism

Autonomous learning
Classroom Context

Portuguese

Portuguese

B2

Activity/task
Audio
Video

Vocabulary
Grammar
Pragmatics
Prosody

Listening
Speaking
Critical Thinking
Writing

This resource (video-piece of news broadcast by a Portuguese television network) meets the needs of upper-intermediate students wanting to improve their speaking and listening skills in a specific context: Portuguese for business (also suitable for International Relations and Tourism). This resource assists both the lecturer, as he can use this with his students in the classroom, and the students who, rather autonomously, can also explore it. The students need to have at least a B2 level in order to understand what is being said in the news. Even though part of the speaking is in English (but subtitled in Portuguese), some parts are spoken exclusively in Portuguese. If used by the lecturer, this resource can be used following a task-based approach, as suggested in the guidelines. If not, the learner can follow the steps clearly indicated in the site.

This would be an activity that could be done in the classroom or autonomously by a group of students in the scope of the discipline of Portuguese for Business under the theme “new professions”. It is assumed that students already have a B2 level of proficiency to attend the course. This activity requires prior work by the teacher, to identify the actors in the report and collect the most relevant ideas from their speech so that they can later be rewritten. The activity proposed to the students is related to the training of written and oral comprehension. First, students must read the sentences rewritten by the teacher, then look for the meaning of words they do not know, and finally, they will be able to view the video. They will be given the opportunity to watch the video twice, so they can identify who said what. They are allowed and advised to take notes. Between each visualization, they will have 5 minutes to indicate who said each sentence. After the second visualization, they will have another 5 minutes to complete the exercise and review their answers.
One could also take advantage of the fact that some Portuguese speakers have different accents, namely the standard European Portuguese accent and the Madeiran accent, to address the theme of language variation.

Introduction/warm-up activity: Brainstorm the advantages and disadvantages of teleworking. Representations of a new professional profile: digital nomads/acknowledgment of different jobs.

Step 1: Reading of the questionnaire linked to the video. While watching, students have to pay attention to the video so they can answer the questions on the questionnaire about the news story.
Step 2: Sts finish filling in the questionnaire.
Step 3: Speaking activity: students working in groups of 3/4 are asked to reflect on the following questions, trying to provide answers to them: e.g. “How are these digital nomads represented? What are their rituals of work? Do they have any? Do they feel less work environment constrained? Does being a digital nomad require more creativity and using new working tools?”
Step 4: Writing activity: keeping the same groups or individually, students write an opinion essay on the digital nomad project in Madeira, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of such a project, while at the same time putting forth their own opinion on it.
The following questions can be given to guide students: Would you like to be a digital nomad? Why? Why not? Do you think the new generation is ready for such kind of work model? Are digital nomads happier? Does happiness at work increase productivity?