Teaching Portuguese for business through project pedagogy: ‘Shark Tank’, from television to the classroom

Abstract

With the internationalization of Portuguese and the economic development of Portuguese-speaking countries, we have been witnessing a growing interest both in learning Portuguese as a foreign language and in learning it in terms of business. When speakers enroll in these Business Portuguese classes, they are aware that, for a successful negotiation with Portuguese speakers, not only language skills would be needed, but also many other skills, such as sociocultural ones. In this context, the Project Pedagogy proves to be particularly fruitful, given the diverse potentialities that have been demonstrated in various research projects, particularly in the field of language teaching. In this text, we will describe a project activity implemented, precisely, in a Portuguese for Business course, based on the model of the television program ‘O lago dos Tubarões/Shark Tank Brasil’ and on a project already adapted from this same television program, and applied in a Korean course for professional purposes (Choi, 2018). The results obtained demonstrate, in fact, the importance of this approach, which led, for example, to the development and improvement of the students' communication skills not only in general but also, more specifically, in the field of business. In addition, students were also able to build specific knowledge, and not just linguistic, about an important area of knowledge, also improving skills that, most likely, they really may have to use, in the near future, in their professional field.