Reading and text comprehension activities: an analysis of imperative verbs and interrogative pronouns in texbooks from a Portuguese Language collection

Resumo

The textbook is the main teaching tool in Portuguese language classes. The present study seeks to describe and to analyze reading and the text comprehension exercises of two textbooks, one from the 6th grade and the other from the 9th grade, based on theories Applied Linguistics and Text Linguistics. For this analysis, fourteen narrative texts present in the books were selected and analyzed as to how the comprehension questionnaires are structured, checking how the words used to ask questions  interfere in the skills that are developed or expected for the students in a classroom. The following aspects were highlighted: the importance of complementing more systematic and reflective exercises, the implementation of a more structured sequence of the exercises, the expansion of oral activities in the classroom, and also the importance of teaching linguistic elements for the promotion of understanding based on language and its use.