Abstract: The teaching or learning of a foreign language is an art that undergoes constant redefinition. It is difficult to evaluate the efficiency of a 619 teaching process but neither is it easy to assess a particular method. A scientific era of language teaching settles its foundation in the concept of learning and in the scientific notion of language. In this article, four teaching methods with different objectives are being discussed. They are the audio-oral method, the audiovisual method, the communicative method and the natural method. The audiooral method aims to create automatism in oral capacity. Learners listen, imitate and repeat the second language without the aid of translation. As a result they are able to speak spontaneously. For the audiovisual method, learners use books and audiovisual materials such as films to familiarize themselves with the basic use of the second language. They listen, repeat, understand and memorize dialogues through exercises and games. The communicative approach concentrates on the nature of language. Through autonomous exercises and partial memorization, learners study rules for construction of sentences. They obtain the capacity to communicate according to a particular intention and situation. They think and form their own statements instead of mere imitations. Auxiliary tools are books, authentic documents and audiovisual materials. The last method is called a natural approach. It intents to develop the capacity of comprehension and communication, stressing that
people are able to acquire a second language only when they truly understand and know how to use it. The content corresponds to the needs and interests of the learners, who do not have to memorize grammatical rules. The learning process is an unconscious one, just like a child acquiring his mother tongue. Supporting materials are radio, television and publications and other visual means. Despite the fact that all these methods tend to find a linguistic or psychological foundation, the resulting scientific status is only a provisionary one. The learning and teaching of language remain distinct from linguistics and psychology. The art of teaching lies in the process when a student learns a language with the help of a teacher.

Abstract: The paper focuses on an intriguing element that most Western teachers face in language classrooms in China: the called “Silence of the East”. Here I shall share some scenes from Portuguese as a foreign language (PFL) classes in Macau, China. Based on this, I discuss issues such as intercultural interaction and construction of identities: two aspects that have direct implications for the process of construction of knowledge. Specifically, I focus on (i) the silencing process that takes place at the primary context between a Chinese teacher and Chinese students, and on (ii) silence that appears in the tertiary classroom and provokes a conflict between a Western teacher and Chinese students. I assume both aspects as constructed interactionally by the discursive performances of teachers and students and argue that they are culturally and also locally built on a process of negotiation. Therefore this study refuses the essentialist perspectives that characterize and imprison the Chinese student as silent. In an opposite direction, I stress that the world is in movement and the interactions are the site for “focusing on” these ongoing discursive processes that (re)build paradigms, beliefs, identities and allow us to overcome conflicts and achieve successful intercultural interactions. In order to analyze these scenes, I work from the perspective of Interactional Sociolinguistics, an interdisciplinary field that uses discourse analysis to inter-relate discourse, culture and society.