Secondary education in East Timor: settings for curriculum development of Portuguese

Abstract

The present article is part of an ongoing research at PhD level, integrated in the Timor Project. It aims to describe and analyse the curriculum development for the Portuguese subject in context of the Restructuring of the General Secondary Education Curriculum in East Timor. It embodies a qualitative case study, whose participants are students, teachers and trainers from East Timor and trainers from Portugal, specifically of the Portuguese subject. The data collection consisted on document analysis, questionnaires, interviews, focus group and direct (non-participant) observation of classes. In the context of this article, contributes from a focus group with the Timorese teachers and trainers of Portuguese, an interview with the teacher trainer from Portugal and notes from direct observation of classes were all used to discuss the main results regarding: the pedagogical practices and the main teaching strategies, based mainly on a transmissive logic; the use that teachers make of curriculum resources, particularly the teachers’ guides and the students’ textbooks, which, if existing, tend to be used daily, both in planning and in delivering classes. The main advantages of these resources are the guiding role within pedagogical activities and the systematisation of contents to teach, despite the excessively demanding language in which they are drafted. The aim is also to discuss the teachers’ knowledge about the implemented curriculum, which seems to depend on the frequency of ongoing training programs. More in-service teacher training is needed to support teachers through these curricular changes, allowing them to enhance their scientific and pedagogical knowledge.