Classroom procedures for Brazilians to develop English reading abilities in the shortest possible time are outlined, based on the idea that the students possess dormant lexical and syntactic competence from their native language experience. The techniques combine simplification with reading activities aimed at guessing in the target language. (MSE)

Describes ongoing research aimed toward finding a minimum discourse grammar to help Brazilian students learning English for special purposes to cope with the sort of texts they have to read in their own disciplines. The research has involved review of scientific philosophy, a reading miscue study, and a comparison of English and Portuguese…