How is linguistic genre taught and how should it be taught?

Abstract

Gender is a language formalism and a category of agreement, being intrinsic and obligatory in nouns, while in adjectives it corresponds to a category transmitted by the noun, generally with a functional and non-lexical role. In European Portuguese, linguistic gender does not correlate with the notion of the gender of the referents, although the same terms – masculine and feminine – are used for gender categories and gender values. 

In this paper will reflect on the linguistic dimension of the nominal category and try to answer the question: How should gender be taught and how should it be taught? In order to fulfil this purpose, we will present the results of a section of the work carried out as part of a wider investigation. The study focused on the documentary content analysis of the regulatory documents for the teaching of Portuguese in the 1^st Cycle of Basic Education and the content analysis of the 48 Portuguese teaching materials (textbooks and activity books) available for adoption in the 2019/2020 school year. Moreover, a pedagogical reflection on the approach of linguistic content will be presented, given the urgent need for changes in their teaching and learning.