Syllabuses, textbooks and teaching practices: Literacy and language teaching in Portugal1

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the problems connected with the development of a genre-based approach to language teaching in the context of basic and secondary schooling in Portugal. It claims that the lack of a concerted and planned pedagogy, involving not only syllabuses, but also textbooks and teaching practices, lies at the core of those problems. In fact, in the context of basic and secondary schooling in Portugal, a genre-based approach to language teaching cannot be fully accomplished without taking into consideration aspects not yet fully addressed in that context