In order to leverage Macau’s role as a “precise contact” between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, and promote language and cultural exchanges and cooperations between China and Portugual, Macau Polytechnic University and the University of Porto jointly organized an online academic seminar on “Eastern Portuguese in the Classroom: Challenges and Prospects” to explore the current situation and future development of Portuguese language teaching. The seminar attracted teachers, researchers, and students from higher education institutions from Chinese mainland, Macau, Portugal, Brazil, and other countries and regions, and received a warm response.

Sónia Valente Rodrigues, vice President of University of Porto, Zhang Yunfeng, Dean of the School of Languages and Translation of Macau Polytechnic University, and Rui Jorge Gama Fernandes, Director of the Portuguese Language Teaching and Research Center, and so on, attended the seminar. The seminar is a collaboration between the Portuguese Language Teaching and Research Center of the Macau Polytechnic University and the Faculty of Literature of the University of Porto in Portugal, exploring practical experiences and coping strategies in Portuguese language teaching in the Eastern context, with a particular focus on the challenges faced by native Chinese students in learning Portuguese. At the same time, several experts and scholars from Macau Polytechnic University, University of Porto, University of Coimbra, and Polytechnic Institute of Leiria presented their academic achievements at the seminar. The relevant academic papers were included in the seventh issue of Oriental Portuguese, an academic special issue, which will help promote the high-quality development of Portuguese language teaching in the Eastern language environment.

At the seminar, Professor Luis Filipe Barbeiro from Leiria Institute of Technology made a speech on the theme of “Challenges Faced by Chinese Students in Learning Grammar and Discourse in Portuguese”, which explores how to better help Chinese students overcome cultural and contextual differences and master Portuguese more effectively.

Professors Fátima Silva and Fátima Oliveira from Faculty of Literature, University of Porto, delivered a speech on “Choosing Tense: Challenges for Chinese Native Language Students in Understanding Certain Verb Tense in Portuguese”, which analyzes the challenges faced by Chinese students in understanding and applying tenses when learning Portuguese as a second language, as well as corresponding optimization teaching methods, which can help improve the teaching effectiveness of Portuguese in a multilingual environment.

Other guests attending the seminar include Carlos André, former Dean of the Faculty of Literature of the University of Coimbra (Portugal), Paula Pinto Costa, Dean of Faculty of Literature, University of Porto, and Rui Sousa Silva, Director of Language Center, and many teachers and students from MPU.