In this paper we discuss some practices of reading in foreign language classes. We take for granted that if we want the process of foreign language learning to make sense to the students it must be considered that a language is never learnt just by its structure, that is, a student will never learn a language just by learning its rules of functioning. Teachers must consider that a student learns a language together with discourse, due to the fact that there are the rules of a language but there is also the event. We base this study on the theoretical underpinnings of Discourse Analysis of Brazilian and French lines, and our empirical corpus consists of four different texts concerning to the Snake and Columbia Rivers in the USA. Even relating to the same referential object, these texts keep their differences in the way they refer to the rivers. We analyze the linguistic and discursive functioning of four texts used in some classes of ours.
teaching; reading; foreign language