What's Happening in Brazil
Brazil has excellent researchers who investigate game-based approaches. Some of them study TGfU. Despite this, the TGfU approach itself is not widespread. Some of the possible reasons are:
  • The lack of teaching materials on TGfU in Portuguese;
  • Difficulty to access materials (books and articles) on TGfU in English or Spanish, due to very high prices for importing books or high fees for international journals;
  • Limiting working conditions for Physical Education professionals who work directly with the teaching/training of sports (in schools or outside the school). In both cases, it is common that teachers and coaches are not encouraged to develop professionally through courses.
 
It is important to highlight that the possible reasons listed above represent a general overview, which does not mean that some teachers/coaches do an excellent job or even use Game-Based approaches in their practices. However, we know that the three elements raised are limiting for most professionals. Despite that, some initiatives have been developed in recent years:
 
  • Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) [Common National Curriculum Base]: Currently Brazil has a document from the Ministry of Education that guides the organization of the school’s curriculum. Therefore, there are guidelines for Physical Education classes in Brazil. One of the innovative aspects of the new document is the proposal to diversify the sports taught in PE classes. Traditionally, four sports were taught in PE classes in Brazil, for various reasons, such as: lack of materials and spaces for teaching sports; lack of adequate professional development; lack of adequate working conditions for teachers. In this sense, the BNCC represents a very interesting first step by indicating that sports teaching takes place through its internal logic: invasion sports, net/wall sports, striking and fielding, performance sports (like track and field), target sports, combat sports and technical-combination sports. The expectation is that with this orientation, new sports will be taught, as well as teaching through games of the same logic. Thus, the TGfU and others Game-Based approaches starts to play an important role, because of the teaching perspective based on the internal logic.
It is worth noting that Brazil is a very large country and it is possible that there are other initiatives taking place. Therefore, as Brazilian representatives of the IAB, we hope to be able to gather this information and update it in the appropriate spaces, as well as on this website.

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