Abstract
Research suggests that the high levels of negative transfer observed in the acquisition of Portuguese by Spanish speakers (PSS) results from the fact that Spanish and Portuguese are two closely related languages with high levels of mutual intelligibility. This interference becomes particularly evident in the acquisition of Portuguese phonology. Studies dedicated to the acquisition of Portuguese phonology by Spanish speakers seem to agree on the necessity to raise these learners' perceptive awareness when acquiring Portuguese. Aiming to contribute to this discussion, this research found on the Noticing Hypothesis its theoretical bases to propose that oral activities, oral tasks, and self evaluations could raise learners' perceptive awareness towards the acquisition of the Portuguese phonology. The results suggested that participants who received treatment showed clear signs of noticing at the level of understanding were able to improve their pronunciation and maintained their performance throughout the semester. Noticing was observed on different stages of the acquisition, which resulted in an interlanguage in tune with the Portuguese phonetic system. The same performance was not observed among participants who were not exposed to treatment. The data also suggested the existence of four distinct stages of acquisition for the Portuguese open-mid and nasal vowels. The findings allowed for better understanding the cognitive processes taking place in the acquisition of closely related and mutual intelligible languages and present important pedagogical implications to the teaching of Portuguese to Spanish speakers.