Representações sociais de formadores de futuros professores de língua inglesa

Abstract

The current globalization has changed people in the contemporaneity in an incomparable speed. This global phenomenon has as one of the main elements of this movement the English language, which holds the status of a lingua franca nowadays, and has reached the proportion of speakers never seen before on the planet. (CRYSTAL, 2003; GRADDOL, 2006; KACHRU, 1992; RAJAGOPALAN, 2003; SIQUEIRA, 2008; 2011; JENKINS, 2006; 2007; SEIDLHOFER, 2011) The importance of learning English is unquestionable, but there are still many difficulties in relation to the teaching of English in the Brazilian Basic Education schools. The interest in investigating the educators of English pre-service teachers who will work in these specific institutions throughout the country was the motivation to this research. The theoretical support used to do this work brings aspects related to identity formation, drawing on authors such as Moita Lopes (2002, 2008), Hall (2006), Vygotsky (1984, 2010), Rajagopalan (2003), among others, and on social representations theory, especially studies by Moscovici (2011), Jodelet (1989), Abric (1994), Dotta (2006), etc. The main goal of this research is, therefore, to know what the social representations of the educators of future English teachers are. The specific goals are: a) to analyze the representations of the teacher educator about what it is to be an educator of future English teachers; b) to find out the position of these educators in relation to the contribution in the process of the formation of future teachers; c) to investigate the difficulties that these educators have throughout the course of this process and how they deal with them; and d) to investigate the knowledge of the educators of the competences and abilities needed by a future teacher following what it is described in Brazilian official documents, mainly the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (BRASIL, 1998; 2000) and the Orientações Curriculares para o Ensino Médio. (BRASIL, 2006) It was decided for a qualitative research, through written narratives. (CLANDININ; CONNELLY, 1990; LIMA, 2010; PAIVA, 2007, TELLES, 2002) Thereby, ten narratives written by educators working in the state of Bahia were collected. In the analysis of these narratives, taking as basis the variable listed, the results showed that, to the respondents, the social representations of being an educator of future English teachers are related to developing a social role in the professional work, articulating theory and practice during the teaching process, sensitizing the undergraduates to interculturalism, besides preparing these teachers to the Basic Education system. The position of the educators in relation to the contribution of formation of the future teachers is to focus on a good preparation, objectifying on their classes some actions, such as: the awareness of the undergraduates to the reflection and the action in real classroom practice, the dialog between theory and practice as a way of contributing to the development of a critical-reflexive awareness in the new teachers, which values, among others things, a critical pedagogy dialoging with linguistic education, and educators who anticipate possible difficulties that their future teachers might face. About the official documents, the purpose of the educators is to promote an open discussion about these documents and guide future teachers to help them build their own representations. On the investigation of the difficulties that these educators might find throughout the whole process, it is highlighted the undergraduates’ linguistic deficit and the non-flexible curricula of languages courses, causing a break between theoretical and practical disciplines in the classroom.