Black matters matter: uma bússola apontando para a raça a bordo da nau 'formação de professores/as de inglês'

Abstract

By means of this research, it aims to list theoretical and methodological contents to approach ethnic and racial issues and African matrix cultures in the education of English teachers. It is a research-action developed in an extension course titled Ethnic and Racial issues and African matrix cultures in the teaching of English linked to the Permanent Center of Extension in Language Arts (NUPEL) from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). The course had the participation of nine teachers and lasted for a semester with a total of 45 class hours. In a preliminary phase, it was examined the Bahian public universities curricular inventory, and, then it was proved that they have not adopted a systematic procedure to incorporate the plea for the Law 10.639/03 and the racial curricular guidelines in the Language Arts courses, especially with regards to the articulation of the theme with the specificities of the English language teaching. Consequently, the English teachers show difficulty to work with the theme race, racism, and African-ness, so, besides finding themselves theoretically unprepared to do so, they feel uneasy due to the political, ideological, and controversial nature of the issue. In the present study, it was determined that it is possible to structure an appropriate education at the Law 10.639/03 and the mentioned guidelines orientations through the premise of the Critical Racial Theory (LADSON-BILLINGS, 2006; FERREIRA, 2006b, 2007, 2011; Solórzano e Yosso, 2009) and the Critical Racial Literacy (FERREIRA, 2015a, 2015b; MOSLEY, 2010), added to the Interculturality notions (MENDES, 2007, 2008; WALSH, 2009), and English as lingua franca (JENKINS, 2015; DUBOC; SIQUEIRA, 2020). Proposals with this level may offer theoretical and methodological input not only to the English teacher become qualified and feel safe to approach the theme but also to evaluate how their own racial identity impacts this pedagogical potential. Such comprehension affects even their critical thinking to elaborate didactic material within the same perspective.