Representações de professores de língua inglesa de Natal-RN: um estudo sistêmico-funcional

Teaching and learning representations have been more and more investigated in the Brazilian applied linguistics field, as it allows the understanding of the teachers representations and how they conceive the learning process. This practice facilitates the planning of actions to improve the educational system. This study aims at identifying, interpreting and discussing some representations related to the identity and professional view of English as a foreign language teachers in different school contexts of Natal-RN. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research is Halliday s Systemic- Functional Linguistics (1994; HALLIDAY; MATHIESSEN, 2004; EGGINS, 1994, among others). Our goal was to reveal the teachers representations embedded in their language, mainly through the ideational metafunction, as language is the tool we use to express ourselves about the external world (events, qualities, things, etc) and the internal world (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc). The research corpus is made of 21 teacher narratives, generated from a questionnaire sent to the teachers, who were divided in two groups: Group 1 (public schools teachers) and Group 2 (private schools and English course teachers). Most of the participants seemed to be satisfied with their professional choice. Many of them see the job as a challenge and an opportunity to transmit knowledge. All of them affirmed that the English teacher is a professional, for different reasons; however, the low professional appreciation was a recurrent aspect among the studied narratives. When asked about where they work, the private school teachers seemed to be more satisfied with the teaching-learning process than the ones from the public schools. We believe that the data analyzed in this study is important to show how some English teachers from Natal-RN see their profession. The results might be used in continuing education courses as food-for-thought in group discussions, as it is extremely important to emphasize and stimulate this practice

Uma proposta de ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Inglesa integrada ao uso das TICS para o desenvolvimento da autonomia dos aprendizes

This study focuses on the teaching and learning of English based on a new theoretical perspective concerning the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which points to the apprehension of metacognitive processes as the way to reach learning autonomy. The theoretical set underline this study is those of a new pedagogy based on the symbiosis of Bruner‟s (2002) and Freire‟s (2009) concepts and in the metacognitive theory. In a social context dominated by the Communication and Information Technologies (CIT), the integration between teacher and learners with the support of the internet has been used as the way to operationalize this new emergent proposal of the theoretical perspectives. The analyses have been conducted through Systemic and Integral Action Research. The results at the end of this study corroborate our hypothesis that the enlargement of spontaneous knowledge of the learners can facilitate the understanding of scientific concepts, stimulating their metacognition and thus promoting their autonomy.

A linguagem da reflexão de uma professora de Língua Inglesa: um estudo de caso sob a perspectiva do sistema de avaliatividade

Research about teacher education, carried out in the area of Applied Linguistics (AL), reveals the importance of reflective practices in the professional development of teachers. With the aim of contributing to this area, we present this case study conducted at a technical school in Natal, RN. The corpus of the study is formed mainly from the teacher‟s discourse, generated during a stimulated recall session and the instruments used to collect the data: an initial questionnaire, a video recording of a class and the text transcript of the stimulated recall session. The central objective is to understand the way in which the reflection-on-action (SCHÖN, 1983, 1987) can contribute to raise the awareness of an English as a Foreign Language teacher (EFL) about her actions in the classroom. With this proposal, we begin our discussion presenting the origins, the presuppositions and characteristics of the concept of reflection according to Schön (1983, 1987), and supported by other authors (PERRENOUD, 2002; GÓMEZ, 1995; IMBERNÓN, 2009, among others); of critical reflection (LISTON e ZEICHNER, 1993; PIMENTA, 2002; DUTRA e MELLO, 2004, among others); and of the process of critical reflection (SMYTH, 1992). To evidence the reflections that emerge in the teacher‟s discourse, we found support in the theories and methods of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), which was initially proposed by Halliday (1985, 1994), Halliday and Hasan (1989), Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and followers, such as, Eggins (1994), Thompson (1996), among others. We focus mainly on the subsystem of Attitude, an integral component of the system of discourse resources, Appraisal, presented by Martin (2000), Martin and Rose (2003, 2007), Martin and White (2005). The results reveal that the actions of the teacher in the classroom reflect not only her professional experiences, but also her values and concepts about teaching/learning languages. The results also show the teacher‟s awareness of the need for changes in her practices. Faced with these findings, we believe that this study reveals important concepts that can direct teacher educators to rethink new ways of approaching teacher training courses. In addition, it also reveals the importance of discourse analysis based on a systemic functional approach.

O ensino de língua inglesa em um instituto federal : uma análise das recomendações documentais e da perspetiva dos professores

This work aims to understand the teaching of English at the Federal Institute of considering the recommendations of official and technical documents for the integrated secondary school and the perspective of the English teachers settled in one of the campuses of the Institute. It is also an objective of this research to infer as to what extent the perspective of teachers is articulated to the documental recommendations. For this purpose, several official and technical documents (LÜDKE; ANDRÉ, 1986), such as the PCNEMs (BRAZIL, 2000), the OCNEMs (BRAZIL, 2006) and the Political-Pedagogical Project of the Institute (IFRN, in press) were gathered, and a questionnaire was submitted to six teachers of English from one of the campuses of the institution. The theoretical references of the research include, among others, Bakhtin (1997; 1999), Widdowson (1991), Almeida Filho (2011; 2004), Celani (1988; 2009), Hutchinson and Waters (1987) and Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998). The results show that the teaching of English according to the documents predicts the instrumental use of the foreign language, but suggests the development of competences and skills as contextualized social practices, aimed at the education of the student as a professional-citizen. The perspective of teachers, in turn, points to a concern that the teaching of English serves as a tool for improving student life through the instrumental use of language as a means of accessing information and professional training. This finding reveals that the articulation between the documental recommendations and perspective of teachers does not go beyond what refers to the instrumental language teaching, since teachers do not show, when reporting their practices, the teaching of language as social practice, as mentioned in the legal texts

Interação em sala de aula de língua inglesa: o feedback como estratégia do desempenho assistido

This dissertation aims at characterizing the practices as well as the effects of a teacher s feedback in oral conversation interaction with students in an English Language classroom at a Primary School, 6th Grade in Açu/RN, Brazil. Therefore, this study is based on Vygotsky s (1975) and Bruner´s (1976) researches, which state that the learning process is constructed through interaction between a more experienced individual (teacher, parents and friends) and a learner who plays an active role, a re-constructor of knowledge. It is also based on Ur´s (2006) and Brookhart s (2008) studies (among other authors in Applied Linguistic) who defend that the feedback process needs to be evaluative and formative since it sets interfaces with both students autonomy and learning improvement. Our study is based on qualitative, quantitative and interpretive researches, whose natural environment (the classroom) is a direct source of data generated in this research through field observations/note-taking as well as through the transcriptions of five English classes audio taped. This study shows the following results: the teacher still seems to accept the patterns of interaction in the classroom that correspond to the IRE process (Initiation, Response, Evaluation) in behaviorist patterns: (1) he speaks and determines the turns of speech; (2) the teacher asks more questions and directs the activities most of the time; (3) the teacher´s feedback presents the following types: questioning, modeling, repeated response, praise, depreciation, positive/negative and sarcasm feedback, whose functions are to assess students' performance based on the rightness and wrongness of their responses. Thus, this implies to state that the feedback does not seem to help students improvement in terms of acquiring knowledge because of its normative effects/roles. Therefore, it is the teacher´s role to give evaluative and formative feedback to a student so that he/she should advance in the learning of the language and in the construction of knowledge

Avaliando a aprendizagem de língua inglesa em uma escola de ensino médio a partir de contribuições discentes

This study discusses the evaluation of the English language‟s learning developed in a public high school from Lajes-RN in 2011 starting from a qualitative evaluation proposal (SAUL 1988; CANAN, 1996; DEMO, 2008) aiming the production of knowledge about the evaluation process developed in the classes of English language involving the contributions from students. To diagnose and characterize the evaluation process of English language of the researched school, identifying the representations that students attributed to the evaluation, we have implemented the evaluation instruments suggested by students to perform the evaluation of language learning and allowed a reflection about the student‟s participation in the construction of the evaluation process of the English language, subject discussed by Sant‟anna (2002) and other theorists (CANAN, 1996; BRAZIL, 2002; PEREIRA, 2009). To conduct the research work, we use the qualitative approach with ethnographic basis, substantiate in authors like Bogdan, Biklen (1994), Mazzotti; Gewandsznajder (1998), Strauss, Corbin (2008) among others. The methodology was the action research (ANDRÉ, 1995; NUNAN, 2007; LANKSHEAR; KNOBEL, 2008) described as research of empirical basis which associates an action with a resolution of a collective problem, because in it, its researchers and employees are engaged in a cooperatively way (THIOLLENT, 1985). When we treat about the evaluation of English language‟s learning (ALMEIDA FILHO, 1993; SCARAMUCCI, 2009) practiced before and after the contributions made by the students of the second year of the refereed school, the study considers that high school students have a more critical and reflective conscience with regard to their evaluations, not just opining on the assessment of learning English but also about the assessment of other subjects from their scholar curriculum and so this research presents possibilities for performing the act of evaluation which consider the participation of students in decisions regarding this process, because we cogitate that when the teachers share the decisions with their students, teachers can add quality to the evaluation process

O papel da atividade lúdica como motivadora da aprendizagem da língua inglesa: análise de um livro didático

This work aims at analyzing the activities presented in the book On Stage for junior high school students, which was selected by IFRN, as well as checking out the students interest for play activities. We have come from the point that playing activities can contribute to the increasing of motivation for the teaching of English (BROUGERE, 1999; WRIGHT, BETTERIDGE, BUCKBY, 2006; LANGRAN e PURCELL, 1994). At first place, our research is a document analysis and in second place, it is an action research. We have proposed two questionnaires for the participants of this work, all of them are High school students at IFRN-Campus Zona Norte, in order to check out their interests and the degree of motivation for the English learning before and after the carrying out of play activities. The obtained data also showed that the students became more motivated and interested in the classes after working with play activities, and most of the students agreed with the inclusion of these activities in the selected course book. The result of our work proved the benefits of play activities according to researches available in the literature about this subject. From the results acquired in the present work, we suggest that play activities should be included in English course books, even when they are addressed to High School teaching in order to help increasing the motivation for the learning of a foreign language

Foucault e a arte do cuidado de si: uma nova possibilidade de Discussão para a formação continuada de professores de língua inglesa

This thesis proposes a new thinking on the English teacher and their continuing education, leaving the picture emerging of a new professional, who is producing and being produced. From this perspective, I present an analysis of self writing of thirteen student-teachers, teachers on how they position themselves to be discursively constituted as subjects in the context of continuing education. As part of Applied Linguistics, the theory and method that supports the analysis of data are articulate key elements of Foucault notions, namely:The care of the self, seeking their connection with one another and care of and the self writing. In the theoretical notions of these elements are implied notions of others, such as speech, ethics, technology of the self, subject and truth. (Foucault, 1984, 1995, 2004c, 2006), and questioning the ethics of the subject. I propose to examine selected excerpts from the self writings of student teachers with a specialization in Teaching and Learning the English Language, seeking linguistic processes in the material production of subjectivities.In order to analyze the process of subjectivation, I examine the discursive statements of selected cuts, aiming to learn more specifically, the points of identification and fragments of the uniqueness of the teachers, showing how they care for themselves and reflect upon them in building their subjectivity from the technologies of the self, to occupy the position of English Language teachers. The results show that, in the exercise of self writing, the subject falls, and a practice of asceticism, discursively construct her/his subjectivity

Referências culturais e heterogeneidade discursiva :Uma proposta para o ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa

The purpose of this research is to approach the English literary text from the point of view of the culture and the heterogeneity of discourse in its role as a source of elements that facilitate the teaching/learning process of English as a foreign language. Several instances of discourse heterogeneity are analyzed through cultural references in the original texts of the following English novels: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), published in 1847; The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot (1819-1890), published in 1860 and Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), published between 1860 and 1861. Theoretical support was sought in Kramsch, Bakhtin, Maingueneau, Authier-Revuz, Widdowson and Larsen-Freeman. Activities in English are proposed in the end whereby it can be seen that the questions at issue can be used extensively in the classroom.

Cartões de saudações em língua inglesa: uma prática de letramento em análise

This research aims at studying the use of greeting cards, here understood as a literacy practice widely used in American society of the United States. In American culture, these cards become sources of information and memory about people‟s cycles of life, their experiences and their bonds of sociability enabled by means of the senses that the image and the word comprise. The main purpose of this work is to describe how this literacy practice occurs in American society. Theoretically, this research is based on studies of literacy (BARTON, HAMILTON, 1998; BAYHAM, 1995; HAMILTON, 2000; STREET, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1993, 2003), the contributions of social semiotics, associated with systemic-functional grammar (HALLIDAY; HASAN 1978, 1985, HALLIDAY, 1994, HALLIDAY; MATTHIESSEN, 2004), and the grammar of visual design (KRESS; LEITE-GARCIA, VAN LEEUWEN, 1997, 2004, 2006; KRESS; MATTHIESSEN, 2004). Methodologically, it is a study that falls within the qualitative paradigm of interpretative character, which adopts ethnographic tools in data generation. From this perspective, it makes use of “looking and asking” techniques (ERICKSON, 1986, p. 119), complemented by the technique of "registering", proposed by Paz (2008). The corpus comprises 104 printed cards, provided by users of this cultural artifact, from which we selected 24, and 11 e-cards, extracted from the internet, as well as verbalizations obtained by applying a questionnaire prepared with open questions asked in order to gather information about the perceptions and actions of these cards users with respect to this literacy practice. Data analysis reveals cultural, economic and social aspects of this practice and the belief that literacy practice of using printed greeting cards, despite the existence of virtual alternatives, is still very fruitful in American society. The study also allows users to comprehend that the cardholders position themselves and construct identities that are expressed in verbal and visual interaction in order to achieve the desired effect. As a result, it is understood that greeting cards are not unintentional, but loaded with ideology and power relations, among other aspects that are constitutive of them.

Evolução da terminoliga princípio contábil baseada na Escola Norte-Americana

This research has as objective of study the evolution of the accountancy princliple terminology which is present in the accounting conceptual framework. The scene of this research will have as target the North American School of Accounting. The choice of the searched terminology is its relevance in the study of the Accounting Theory. To understand the evolution of the accountancy thought, will be boarded: the influence of the Feudal System and the Mercantilism in the European economic conception; the importance of the Industrial Revolution in the beginning of the accounting standards and the influence of England in the formation of the North American School of Accounting. With relation to U.S.A., the development of the economic-financial scene of the American society will be evaluated, focusing the contribution in the search of the construction of an applied theoretical framework to the Accounting. The economic-financial development of U.S.A. provided the sprouting of new users with specific necessities. The necessity of the user for useful information for the decision taking, unchained the process of research directed toward the establishment of an applied Accountancy terminology. In this process, the paper exerted for the responsible accountancy organisms for the accounting standards will be boarded, as well as the professionals associations which had invested in researches, aiming at to elaborate a body of accountancy principles and to adjust the accountancy procedures to the necessities of the users. To reach the research objective, a bibliographical revision in specialized literature will be effected, adopting the historical method, in the period that understands the development of the North American School of Accounting. As result of the research, it can conclude that the evolution process of the terminology which is studied presents a structural logical problem, because the impossibility of the construction of a theoretical framework, having as bases the principle terminology. The impossibility occurred in function of the reach attributed to the term, which made a difficult in its application in the elaboration of the accountancy procedures

O computador no ensino de lígnua inglesa no CEFET/RN

The present study has as goal to analyze the aplicability of the computational technology as mediator in the english-speaking teaching in the Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica do Rio Grande do Norte-CEFET/RN. The object of study was centered in the use of the computer incorporated in the teaching of English by four institution groups. The research was ruled metodologically in the study of case, adopting a qualitative and quantitative boarding of interpretative-reflexive mark. We support ourselves on a bibliographical literature revision that cares of the use of the computational technology matter into the class-room, aiming an education new practice, regarding the current reality conceptions in what we live in the technological education. We also use a referencial for a pedagogical action, trying to offer subsidies for a practice that provides the knowledges generation through the interaction, aiming a subject reflexive and critical education. For materialization of this study, we used esrutuctured action, as interviews for the teachers and students, besides the observations of the dayly in class-room, in order to get the necessary datas for analysis. During this study, we oserved that the use of the computer, while pedagogical support instrument in the english-speaking teaching, has acted like mediator of the teaching-learning process. The results demonstrate use of the computer use has been each more a practice adopted by other institution languages teachers. The conclusions confirm the hypothesis showed at the beginning of the work and evidence that the teachers are warden of forming thinking, reflexive and critical subjects. For that, they need to be prepared to face situations in which they can take the pedagogical practice to tune with the technological advances, consequently providing an effective technological education

"Tudo" em Natal : definitude, implicaturas e contribuições para o ensino de língua materna

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

A relação gramatical objeto direto : implicações para o ensino de língua materna

This paper attempts to investigate the discourse manifestations of the grammatical relation direct object with respect to the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties that underlie this element. The research adopts theoretical orientation of the functionalism from North American and Brazilian schools inspired in Givón (1995, 2001), Hopper and Thompson (1980), Chafe (1979), Furtado da Cunha, Oliveira, Martelotta (2003) inter alia. From functionalism, the research uses principles of iconicity, markedness and informativity and it analize categories of transitivity, grounding and animacy. This research is anchored in prototype model (TAYLOR 1995); construction grammar model (GOLDBERG 1996, 2002). Both theoretical orientations share the view that language is a malleable living organism subject to socio-cultural context. Grammar is then the result of created, maintained, and systematized linguistic patterns developed from and used for language use. According to a functional linguistics and cognitivist linguistics verbs are stored in the speakers lexicon in syntactic-semantic frames which are more frequent. These frames carry information concerning obligatory and optional arguments and the semantic roles these arguments take in the clause. The analysis focuses on the semantic type of the verbs and its relationship with the argument encoded as a direct object observing the aspectual nature of verbs. Direct objects are classified according to their morphology (lexical or pronominal noun phrase), semantic role, informational content and animacy. This study discusses pedagogical implications with relation to how the grammatical concepts touched on this paper are treated in school textbooks. The empirical data come from Corpus Discurso & Gramática: a língua falada e escrita na cidade do Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA, 1998). This corpus is composed of texts that contain spoken and written modalities. These modalities are in turn organized according to different types: personal narratives, retold narrative, description of preferred place, procedural place, procedural description and report on argumentation. The sample data totals 40 texts produced by four language consultants of the last graduation date. The paper shows that the same syntactic structures (formed through Subject-Verb-Object) correspond to different semantic-pragmatic structures in relation to specific communicative purposes even verb is an event, process or state. The argument structure are not aleatory but are related to experience; that is the way humans conceptualize the world and talk about it

A transitividade na conversação: uma abordagem funcional centrada no uso

This work investigates the phenomenon of transitivity in the conversation. We examined the behavior of complements in Brazilian Portuguese speech, and then compared the results with previous researches in the English language by Thompson and Hopper (2001) and in the Spanish language by Vázques (2004). In Brazil, there are no researches that treat this phenomenon in the discursive conversation, for that reason it justifies and reveals the importance of this research that aims to answer questions related to the transitivity of ordinary conversations. Thus, we describe, explain and analize the transitivity based on concrete linguistic data, provided by native speakers of Portuguese language, specifically, spontaneous talk of people from Natal-RN. We have used as theoretical assumptions the Functional Linguistics usage-based (LFCU), which gathers academics of North-American Functional Linguistics, inspired by Chafe (1979), Hopper and Thompson (1980), Thompson and Hopper (2001), Givón (2001), Bybee (2010), Traugott (2009, 2011), among others, as well as Cognitive Linguistics, presented by Langacker (1987), Taylor (1995), Tomasello (1998) and Goldberg(1995), among others. This data consists in conversations extracted from the corpus Banco Conversacional de Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA). The results obtained from this work confirm the assertions defined by prior conducted studies on the transitivity in the conversation. The research showed that these three idioms, Spanish, Portuguese and English, despite the differences, they present a uniform behavior regarding their transitivity in the conversation. We intend, by this work, to contribute, in some way, to the comprehension of the focused linguistic phenomenon, likewise to build a finer scenario around of the transitivity in the Brasilian Portuguese