"SHE WAS ALWAYS BY OUR SIDE": PERCEPTIONS OF INCLUSION BY VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASSES

ABSTRACT: Educational policies in Brazil, in the past few years, have recommended the inclusion of visually impaired students in mainstream schools. Considering Vygotsky’s (2000;2008) cultural historical theory of learning and development; Maturana’s (2002) and Tomasello’s (2003) studies on social cognition, this article aims at analyzing the way two students conceive the process of inclusion in an English language classroom. An interview with the students made it possible to observe the positive impact that didactic strategies and the teacher´s attitudes had on the way these students faced learning and the foreign language. KEY WORDS: foreign language learning – blind students - affectivity

REFLEXÕES SOBRE O ENSINO DE LÍNGUAS ESTRANGEIRAS NA INFÂNCIA

Com base em estudos que mostram a capacidade biológica do ser humano de aprender línguas e na teoria de aquisição desenvolvida por Krashen (1982), este trabalho pretende mostrar a necessidade de as escolas se preocuparem com o ensino da língua estrangeira desde as séries iniciais. Nesta discussão, serão abordadas as vantagens e as responsabilidades da inserção do idioma estrangeiro na educação de crianças nessa faixa etária. Objetiva-se, também, com este estudo, mostrar que a linguagem é a principal ferramenta de relacionamento humano e que qualquer pessoa pode desenvolver proficiência em línguas estrangeiras, porém, umas com mais facilidade e perfeição, e outras, com mais tempo de estudo e com possibilidade de apresentar desvios, principalmente na pronúncia.

THE PRACTICE OF ORAL PRODUCTION CONCERNING THE CONTINUING EDUCATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY

The scope of the present study is to comprehend the professional identity of a group of English Teachers. The research sought the answer to the following question: How does the mastery of the speaking aspect of the English Language influence teacher’s professional identity? The choice of the topic arose during a continuing education course offered by the authors of the present work, whose partakers were EFL teachers. The research took into consideration both, experiences observed during the continuing education course and relevant data collected with the help of an open questionnaire, which participants answered at the end of the course. Contemporary literature also supported the conclusions concerning teacher’s professional identity and its close relation to two important factors: the way teachers perceive themselves and how others see them. Regarding the English Language Teacher professional identity, the participants of the research stated that professionals from this area are not as valued as they should; in their opinion, the lack of oral fluency of most teachers is a key factor on the existence of a professional misrepresentation. Results have shown that, for them, oral fluency is essential for academic and social recognition of their profession. All participants stressed the need of continuing education in terms of oral practice, due to the lack of opportunity of practicing the English Language daily. They also pointed that teachers with limited-fluency tend to avoid the use of the target language in order to “hide their deficit” on EL; on the other hand, teachers that are fluent in English “feel safer and with self-steam”. We have concluded, from our research, that the oral fluency is indeed important for the constitution of English Language teacher’s professional identity, exerting a positive influence on it. On the other hand, the fact of not being fluent in English Language contributes for the so called “teacher’s professional identity crisis”. 

A ABORDAGEM COMUNICATIVA: TEORIA E AÇÃO

O presente artigo faz uma revisão de renomados autores que discutem as características da Abordagem Comunicativa no Ensino de Língua Estrangeira e analisa depoimentos de alguns professores de Língua Inglesa da Rede Pública de Ensino, através dos quais buscou-se verificar como eles descrevem teoricamente essa abordagem de ensino e como a praticam, na tentativa de aferir se a teoria tem sido construída na prática para desenvolver um trabalho comunicativo em sala de aula.

PROPOSTA DE UNIDADE TEMÁTICA PARA O ENSINO DE INGLÊS EM AMBIENTE DIGITAL

Based on a sociocultural perspective (LANTOLF, 2000; 2010), the present article aims at presenting a thematic unit especially designed for an advanced leveled English group. This thematic unit has been elaborated in the virtual learning environment  http://pbworks.com , proposing twenty hours of collaborative tasks for the students, and it counted with varied textual genres and diverse digital tools. The objective of this thematic unit is to stimulate the collaboration between the students, focusing on the culture of English speaking countries in relation with crafts, setting up relations with the History of crafts in Brazil and working with the oral and written comprehension and production.  By creating a thematic unit that proposes the study of cultural aspects of other countries, an opportunity for the students to experience the culture of others is created, and for them to notice that culture is not apart from language. Such aspects are noticeable in foreign language classes due to the fact that by dealing with language, individuals also deal with cultural, identitary, and social aspects. Taking into consideration that oral and written comprehension and production are inseparable abilities, the proposed tasks in the thematic unit have been designed considering the students’ context, their necessities, the groups’ interests, and also the three types of knowledge according to Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (1998): systemic, world and genre knowledge, besides the Oxford strategies (1990).

Mapeando Atitudes, (Des) Motivação e Orientação para Aprender Inglês

O presente artigo versa sobre as atitudes de quarenta e dois alunos em relação à aprendizagem da língua inglesa. Para tanto, são delineados fatores que estão intimamente relacionados às atitudes, tais como orientação, motivação, desmotivação, ideologia e resistência. Este trabalho, desenvolvido à luz da linguística aplicada, tem caráter interdisciplinar, e por isso está ancorado nas concepções sobre o tema, encontradas na psicologia social. Os dados apresentados aqui foram obtidos através de uma pesquisa etnográfica sobre atitudes, desenvolvida em duas escolas públicas, na região do Recôncavo Baiano por Anjos (2013). Foram utilizados três instrumentos de geração de dados: um questionário, uma entrevista e observação de aulas. Os resultados apontaram alto grau de atitudes positivas para aprender inglês e de orientação instrumental. Entretanto, alguns estudantes pesquisados sinalizaram atitudes negativas. Os resultados são discutidos na parte final do artigo com a apresentação de dados qualitativos e quantitativos.

Memória, Pós-memória e Formação Crítica de Professores de Línguas

As narrativas e as histórias sobre as experiências dos professores em formação, antes e durante seu trabalho profissional, são comumente utilizadas para entender as identidades dos professores de línguas, por elas estar influenciadas pelas experiências gravadas nas memórias. Porém, o conceito de pós-memória emergiu recentemente e parece não ter sido ainda utilizado na educação dos professores de línguas. Neste artigo, se comentam as possibilidades de utilizar o conceito de pós-memória na educação de professores de línguas, através das narrativas sobre as suas experiências. O propósito é estudar com mais profundidade as influências de eventos históricos traumáticos, como O Regime Militar no Brasil, sobre as identidades dos professores de inglês no Brasil, antes e durante seu trabalho profissional, através das narrativas e histórias sobre as suas experiências. O principal objetivo é analisar as relações e inter-relações entre memória, pós-memória e experiências e as identidades dos professores de inglês, especialmente com relação às experiências influenciadas pelo período militar no Brasil.

CULTURE AND LITERATURE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES LEARNING

This brief article is an introduction to questions as multiculturalism, identity and prejudice, from a specific point of view: a reflection on the importance of didactics in foreign literature and culture, and the role of reading as a meaningful education form in the undergraduating study programs of "Letras Estrangeiras" in Brazil.

Translation as a resource for the teaching of linguistic diversity in foreign language

Translation has played many roles in foreign language teaching. It has been, on the one hand, considered a fundamental methodological tool, constituting the core of the grammar-translation approach, and, on the other hand, heavily criticized and excluded from the classroom, whether from the practical or the theoretical point of view. Currently, with the communicative approach to language teaching, the study of language varieties has become very important to the learner, and considering the need to understand and interpret the meaning of a word within a specific socio-cultural context during the translation process, it is of paramount importance to acknowledge sociolinguistic variations in the text to be translated. Thus, our goal is to show, through a reflective analysis, that translation can be an educational resource for the teaching of linguistic diversity in foreign language. This study isbased on theoretical assumptions on translation dating from the time of Cicero and Saint Jerome to the present times.

PROCESSOS DE LEITURA DO LEITOR PROFICIENTE

Este artigo apresenta os resultados de um estudo realizado comvinte leitores proficientes em leitura na língua materna português) e na língua estrangeira (inglês), especificamente com relação a dois objetivos: identificar os tipos de estratégias mais utilizados pelos sujeitos durante a leitura de um texto não-especializado, e, a partir disso, verificar possíveis correlações entre freqüência de uso de estratégias e nível de compreensão leitora. Adotou-se a técnica dos protocolos verbais para a checagem das estratégias de leitura, e o método de Pearson para a verificação das correlações. Além da semelhança entre as estratégias empregadas na leitura na L1 e na L2, a análise estatística apontou para uma correlação entre a capacidade de resgatar informações textuais e o nível de compreensão leitora, tanto para o contexto da língua materna como para o contexto da língua estrangeira.

BELIEFS ABOUT LEARNING ASSESSMENT: SAYING OF A SPANISH TEACHER OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL

The teachers' beliefs study has been a good resource for further reflection on the teaching practice. Beliefs, defined as constructions of reality, arise from the livings and experiences of teacher and encompass professional, personal, emotional and ideological aspects and influence on the practices in the classroom. Elucidating the teacher beliefs is a way of revealing what they think, how they feel and what are the limitations of these professionals. For this reason, considering the amount of value on the belief on the teacher's action and the importance (not always considered) of the evaluation of learning in the process of teaching, learning and evaluating, this work aims to present the beliefs about learning assessment of a Spanish teacher as a foreign language in a public school of Rio Grande do Sul. The results indicate that the beliefs of the teacher correspond to the contemporary theories of learning assessment and the guideline of the official documents for teaching languages.

THE POLICY LANGUAGE OF THE PROJECT INTERCULTURAL BILINGUAL SCHOOLS OF BORDER OF THE MERCOSUR: SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR THE BORDER AREAS

The present work belongs to the Sociolinguistics area, specifically to the Linguistic Politics research line, and it aims to infer from the analyses of official documents the MERCOSUL linguistic politics to its region and to its frontiers answering the question “which linguistic politics motivates the implementation of the Frontier’s Intercultural Bilingual Schools Project?” It is unveiled, then, different linguistic politics that request different teaching strategies, involving or a foreign language teaching (in the large scope of Mercosul) or a second language teaching (in the restricted scope of MERCOSUL’s frontiers). By analyzing the Brazil-Argentina Bilateral Meeting Reports of the Frontier’s Intercultural Bilingual Schools Project (PEIBF) and the sociolinguistic diagnostics done by the teams of the two countries in theirs respective cities, it is shown how the lack of a larger systematization of the differences between the Mercosul linguistic politics can be characterized as a hindrance to the development of PEIBF, once some of the proposals made by the argentine team responsible for the PEIBF seems to go at the meeting of the foreign language teaching and not at the meeting of the second language teaching.

EXTRALINGUISTIC FACTORS IN THE USE OF THE ARGENTINE VOSEO: A DIDACTIC PROPOSAL FROM THE TRANSLATION OF COMICS

Regarding the process of translation, the analysis of intra and extratextual factors allows the translator to identify which aspects of the source text will have to be, or will not have to be, adapted at the translation to the culture of the target text (NORD, 2012). This fact allows a connection between Sociolinguistics and Translation Studies, which has already been pointed out by Mayoral (1998), Bolaños-Cuéllar (2000), among others. Therefore, this paper seeks to elaborate an activity project making use of translation, in a functional and pedagogical perspective, with the purpose of raising awareness and the teaching of extralinguistical factors in the usage of the Argentinian voseo and brazilian learners of Spanish at high school. To do so, starting from a theoretical discussion regarding the use of translation in foreign language classes and the connection between translating activity and the knowledge of linguistic variation, we elaborate a didactic sequence involving the translation of Argentinian comic strips to Brazilian Portuguese. In this didactic sequence, we elaborate an analysis script for the comic strips based on a pre-translation model proposed by Nord (2012), which may contribute with the design of didactic proposals in this theoretical path.

PROGRAM MONITORING IN THE PROCESS OF TEACHING/LEARNING SPANISH LANGUAGE FOR STUDENTS OF TOURISM

This article is about the lived experience in the Monitoring Programme of the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), during the discipline of Spanish Language Applied to Tourism, of the Tourism Course, in Parnaíba/PI. The study aims at getting to introduce students, teachers and researchers the importance of this academic practice, as well as to characterize the relevance of the teaching/learning of foreign language (FL), more specifically the Spanish as foreign language (ELE), for tourism activity and career of tourism professional. The methodology adopted was a bibliographical, documentary and field research with qualitative and quantitative approach. Thus, it can be state that the monitoring encourages the students to teach, associated with teaching activities, research and extension activities, and it contributes to the development of their intellectual, academic and professional abilities. Furthermore, subjects perceive the relevance of foreign language teaching in the classroom, including the teaching of SFL for the efficient development of their works in relation to tourism.

THE DICTIONARISTIC TRADITION IN ITALY AND THE TREATMENT OF LOANS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

The present essays shows that the Italian dictionaristic tradition started with the publishing of the first monolingual dictionary, edited by the Accademia della Crusca, in 1612, whose participants used to defend the purity of the Florentine language. The selection of vocabulary for this first dictionary has reflected the thought of an intellectual elite. In fact, this first edition does not display a single word from Portuguese, despite the frequent commercial and cultural contact that existed between the Portuguese people and several Italian states and republics.