THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE GRAMMATICAL GENDER FOR TEACHERS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL TEACHING: CONCEPTUAL IMPRECISION

The conceptual basis that Primary School teachers have with regard to the gender’s nominal category is investigated. The verbalizations on the theme, collected through interviews with eight teachers of two classes involving 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th grades of a government school in Maringá PR Brazil, are analyzed from studies on gender categories and conceptual comprehension. Results show that, as a rule, the interviewed teachers remain confused and highly insecure when they had to define grammatical gender even though they present the ‘masculine and feminine’ and ‘noun’ category relationship. Further, usage variation of one to three criteria was found in the case of masculine and feminine gender differentiation, or rather, sex, end terms (flexion/ derivation) and article (concordance). Results also show that most teachers know the nomenclature on nominal gender category but fail to justify the relationship and limits that separate the two basic concepts that link the assignment to the theme, or rather, grammatical gender and the sex of things.