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.

Crenças e experiências de professores no PIBID de Língua Inglesa : interação e ressignificação?

There are diverse studies about beliefs in Applied Linguistics since 1970 or so (BARCELOS, 2004), especially beliefs about teaching and learning Foreign Languages. The research about beliefs and experiences of English language teachers, who take part in a program of teaching incentive (Pibid), and, therefore, are immersed in public schools for elementary education, is relevant, once the (ac)knowledgment of these beliefs related to their teaching and learning experiences allows these teachers to reflect about the aspects that involve their teaching practice and their role as teachers of English language. The present work aims to investigate the interaction of beliefs and experiences related to foreign language teaching and learning of teachers who are participants of Pibid, in the subproject of English Language at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), in 2013. The objective is to identify the beliefs and experiences about teaching and learning that the pre-service teachers (PI), the coordinator teacher (PF) and the supervisor teachers (PS) of the program show and how their beliefs and experiences influence each other and can or cannot be redefined. This is a qualitative and interpretative master’s research, in which I analized one narrative of each PI, one interview of PF and another of each PS, and, also, two meetings – the first between the PF and the PIs, and the second between all the participants in the subproject. All the data was collected at the end of their participation in Pibid, approximately one year and six months later. Therefore, I raised some beliefs and experiences about English language teaching and learning present in the teachers’ discourse and analized excerpts in their speech that evidenced the interaction with other participants and its influence to the formation, confirmation, demystification and redefinition of their beliefs. The results of this analysis bring elements that may help the constant reflection of university teachers, teachers in practice and pre-service teachers about the aspects that involve the teaching experiences in public schools.

O conceito de motivação em dizeres de professores de língua inglesa

This work aimed at analyzing the speeches constructed about motivation by English teachers who teach at public state schools in the interior of Minas Gerais. We aimed at delineating the concept of subject underlying the subjects’ notion of motivation and identifying the role that the English teacher attributes to himself and to the student when he/she enunciates on motivational issues, problematizing the possible consequences of these issues for some English teachers while working in public schools. In order to do so, our investigation made use of theoretical assumptions from Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis. The theoretical fundamentation deriving from Bakhtin Circle as well as from Michel Pecheux’s theoretical basis were also very relevant for this research. The intersection of these studying fields entails a theoretical construction that considers the voices of those who live the social practice (MOITA LOPES, 2006), which allows one to see the subjects through their heterogeneity, fluidity and fragmentation. Moreover, it generates knowledge about language in its political, ideological, social and historical aspects. AREDA (SERRANI, 1998) was used as a theoretical and methodological framework for data collection. In our analysis, we considered the voices and the conditions of production that constitute 5 English teachers and, from some selected speeches extracted from their discursive production, some notions as intra and interdiscourse, discursive resonance, discursive memory, among others, can be seen interwoven. We hypothesize that the production of meaning deriving from these English teachers comes from a cleavage between the interdiscursivity about motivation and their position in relation to the English language. Some of these teachers’ discursive inscriptions were delineated as they follow: i) the silenced motivation, in which the teachers come up with several voices, repeating what that has already been said about motivation through silence by excess; also, through an inscription in a process of anomy, the English teachers silence motivation, as they come up with other sayings, in an anomic order, denying their identification with their mother tongue and culture because of a desire to learn the foreign language and culture; ii) the motivation in/from/ by others that resounds, in the way the teachers speak, a relation of alterity on what, in/from desire of other relations (colleagues, students, teaching materials, media, etc.), other forms and alternatives are established as a guarantee of students’ motivation; the teachers are also inscripted in in-service practice training as a space of educational development, because they imagine that the experience of the in-service practice alone, which excludes the educational instruction from the Languages course in which they graduated/were graduating at, taught them how to motivate the students; iii) the motivation as a will of power/knowledge, which means there seems to be teachers’ inscription in the relationship between power and knowledge (Foucault, 1996), disconsidering the conflicts that constitute the English classroom to say that there is a control of the English teaching and learning process and, as a result, they also sustain that they hold control over how to motivate; furthermore, the presence of a resonant voice, whose effect is given by an inscription on the (illusion of) completeness can be seen, because the English teachers believe that while motivating their students, this motivation will provide them with all the missing elements, which would mean that when they motivate students, they would be able to fulfill all the gaps in their learning process.

Una plataforma móvil para la enseñanza de la literatura inglesa

Actualmente vivimos en una época de cambios en la que podemos ver como las tecnologías están presentes en todos lo ámbitos de nuestra vida y cada día avanzan más rápido. Es por eso que el objetivo principal de este trabajo de fin de grado es una propuesta para la innovación educativa, en colaboración con la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, de actualizar la educación a los tiempos que corren, de utilizar las tecnologías que tenemos a nuestra disposición para facilitar tanto a profesores como a alumnos la labor de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Este proyecto es de nueva creación y se propone la creación de una plataforma móvil que incorpore información creada por los propios alumnos, para que puedan, estudiar o repasar contenidos vistos en clase directamente en sus propios móviles. Para ello se van a utilizar herramientas de desarrollo de aplicaciones móviles, en nuestro caso Android Studio. Como propósito se encuentra el crear una aplicación que sea funcional en la mayoría de los dispositivos actuales, y que por lo tanto no requiera de unas altas especificaciones para su correcto funcionamiento, ni tenga requerimientos excesivos de memoria y batería. También se ha diseñado una plataforma web a través del cual los usuario incluyan su propia información. Se propone estudiar también como los alumnos aceptan este tipo de propuesta.

Bibliografía comentada desde la perspectiva de la evaluación de los modelos Uno a Uno en Latinoamérica

El presente trabajo es producto del proyecto de investigación "Reflexiones críticas acerca de las estrategias de evaluación de modelos de inclusión y alfabetización digital Uno a Uno en familias de sectores populares en la región. Los casos de Argentina, México y Uruguay", inscripto dentro del programa Hacia un Consenso del Sur financiado por la Subsecretaría de Políticas Universitarias del Ministerio de Educación de la Nación Argentina. El proyecto cuenta con la participación del Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, perteneciente a la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata; el Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (Conicet), como institución sede; y el Departamento de Educación y Comunicación de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (uam) de México, y la Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica (csic) de la Universidad de la República de Uruguay (Udelar) como instituciones colaboradoras. ;El propósito de dicha investigación consiste en apuntalar la formación de una red latinoamericana para la elaboración de propuestas teóricas que promuevan una perspectiva comparativa de las distintas experiencias sobre políticas públicas de inclusión digital basadas en modelos Uno a Uno en la región. Para lo cual se plantea como objetivos generales: a) reflexionar críticamente acerca de los resultados y posibilidades que aportan diversos enfoques teóricos-metodológicos para la comprensión del alcance y apropiación de las herramientas digitales en familias y localidades de menores recursos beneficiarias de dichos modelos en la región; b) construir un marco teórico-metodológico para realizar evaluaciones cualitativas más comprensivas, que fundamente la necesidad de explorar las experiencias de apropiación de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (tic) en las familias de menores recursos recuperando la perspectiva del actor en la definición de sus propias realidades y necesidades, situadas dentro de ciertas condiciones socioculturales

Bibliografía comentada desde la perspectiva de la evaluación de los modelos Uno a Uno en Latinoamérica

El presente trabajo es producto del proyecto de investigación "Reflexiones críticas acerca de las estrategias de evaluación de modelos de inclusión y alfabetización digital Uno a Uno en familias de sectores populares en la región. Los casos de Argentina, México y Uruguay", inscripto dentro del programa Hacia un Consenso del Sur financiado por la Subsecretaría de Políticas Universitarias del Ministerio de Educación de la Nación Argentina. El proyecto cuenta con la participación del Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, perteneciente a la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata; el Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (Conicet), como institución sede; y el Departamento de Educación y Comunicación de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (uam) de México, y la Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica (csic) de la Universidad de la República de Uruguay (Udelar) como instituciones colaboradoras. ;El propósito de dicha investigación consiste en apuntalar la formación de una red latinoamericana para la elaboración de propuestas teóricas que promuevan una perspectiva comparativa de las distintas experiencias sobre políticas públicas de inclusión digital basadas en modelos Uno a Uno en la región. Para lo cual se plantea como objetivos generales: a) reflexionar críticamente acerca de los resultados y posibilidades que aportan diversos enfoques teóricos-metodológicos para la comprensión del alcance y apropiación de las herramientas digitales en familias y localidades de menores recursos beneficiarias de dichos modelos en la región; b) construir un marco teórico-metodológico para realizar evaluaciones cualitativas más comprensivas, que fundamente la necesidad de explorar las experiencias de apropiación de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (tic) en las familias de menores recursos recuperando la perspectiva del actor en la definición de sus propias realidades y necesidades, situadas dentro de ciertas condiciones socioculturales