Reflexões de um professor sobre processo ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa em uma escola pública do agreste alagoano

Abstract

From the experiences of an Additional Language teacher, in a scenario in which Brazilian education is marked by debates around neoliberal/banking education, the agenda of the “Escola Livre” movement and attacks on Paulo Freire and the critical education ideal, concerns rose about how neoliberal and neoconservative groups have turned their attention to the English Language (EL), focusing on a traditional vision through methodologies from hegemonic countries, turning language into a commodity, that is, a market good, and disregarding the social, political and cultural particularities inherent to the school environment. In this field, the objective of the dissertation is to analyze the experiences of a teacher who taught English, based on a countercolonial view, in an Elementary Public school in the countryside of Alagoas. To achieve the objective, the following southern questions guided the conduct of the study, such as: What are the meaningful moments in the classes taught by the teacher? What moments signal the confrontation of prejudices and social injustice with a view to promoting critical, reflective citizenship education to research participants? This dissertation focuses on the experiences of a public school in confronting/questioning/problematizing neoliberal education. Social issues such as gender and sexuality, religious intolerance, ageism, racism, and xenophobia, in a sectional way, were addressed in 8th and 9th grade classes in 2022 and 2023. From these themes, a qualitative autoethnographic research was carried out, inserted in the field of Critical Applied Linguistics. The data collection instruments were lesson plans, reflective diaries of the teacher-researcher, questionnaires, and narratives of students about their experiences and their productions, which are justified by the relevance of combining different instruments for qualitative research. The data dialogue theoretically with Volóchinov's (2017[1929]) dialogic vision, with studies on decoloniality and coutercoloniality, the anti-racist agenda, studies on neoliberalism and the perspective of Critical Literacy. The results show that the teacher, together with the students, was able to identify some problems in relation to colonialism and neoliberalism. However, the absence of interrogation and combat movements — essential to foster contexts of change and educate students as transgressive agents of the system — prevented deeper advances. Finally, the results highlight the importance of continuous critical reflection on the part of the additional language teacher throughout his educational practices.