Inglês se aprende na escola pública: reflexões sobre a introdução da língua inglesa no ensino fundamental I à luz dos multiletramentos

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to understand an experience of introduction of English as a school subject with a group of students from Ensino Fundamental I in a public school in the suburbs of Maceió – AL. The research assumed the view of language from Bakhtin/Volochinov ([1929]/2010) who consider it a social phenomenon that can only be materialized in the presence of the other. The study investigated how the interaction processes (VYGOTSKY, 2001;2007) contributed to modify the children’s relation with the English language and how the insertion of the language earlier in the school life of the children involved, besides developing linguist-discursive aspects of the language, could also contribute for their civic education. The theoretical framework of the study was based in researchers of Critical Applied Linguistics (RAJAGOPALAN, 2003;2005;2010), teaching English to children (ROCHA, 2006;2012; TONELLI; RAMOS, 2007; CAMERON, 2001), multiliteracies (ROJO, 2012), critical literacy (MONTE MOR, 2015), among others. Methodologically, this research, which is inserted in the qualitative paradigm, is a case study (LUDKE; ANDRE, 1986). The data collection instruments were lesson plans, class journals, activities produced by the children, as well as interviews and informal talks. The results of the study could identify that the children, by interacting with others, verbalize homogenizing and centralizing speeches. They reproduce power relations that are present in contemporary society. By problematizing and reflecting about these speeches the children had opportunities to understand the world where they live in a better way, being able to transit in a critic and conscious form among the global and local phenomenon of our society nowadays. The results also reveal that, since the English language was made closer to the students’ reality, through the interaction and development of multiliteracies, significant learning arose and this fact produced effects in the ways the children came to understand and act in the context where they live.