A teoria de gêneros na formação inicial de professores de língua inglesa: investigando contribuições para o desenvolvimento do conhecimento docente

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the effects of using the swalesian genre analysis theory in the process of teacher education. The participants are pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language, who are in the third-year of their undergraduate course in Languages and Literature. The theoretical frameworks of this research combine the theory and pedagogy of genres and the theory of teacher education, the latter in light of the teacher cognition studies. The investigation can be classified as essentially qualitative, with an interpretive and ethnographic perspective. The data analysis process reveals that the use of the genre theory in language teacher education can be considered an adequate instrument for both, a better understanding of the text, ultimately promoting a better understanding of the situated use of the target language by student-teachers, as well as an exercise of methodological choices and implementation of education. These aspects, together, converged on an improvement of teacher knowledge. In this sense, this study contributes to the affirmation of the genre theory in English language teacher education by providing both, subsidy and varied perspectives to the process.