Os materiais didáticos de inglês como língua estrangeira (LE) na prática de professores da escola pública : um convite à formação reflexiva ou à perpetuação do ensino prescritivo?

Abstract

This study investigates the pedagogical practices of four EFL public school teachers, when these professionals make use of teaching materials in their classrooms. In their own voices and guided by their own experiences, these teachers were asked to characterize and report how they handle materials while teaching their students. The roles represented by these materials according to the observed practices were also discussed and analyzed in this dissertation, and distilled into metaphors. In order to better understand the relationship between teachers’ practices and teaching materials, the researcher made use of stimulated recall sessions and a reflective interview. These tools were crucial to this research, as they gave the teachers the opportunity to revisit pedagogical practices. This study is ethnographic-based within a qualitative-interpretive paradigm. According to the data presented in this dissertation, we can infer that stimulated recall sessions and a reflective interview were invaluable resources for this research, as both of them contributed to the reflection process, helping teachers to (re)think their own practices and the roles they have in the classroom as professionals. This dissertation also tries to knit together studies related to teacher preparation and teaching materials, as this combination still remains a gap in the teacher education area. Another gap, which this dissertation attempts to address, is the lack of studies that have given voice to teachers, in order to understand their own perspectives on teaching materials. For future research, we would like to deepen and better investigate and undertake studies which focus is on the combination of teacher preparation and teaching materials (conceptualizations and uses), according to teachers’ and also students’ voices.