Experiências de ensinar inglês para crianças na escola pública: olhares e percepções sobre a prática do professor

Abstract

Considering the insertion of English Language (EL) in Elementary Education (EE) of public schools in the countryside of São Paulo State, our aim in this research, is to find out how the classes in this context have been featured, what are the main challenges encountered and how teachers have dealt with these challenges in order to overcome them. It is a qualitative study with an ethnographic nature, carried out with three EL teachers, from different schools, who teach at Elementary School in public context. To develop this investigation, we observed the classes in the third grade of Elementary School. In order to develop the investigation, different tools have been used: questionnaires, interviews, recordings of audio classes and researcher's diary. Data analysis was based on content analysis (BARDIN, 1977), for the creation of categories and, on methodological triangulation (COHEN, MANION, 1981) used to assure reliability to the research. Thus, we intended to understand how EL classes for children are, observing: (i) how teachers are oriented to develop teaching practice; (ii) what the nature of the activities carried out by teachers in the classroom with children is; and (iii) how teachers deal with the specificities and possible difficulties of teaching EL in a child context. Therefore, the theoretical framework guiding this research presents the historical path of the implementation of teaching English as a foreign language for children in the Brazilian context (COLOMBO, CONSOLO, 2016; ASSIS, 2018; ROCHA, 2006), as well as discussing the child as a language learner (CAMERON, 2001; CRISTOVÃO, GAMERO, 2009; LIMA, 2010), in addition to highlighting the role of the teacher in this case (SEGANFREDO e BENEDETTI, 2009; SANTOS, 2009; LIMA 2019). The results showed that the teachers' sayings, albeit in an implicit way, dialogue with the theoretical foundations discussed in this work, however, there is a remarkable gap between the saying and the doing in the classroom. We also realized that teachers have difficulty in explaining why they teach the way they teach (ALMEIDA FILHO, 1993).