Letramentos críticos na formação inicial de professores de inglês como língua estrangeira

Abstract

This study analyzes the effectiveness of critical literacies practices mediated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and aims to identify whether they support critical and civic education in the context of teaching English in a public higher education institution in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. To this end, a pedagogical literacies project entitled Constructing Meaning in Digital Environments was conducted during a semester-long course "Interdisciplinary Practice of Reading in the English Language" with students from the Portuguese and English Literature and Language degree program (referred to hereinafter as "Letras"). The Letras degree program, where teacher training takes place, prepares students to be professors who teach children in primary and secondary schools, and needs to stay up-to-date with the constantly changing base of knowledge, information, and epistemologies in the field. The degree program must also prepare its students to be language professionals capable of dealing with different social contexts through critical lenses, especially in the face of challenges that present themselves through different economic, social, cultural, political and technological domains. This dissertation is based on research carried out using a social constructivist paradigm, with an interpretative and qualitative approach. Ethnographic methods with methodological theoretical support to action research were utilized. The corpus was established through two stages: the first stage deals with the literacies project's characterization and discussion and consists of only one phase, while the second stage consists of three phases. The first phase refers to a comment regarding the theme of globalization and refugee migration based on a documentary; the second phase addresses the discussion via an online virtual forum concerning English as a hegemonic language; the third phase consists of a questionnaire. The data analyzes were based on the critical discourse analysis of Fairclough (2016) and ethnographic-discursive perspectives Magalhães (2006) and Resende (2009), who favor textual and discursive analysis focusing on intertextuality and interdiscursivity. To carry out this research, we rely on critical literacy that promotes agency, citizenship formation, and conscious inquiry for the transformation of reality, as well as deal with multimodality and civic plurality as defended by Freire (1987, 2005, 2007); Gee (2015, 2017); Giroux (1997); Janks (2016); Kalantzis et al. (2016); Lankshear e Knobel (2010); Luke (2018); Menenzes de Souza (2011); Street (2014). The data indicate that dealing with the critical digital literacies associated with transversality is one of the ways to promote changes in the way of understanding and teaching LI. The students constructed their understandings in hybrid environments, became active and innovative designers with the creation of interactive posters on the platform Glogster, mobilized different knowledge, speeches, and literacies, and used digital resources to interact. In this sense, the English language course also supports critical education, which is part of the daily routine of teachers-in-training, as it favors digital literacy. The work with digital critical literacies is most effective when it is approached through different theoretical lenses and perspectives, with a transdisciplinary approach that focuses on discursive genres and post-structuralism that brings up the problematization and agency of students and the multiliteracies that favor criticism and digital literacy.