A inquietude da alma

Por que sempre perco o raciocínio quando o coração quer falar? E ali estático fico tentando adivinhar seus secretos anseios, tão subjetivos que palavras não ousam a estruturarem-se. E assim, sem acesso à cognição verbal do seu intento vou perambulando em uma infinita busca interna e externa

Observação de aula do ensino da língua inglesa em escola pública

 

A seguinte observação foi realizada no Colégio Estadual Ypiranga localizado no endereço Rua do Sodré, nº 42, Largo 2 de julho no Antigo casarão do poeta Castro Alves. A estrutura do colégio era bem antiga, dispunha de dez salas de aula e outros setores. As salas eram mal localizadas onde o ginásio de esporte ficava bem próximo das mesmas e o barulho impedia uma melhor concentração e comunicação dentro da sala. Na aula de ensino da língua inglesa haviam dezoito alunos da 8º serie do ensino fundamental entre 15 à 18 anos de idade. 

Como os alunos não costumam levar o material didático para a sala, a professora achou razoável responder as tarefas de casa na sala e, como estimulo, ela pontua-os por cada tarefa realizada. A professora é formada em Letras - língua estrangeira em língua inglesa na Universidade Federal da Bahia e já tem vinte anos de estrada. Embora a professora fosse bastante democrática e paciente com os alunos, eles pareciam desmotivados e sem interesse pela disciplina. A docente passava o conteúdo em um modo suficientemente satisfatório, porém a maioria dos alunos não participava e nem tinha uma sintonia empática com o conteúdo apresentado.

Através do quadro-negro revisando o conteúdo já apresentado em outra aula, a educadora reexplicava como usar o “Simple Past Tense”. Aparentemente a escola não dispunha de recursos audiovisuais, desse modo, utilizavam apenas do quadro-negro e de um livro de boa qualidade disponibilizado pelo governo. Foi passada uma tarefa de casa para a próxima aula.

Observa-se que um dos principais problemas que prejudicavam o ensino foi o barulho dos outros estudantes que brincavam na quadra e a falta de motivação e interesse dos alunos em aprender uma língua estrangeira. E mesmo com a escassez de recursos que pudessem motivar os alunos a aprender uma segunda língua, com o pouco que tinha, a professora conseguia passar o conteúdo eficientemente.      

 

 

 

 

Questions

 

1.      What is the function of education?

 

According to David Nunan the function of education is to enable students to learn. Among many others conceptions about the actual function of education David stresses that it is necessary for educators to provide circumstances where students achieve the meaning by themselves, thus arousing autonomy.

 

2.      What is the point of considering that “all cultures have their own concepts of teaching, learning, an education” when planning a class?

 

As Nunan claims that it is indispensable to be sensitive to the students’ culture and backgrounds we should adjust our lessons plans to the leaners’ needs in its four aspects: listening, reading, writing and speaking.  Moreover, every class is diverse and it will demand adaptions of methods and approaches according to the circumstances.

 

3.      What are the main principles of experiential learning?

 

Kolb believes that “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (1984, p. 38). Nunan says that in experimental learning, the learning process is based from the student previous learning experiences.

 

4.      Mention three main differences between behaviorism and experiential learning.

 

The behaviorism learning perspective works only with the transmission of knowledge while in the experiential learning (constructivism) it’s not just passing the information but also enabling students to transform it.  The behaviorism gives the absolute authority to the educator whereas the constructivism comes to believe that it must have a relation between equals where teachers are also learners. In the constructivism, the learners are active in the process; they can participate, integrate and interact in groups or in pairs and they can even contribute and collaborate to the class learning while in the behaviorism the students are just passive receivers and the teacher holds the whole control over the class.

 

5.      Define inductive and deductive learning.

 

The deductive learning is an approach more teacher-centered where the teacher leads the class introducing and explaining concepts and rules for students to absorb and then apply exercises for them to practice. On the other hand, inductive learning is more student-centered, the teacher explains trying to provoke the ability of observation and inference, he asks students to give examples from their daily lives and then he expects for them to infer the rules by themselves.

 

6.       Discuss the shift from the concept of language as a “unified system” to the concept of language as a “system for expressing meanings” and its effects on language teaching.

 

As reported by Nunan (1998), up to 1960s, language was supposed to be just a system of rules and the students should incorporate, absorb and dominate those language’s structures.  In 1970s they appeared with another idea about the language, instead of just a structured syntactic system, they came up with the concept that language is also a system for the expression of meanings.

 

7.      What is learner-centered education?

 

As the name already suggests, learner-centered is more students oriented education; it focuses on the development of the students’ autonomy. Students should be no longer passive on the process, as just a receiver, but they should also participate and integrate on the learning process. Students have their voices and decide which way is better for them to learn. By negotiating with the teacher, learners can decide what subject, how and when to be taught and how to be evaluated.

 

8.      Mention three principles of adult learning that apply to you as a learner.

 

The three principles of adult learning that I most identify myself as a learner are:   1. Adults learn best when they are involved in developing learning objectives for themselves that are congruent with their current and idealized self-concept.

2. Adults do not learn when overstimulated or when experiencing extreme stress or anxiety.

3. Adults learn best when the content is personally relevant to past experience or present concerns and the learning process is relevant to life experiences. 

 

9.      What is the relationship between learner-centeredness and negotiated curricula? How can they be applied?

 

Nunan (1998) claims that “The philosophy of learner-centeredness has been given practical effect in the form of negotiated curricula in which the views of the learner as well as the pedagogical agenda of the teacher are satisfied through a process of give-and-take. In a classroom where the content and process are negotiated, neither learners nor teachers have it all their own way.” 

 

10.  What is task-based language teaching? (TBLT)

 

Task-based learning focuses on the use of authentic language through meaningful tasks such as visiting the doctor or a telephone call.   It is student-centered, it brings pragmatic problems and situations for students to perform and it encourages meaningful communication.

 

11.  What’s the difference between tasks and exercises?

 

In Task-based language teaching, problems and situations about daily outside lives are brought for students to solve in the target language; whereas exercises are just given for students to learn the structured rules system of the language. According to Nunan (1998) “[…] the essential differences between a task and an exercise is that a task has a nonlinguistic outcome, while an exercise has a linguistic outcome.

 

12.  When designing a lesson, why is it important to make the form and function relationships clear?

 

It is important to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes.        

 

13.  What is the “task dependency principle” Do you agree with that?

 

As stated by Nunan (1998), “it is a principle in which each succeeding task is the instructional sequence flows out of, and is dependent on, the one that precedes it. In this way, a series of tasks in a lesson or unit of work  forms a kind of pedagogical ladder, each task representing a rung on the ladder, enabling the learner to reach higher and higher levels of communicative performance.”

 

14.  Define:

A)    Syllabus design:

B)    Methodology:

 

The syllabus design is the subject and content that is going to be taught. It is the outcome of the organization of the topical contents. A methodology for syllabus design is the guideline that is referenced to develop the logic of the order and context of the content included in the syllabus.

 

História e análise de uma situação na sala de aula

História

 

Um menino, com a idade de 10 anos, estava repetindo pela terceira vez a quarta serie do ensino fundamental porque não gostava de algumas colegas e da professora, que era a mesma durante os anos que ele repetiu. A origem do conflito era um suposto ciúme que este aluno sentia em relação à professora por a professora supostamente defender e dar mais atenção a essas alunas do que a ele. Da parte das alunas havia certo preconceito com ele, o que fazia com que elas o isolassem.

Esse menino sofria pressão psicológica dentro de casa, por parte da mãe que prometia castigos e punições caso não estudasse e não fosse aprovado. O comportamento desse menino era violento no ambiente escolar, procurando se isolar desse ambiente e de tudo o que se relacionasse ao mesmo. Sua reação violenta com agressão física para as colegas e verbal para a professora, se restringia àquela aula, professora e colegas e às vezes em casa quando era obrigado a estudar.

A postura dessa professora na aula era democrática e tentava resolver a situação, mas não conseguia e não encontrava mais saídas.

OBS: O menino tinha três professoras, porém essa conduta era manifestada somente para uma dessas. A escola não tinha psicólogo, nem conselheiro.

Segundo a professora o aluno se fechava a qualquer tipo de tentativa para resolver o problema. Reagia com hostilidade às provocações das colegas e com a própria professora, como também as colegas reagiam em relação a ele. A professora simplesmente já não sabia mais como se aproximar a fim de entender e resolver a questão.  

Para as colegas de classe ele era um menino mal-educado e desajeitado, elas meramente não o suportavam e declaravam a todos com suas próprias palavras.

De acordo com o menino a professora dava mais atenção às alunas do que a ele. Ele não gostava das meninas porque eram “nojentas”, “tiravam muita onda”, “não sabiam nada”, “ninguém gostava delas”, “puxavam o saco da professora a qual sempre as protegiam”, “estou certo e ponto final”.

A sua mãe unicamente achava a professora ótima, a escola de boa qualidade e o menino era quem “procurava frescuras!”. Durante o ano, ela recebia vários bilhetes de convocação a escola a fim de resolver problemas devido ao comportamento hostil do seu filho.

 

Análise

 

 

Ainda que a aparente conduta da professora seja democrática, não se deixou claro os reais sentimentos por traz das motivações que a professora tinha ao dado aluno-problema. O nível de afetividade da relação entre a respectiva professora-aluno parece bloqueado por um preconceito que não se sabe de fato por qual das partes se originou. Todos apresentaram suas versões, mas sem concluir a origem real do problema. Teria realmente a professora demonstrado um “prediletismo” pelas meninas supostamente mais aplicadas? Se sim, seria isso um motivo razoável para o aluno cultivar tal comportamento? O que se observa é um aluno-problema que justifica seu comportamento inapropriado como sendo a professora a mantenedora do seu sentimento de rejeição, já que ele não reage da mesma forma com outras professoras. A principio, acredita-se que tudo começou a partir de sua implicância não resolvida com duas colegas de classe e, portanto vindo a ser colocado na posição de rejeitado pelo grupo e igualmente pela professora. Embora a professora sustente que o aluno criou um problema e não se permitia diálogos para corrigir a situação, não dá pra saber como é a relação e a afetividade entre eles e se o nível de compreensão e psicologia usada por ela seria o bastante para encontrar efetivamente o problema e resolvê-lo.

Naquele contexto acredita-se que a função do professor é somente ensinar deixando questões problemáticas de cunho psicológico para outro profissional e como a escola não se dispunha de profissionais dessa área, o problema caia todo em cima dos educadores. O aluno reage de suposta vitima a agressor, se sente injustiçado e rejeitado pelo grupo e nem tem consciência da causa da rejeição, já que em outros contextos ele tende a agir normalmente. Em um tom de preconceito, as suas colegas lhe designavam como um garoto sem educação, pois não tinha respeito com elas e se alterava até com a professora. Acredito que é um problema entre eles (os três alunos) que chegou a tomar proporções na sua vida estudantil. A professora parece interessada em resolver, porém encontra-se limitada ao dever de ensinar e não de trabalhar as questões emocionais e de relações interpessoais.

É necessário que a educadora em questão também reflita sobre até que ponto ela possa estar suscitando esse sentimento de rejeição que o aluno vem sofrendo e como ela deve trabalhar para evitar que esses sentimentos negativos venham a surgir na sala de aula. Seria ideal que a professora dialogasse pessoalmente com o garoto e as outras meninas para que eles possam vir a se entender, ou ao menos aprenderem a não trazerem suas questões pessoais para dentro da aula, pois isso tem repercutido negativamente no fluir da aula. A professora também deve desenvolver uma relação mais aberta e autentica com cada aluno deixando claro e demonstrando através de suas atitudes que ela não tem favoritismos e que ela está disponível a ajudar a todos eles.                                 

Standard English

“To teach Standard English or world Englishes? A balanced approach to instruction” is an article that argues about the supposed Standard English students search to learn. It discusses about many English’s languages that we have around the world trying to find a consensus about if there is a single Standard English for teachers of English as a second language to teach. As English has become a “global language” it is used for business, science and politics and readers think of Standard English as just the one used in United States of America or the one spoken in Great Britain.

They disregard other English such as the English spoken in Africa, Asia, The West Indies, The Philippines and Singapore. Standard English is not easy to be essentially defined, since what is Standard English for a Canadian differs from what an iris person would conceive it,   nevertheless, McArthur (2003, 442) defends that Standard English has three main features: “1) It is easiest to recognize in print because written conventions are similar world-wide. 2) It is usually used by news presenters. 3) Its usage relates to the speaker’s social class and education”.        

English teachers constantly face this pressure to teach an English Standard to their students, and for that reason they´ve been searching for any information that would clarify about the proper Standard English for them to teach, but what they find is more confusion. This urge to learn a Standard English can bring negative effects as: Standard English is difficult for leaners of a second language to speak because they would never be able to speak exactly the way of a native speaker. As there are other varieties of English around the world, claiming a single Standard English would also devalue others as if they were inferior. For instance, the English from Singapore differs not just with the intonation but also with some grammatical features and lexical items, e.g. “The absence of past tense marking, such as: what happen yesterday?” “The absence of possessive inflections: My mummy friend” “Use of particles: Hurry up lah!” “Use of borrowings: Don´t be so kiasu.”, “Inversion for questions with be: You don´t want to go is it?”,  “Inversion for questions with can: Like that can or not?” 

Among variations of English language some may say that those varieties can be even unintelligible to one another. Is it enough to consider them as an inferior language? It would bring also discrimination and racism against people who do not belong to American or British English Standard, which would create impasses for them to conquer a job, for example.        

 

World Englishes

 

According to Kachru (1985) English language can be divided into three concentric circles: the inner circle, the outer circle and the expanding circle.

The inner circle is composed by the most traditional bases of English and the most influential countries such as: The United Kingdom, The United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The outer circle is formed by nations that suffered long periods of colonization, they were colonized by some of the inner circle countries and they are: Nigeria, Singapore and India.

The expanding circle is made by countries that use English language mainly for business and international purposes and they had not suffered from colonization as the outer circle. They include: China, Greece, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Kachru (1985, 14) comes up with that English nowadays embraces “a unique cultural pluralism, and a linguistic heterogeneity and diversity.”

Thus, it is important to reflect upon the matter that the target language to teach should belong just to the inner circle, for language represents the expression of cultural identity and by selecting some we would be discriminating other people uniqueness.

 

As the Standard English as a second language teaching is already chosen by the government of a given country it is then fundamental that teachers explain the existence of all those English varieties around the world explaining why the government has selected the inner circle English to be taught and also consider a balanced approach to teach English. Such approaches can be comprised with three key considerations:

1.      Teachers need to carefully consider their teaching context (McKay, 2002).

2.      After choosing their target of instruction based on that context, teachers should value their learner’s current English usage (El-Sayed 1991).

3.      Teachers need to prepare learners for future international English encounters by exposing them to other varieties of English (Matsuda 2003) and by teaching them strategic competence when interacting with speakers who speak other variety of English.         

 

Teachers should raise awareness to students that there’s no a wrong spoken English but rather explain to them that there are many varieties that are as important as the inner circle English. Educators also have to help students accept and value their own way of speaking as also to accept and value other classmates’ different way to speak. The rule of the teacher is to show the proper speech students need to develop in order to communicate and make them conscious and accept the linguistic differences of the English around the world. Teacher should also prepare them to interact with different world’s Englishes. And when the teacher exposes them to different varieties of English, “teacher should focus on teaching both strategic and intercultural competence skills which will help learners be able to “adjust their speech in order to be intelligible to interlocutors from a wide range of backgrounds, most of whom are not inner circle native speakers.” (Jenkins 2006, 174)       

 

 

 

 

 

    

Freedom writers and National Curriculum Parameters

In the movie “Freedom writers” there’s the protagonist as well as the teacher, Erin Gruwell, who will start her teaching career with a class of school troubled teens. They were problematic because they had been already in prison and they were in school solely for the reason that they did not want to get back to the reformatory. The group was made by youths of different origins (Easterners, Latinos, Mestizos, Blacks and a white), they were all suffering from intolerance and resisting to interact; they preferred to isolate themselves in ghettos inside the room.  The new teacher was seen by most as a representative of the white dominion of the United States which they feared and resented. Students saw her as the responsible for making them subjected to the white’s values domination perpetrating in the school.

Her initiatives to break down those interaction barriers in the class were failing one by one. Even though she had no support from the school administrators and from other teachers, she believed she could overcome the social and ethnic differences that surrounded them.  Thus, she created a project of reading and writing, she started with the book “The diary of Anne Frank” in which learners could register in personalized notebooks whatever they wanted to say about their lives, feelings, emotions, ideas and impressions about the world, relationships, etc. 

By creating this link of touch with the world, Gruwell furnished to her pupils a real element of communication which allowed to set them free from their fears, prejudices, traumas, afflictions, anxieties and insecurities. Then the teacher became a facilitator for the learning, since she was no longer just the transmitter of knowledge but rather she helped students to learn how to live as individuals in the process of constant transformation. From Anne Frank example, which was a German Jewish girl, white like their teacher, and who was persecuted by the Nazi till she lost her life during the World Second War, Gruwell showed to them that prejudices and exclusion situation can happen to anyone independently from skin color, ethnic origin, religion or social class. Thus, the teacher Gruwell created an empathy with the students, for she was authentic and showed she was interested in helping them.

According to National Curriculum Parameters the education should be taken to all social contexts and should be accessed to everyone no matter the social problems and limits. Education is a duty to every citizens and it has to break all the frontiers achieving the maximum parts of the world as possible. Its focus should be in how to make students learn to learn and in how to make them develop autonomy and transform the knowledge. It is more concerned with students needs and reality, so it is necessary to stimulate students capacity of reflecting about their identity among society and to make them find and construct meaning through their lives inserted in a social structure.

National Curriculum Parameters thinks education as a tool of social transformation for students and to prepare them not just for academic and professional aspects but also prepare them for their lives and enable them to be fulfilled as human beings. Then, it is characterized by this holistic point of view about humanity and it works with this revolutionary thought about changing the way people think of education. They understand and tries to cover all human needs to become better and aware of their position in the world. It worries about creating autonomous people who is able to think, reflect, feel, act and transform for better their surroundings.  

National Curriculum Parameters is concerned with the need to involve students in the social life, as it creates circumstances in which students are prepared to learn how to find their places in the communities. And as the language is the first instrument in which they start interacting with the world, it is also the first device that should be properly developed and improved through the education. Thus, the language is used for them to construct meaning through social interactions which is going to define them as people. “Communication is taken herein as the process of constructing meaning in which the acting subject interacts socially and uses language as a tool that defines him/her as a person among persons. Language taken to mean the human ability to construct and “deconstruct” social meanings.”  

The teacher, Erin Gruwell from the movie “Freedom writers” showed very elegantly many of those National Curriculum Parameters concerns, for she was skillfully able to apply those intricate needs in a very problematic situation. Even though it seemed so difficult to handle at the beginning, the teacher did not give up and she found a way to break down those barriers that prevented her interaction with the students. As mentioned before, with lots of efforts she finally convinced the students she was there to help them. So she could be designated as the ideal teacher in the National Curriculum Parameters’ vision, for through her attempts she could engage students and call their attention by working on their realities and making them see they were capable to become better as humans no matter how hard and misery their lives were. She was a very sensitive educator who could sense the students’ needs and she was able to struggle to find solutions to change that precarious situation.

As National Curriculum Parameters claims, she used the language as a tool to achieve students’ reality and then she managed to raise awareness about life itself and to open students’ eyes about how difficult and threatening life is in general. Besides overcoming their social, emotional and communications barriers, she was able to transform student’s perspective about the world. She could finally get closer to them through their personal problems using written communication where they felt comfortable to tell all about their problems, which made the teacher more conscious about who she was dealing with. And then, she could contextualize and make them feel part of the world. She showed that not only them but everyone is passible of being victim of prejudice in this world; so using the language she could construct and deconstruct meanings about how reality presents itself. With all her patient work, she could bring meaning to their lives and transform it for better making them feel part of humanity which is what NCP disseminate for education to be.                   

 

Análise pedagógica do filme "Pro dia nascer feliz"

 

A partir do filme “Pro dia nascer feliz” no qual foram demonstradas diversas realidades de locais, regiões e estados do nosso país, pode-se observar a diversidade e desigualdade existente na educação brasileira das mais variadas instituições, o que é um reflexo do contexto sociocultural tão desigual e dispare do Brasil. Pode-se perceber que as didáticas utilizadas dependerão praticamente dos níveis sociais envolvidos, portanto as classes sociais dominantes serão detentoras de melhores condições da prática de ensino. Tendo mais condições, infraestruturas, qualidade, acessos e maior abrangência ao conhecimento, a pedagogia das escolas particulares de classes altas empenham-se em direcionar os estudantes oferecendo-lhes ferramentas e alicerces indispensáveis para incitar seres ativos, críticos e pensantes na construção da sua autonomia preparando-lhes para ingressar num contexto social de altas oportunidades. Desse modo apropriam-se das ideias do construtivismo onde a relação professor-aluno é de colaboração; o docente é o mediador e o aprendiz assimila, desenvolve, modifica e atua sobre o objeto de aprendizagem, não se deixando apenas passivos aos conteúdos, como assim emprega a pedagogia tradicional que é mais vista em escolas consideradas de inferiores oportunidades.  

Foram posta às amostras realidades assustadoras do ensino público brasileiro, onde não somente a inacessibilidade de condições suficientes é evidenciada, mas o cruel nível de opressão, negligência, descaso, desrespeito, violência até o mais abominável homicídio. Em algumas instituições públicas de Pernambuco a relação professor-aluno mantém-se num autoritarismo arcaico de opressão, dando mínimas ou nulas chances para o aluno crescer, podando-lhes seus inatos talentos, desmerecendo-lhes de tais aptidões. Em outras instituições, o educador é o alvo do desrespeito e desvalorização, mesmo tendo intenções de construir conhecimentos. Observa-se diversas tendências pedagógicas e relações educativas variando desde o autoritarismo absoluto à relação de construção ideal para a aprendizagem.