A prática pedagógica de uma professora com cartuns no ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa no ensino fundamental

Abstract

This study aims to present an interpretative qualitative research (DENZIN; LINCOLN, 1998) in the light of Sociodiscursive Interactionism (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004, BRONCKART, 2012, CRISTOVÃO, 2012 and followers), of Language Didactics (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004, CRISTOVÃO; STUTZ, 2011 and other scholars), of Visual Design Grammar (KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 2006), and of Critical Literacy and Multiliteracies (BRAIT, 2010, ROJO, 2012). It refers to an action-research (GIMENEZ, 1999) which had as a general objective to investigate a female English language teacher’s pedagogical practice in the work with cartoons in a ninth year of elementary school of a countryside public school in São João, Estado do Paraná/Brazil. The specific aims of this research were: 1) to investigate how cartoons are worked by an English language teacher in a ninth year classroom of elementary school and; 2) to investigate the language capacities that are mobilised by the teacher and students in reading cartoons in a ninth year classroom of elementary school. The subject of this piece of research can be justified because in English language classroom in Brazilian public basic school. It is observed that the focus of teaching is only on the verbal language instead of focusing on both verbal and visual languages. From this observation, an Interdisciplinary Project was carried out in a twelve students class of a ninth year of elementary school, which subject involved art, language and literature in the work of different textual genres. However, to this study, the focus relies on the genre cartoon, as a visual-verbal text. Four out of ten classes of the interdisciplinary project were video and audio recorded and, later on transcribed. From classroom transcriptions and students’ oral and written activities, data were generated, constituting two sets of data: one composed by classroom transcriptions and other by students’ activities. Classroom transcriptions were analyzed by means of content analysis (BRONCKART, 2012) while students’ activities were analyzed by the categories of language capacities (DOLZ; PASQUIER; BRONCKART, 1993, CRISTOVÃO; STUTZ, 2011) and of the Visual Design Grammar metafunctions (KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 2006). Results of the analysis, related to the specific objective 1, point to a reflective pedagogical practice based on the teacher-researcher’s theoretical and practical knowledge, while the results related to the specific objective 2 reveal that language capacities: action, discursive, linguistic-discursive and of signification (DOLZ; PASQUIER; BRONCKART, 1993, CRISTOVÃO; STUTZ, 2011) were mobilized in an articulated way by the teacher and students in the work with cartoons in English language classroom.