Language is also a place of struggle (original) (raw)
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Language and silencing: An analysis of the treatment given to the mother tongue in primary education based in narratives of Portuguese language teachers (Atena Editora), 2023
Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar algumas das dificuldades enfrentadas por professores de língua portuguesa na produção de um ensino de língua materna epistemologicamente fundamentado, multicultural e agregador em contexto de realidades periféricas da educação básica. Desse modo, a partir da análise de narrativas de professores de língua portuguesa atuantes nos segmentos de ensino Fundamental II e Médio de determinadas escolas públicas localizadas em áreas suburbanas do estado do Rio de Janeiro, propomos construir reflexões sobre as subjetividades de seus discursos e identificar os possíveis componentes que dificultam a produção de um ensino de língua heterogêneo e epistemologicamente fundamentado. Devido à natureza da pesquisa (essencialmente qualitativa e interpretativa), a análise foi elaborada a partir dos pilares teóricos propostos pelos Estudos Narrativos e pela Análise Interpretativista. Foi possível observar que as narrativas das professoras de Língua Portuguesa foram construídas de modo a explicitar alguns dos desafios enfrentados por professores de português em relação à integração da variação linguística na metodologia de ensino vigente, tais como: dicotomia entre a visão de língua como objeto epistemologicamente fundamentado e visão de língua como objeto normativo; atuação de instrumentos pedagógicos na perpetuação de um ensino prescritivista; incongruências entre diretrizes oficiais e atuação profissional e a existência de preconceito linguístico no ambiente escolares.
A Postcolonial Framework for Brazilian EFL Teachers' Social Identities
… Electrónica Matices en Lenguas Extranjeras No, 2008
This article discusses some of the implications of using a poststructural and postcolonial theoretical framework to understand the positioning of Brazilian EFL teachers in contemporary global society. Foreign language teachers are seen as having a hybrid identity that engages the foreign language/culture and, consequently, interpolates their native language/culture in a reflexive process. The main theoretical perspectives used here are the Foucaultian poststructuralist notions of discourse, knowledge and power and the postcolonial view of identity, resistance and transformation. Such perspectives are pivotal for the understanding of the social practices of power/knowledge in the context of cultural globalization that informs this text.
Challenging the Coloniality of Languages
2020
This article aims to reflect on the coloniality of language as a vertex of coloniality that acts with coloniality of being, power and knowledge; besides this reflection, it is also my aim to propose alternative ways to challenge the coloniality of language in the context of language education and teachers' education. In the first part of this article, I present some aspects of the coloniality of language, where race and racialisation play an important role (Garcés 2007; Veronelli 2015; Fanon 1967; Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 1997). In the second part of the article, I propose alternatives to challenge the coloniality of language mainly in the context of language education, focusing on a diversity of voices and knowledges (as plurality) associated with the perspective of language deregulation, as proposed by the Brazilian applied linguist Inês Signorini (2002) and the perspective of heterodiscourse/ heteroglossia as proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin (1981).
This article examined two English teachers' professional identities based on a series of interviews conducted in two universities in Bogotá, Colombia. This paper examined their experiences and discourses regarding language pedagogy. Accordingly, the study adopted a narrative methodology from a decolonial lens to put some tension on the normative conception of the traditional/hegemonic notions of pedagogy and teacher identities configured in the Colombian English Language Teaching (ELT) context. Findings revealed that teachers enact their language pedagogies by merging their personal selves with their professional ones. As a result, identities and ways of knowing are validated in negotiation between doing and being. This posture towards teaching exposes their ontological and epistemic struggles for humanizing their pedagogy.
Investimento e comunidades imaginadas: uma análise narrativa da construção da identidade de alunos-professores de inglês AB STRACT -The objective of this article is to discuss an exploratory study about the identity construction of eight student-teachers of English as learners of English as an additional language in the region of Vale do Açu, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil using some of the concepts developed by Bonny Norton, that is, investigating the types of investments made and the imagined communities aspired to by those student-teachers. For the exploratory study, a narrative perspective was adopted as identities are socio-cultural narratives constructed in time. The analyses showed that construction of the identities of the student-teachers investigated revolves around two types of investment: those which lead to learn and use the language, and those which lead to learn the English language to teach it. The results have shown that in the analyzed group of studentteachers, the learner-as-user and learner-as-teacher identities seem to confl ate and, in most cases, the learner-as-teacher identity seems to override the learner-as-user identity. Also, since many of the studies carried out on learner identity using Bonny Norton's theoretical approach had immigrants in contexts where English is used by the community they are living in, this work is expected to contribute to Norton's approach as the participants of this study are learning English as an additional language in contexts where the community members do not use English and English is mainly learnt in formal environments.
Decolonizing English Language Teaching for Brazilian Indigenous Peoples
Educação e Realidade , 2019
This paper investigates the design and methods of English language teaching (ELT) curricula in the Brazilian indigenous educational context. Under Brazilian federal law, English is a mandatory curricular requirement for all, including indigenous students. This paper analyzes contributions relevant to the decolonization of English teaching in indigenous contexts from postcolonial theories on education, perspectives on decolo-nized ELT, and sociocultural learning theory. An argument is made for the development of ELT curricula and methodology in collaboration with indigenous teachers, in order to prioritize their communities, cultures, and traditional knowledge. Este artigo investiga a concepção e os métodos dos currículos de English language teaching (ELT) no contexto da educação in-dígena brasileira. Pela lei federal brasileira, o inglês é um requisito curricu-lar obrigatório para todos, incluindo os estudantes indígenas. Este artigo analisa as contribuições relevantes para a decolonização do ensino de in-glês em contextos indígenas a partir de teorias pós-coloniais em educação, perspectivas sobre ELT decolonizado e teoria sociocultural da aprendiza-gem. Uma argumentação é feita para o desenvolvimento de currículos e de metodologias de ELT em colaboração com professores indígenas, a fim de priorizar suas comunidades, culturas e saberes tradicionais. Palavras-chave: Educação pós-colonial. Subalternidade. Educação Indígena. Ensino Decolonizado de Língua Inglesa.
Educação e Cultura Contemporânea
The text analyses the impact of current educational policies on schooling and teacher education practices in Portugal with a focus on bilingual/ bicultural students. Building on selected key-concepts and themes that traverse the work of critical analysts, including the concept of "epistemological blindness", the text seeks to analyse how the techno-rational epistemologies underlie the subtractive forms of education that are imposed on bilingual/bicultural students in Portugal. The narratives of both beginning and experienced language teachers, on teacher education programs at the University of Minho, will be used to show how Western, Eurocentric epistemologies and "epistemological blindness" work in schools to undermine progressive and inclusive education for bilingual/ bicultural children. Their narratives on their experiences and on how they resonate with critical texts on schooling will be analysed, highlighting the difficulties and dilemmas these teachers experience that can be attributed to the disempowering forms of education these students are subjected to and that are seldom questioned. The education of bilingual/bicultural students in Portugal is located on the other side of the epistemic abyss that Boaventura Sousa Santos identifies in modern Western Eurocentric rationality. The naturalization of their invisibility in Portuguese schools and the absence of a critical multicultural teacher education programs are very much justified by the prevailing curriculum and teacher education policies and practices, but also by the 'teaching to the test' classroom practices that disempower both students and teachers.
Decolonizing identities: English for internationalization in a brazilian university
In the context of international higher education, the English language can be a burden to scholars and students who do not feel this language belongs to them. When learning English as a foreign language in a country such as Brazil, where I am writing from, such a burden easily becomes a tool of colonization – of mouths and minds. In Brazilian higher education, attempts to use English as a medium of instruction have just started, creating feelings of inadequacy and contributing to construct troubled professional identities. This is the scenario focused on in this text, whose aim is to examine one dimension of an institutional practice established to tackle such feelings and identity constructions from a de-colonized discursive perspective. In order to do this, the text starts by presenting the context in which English becomes a problem, offering a post-structuralist perspective on language as a way to decolonize the identities of Brazilian English-speakers. Then, it focuses on a higher education initiative in Brazil taken at a public university to discuss language issues with Brazilian professors of different areas of knowledge, using English as an International Language as a medium for discussion. Resumo: no contexto da educação superior, a língua inglesa pode ser considerada um fardo pesado para professores e alunos que sentem que esta língua não lhes pertence. Ao aprender inglês como língua estrangeira em um país como o Brasil, onde escrevo este texto, tal peso se torna facilmente um instrumento de colonização – de bocas e mentes. No ensino superior brasileiro, tentativas de usar o inglês como meio de instrução são recentes, criando sensações de inadequação e contribuindo para construir identidades profissionais atribuladas. Este é o cenário sobre o qual se debruça este texto, cujo objetivo é analisar uma prática institucional estabelecida com o objetivo de abordar esses sentimentos e construções identitárias a partir de uma perspectiva pós-colonial. Assim, o texto apresenta o contexto no qual