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Educational Development Innovations in Applied Linguistics Research

Inovações no Desenvolvimento Educacional na Pesquisa em Linguística Aplicada

This thematic volume germinates from a symposium (Innovations in Educator Development Research) coordinated by Tania R. S. Romero, presented at AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) in Rio de Janeiro in 2017. The core discussions, debates and thoughts proposed in this volume are the outcomes of Educators Development in Applied Linguistics Research Group, affiliated to ANPOLL (National Association for Graduate Studies and Research in Languages, Literature and Linguistics), whose its general aim is to promote critical reflection regarding Teacher Education in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching in Brazil in the light of contemporary educational challenges.

In the present context, the deluge of global economic processes in production and neoliberalism commerce have shaped peoples’ ways of living and interacting with the world. The rising of nationalism and anti-human rights movements in politics have gained force and has directly affected education. To Burbules and Torres (2004BURBULES, N. C.; TORRES, C. A. 2004. Globalização e Educação: Perspectivas Críticas. Porto Alegre: Artmed Editora.) we are facing a time in which globalization threatens the autonomy of national educational systems and the sovereignty of the state in democratic societies. In this sense, Applied Linguistics has a perennial role to engage academia towards a shift in research habitus, leading to the production of knowledge that is socially responsive (Moita Lopes, 2009MOITA LOPES, L. P. 2009. Linguística Aplicada como lugar de construir verdades contingentes: sexualidade, ética e política. Gragoatá, v.27, p. 33-50. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://www.gragoata.uff.br/index.php/gragoata/article/view/195 . Acesso em 20 mai. 2019.
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) and intrinsically linked to “the forms of power and inequality which are pervasive features of societies as they actually exist” (Bourdieu, 2002BOURDIEU, P. 2002. Language & Simbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.: 2).

On this matter, the discussions that compromise this volume attempt to contribute to materialization account of teacher education in terms of theory-practice, as communally tangible, concrete and impregnated with meanings. Each work analyzes the complex contextual intersections of teacher education and its daily practices in a socially, historically and culturally situated perspective. To do so, authors place themselves within a critical research approach for building knowledge about contemporary educational challenges having as the central tenet relating theory and practice.

The volume is entrenched in theoretical-practical dialogues from diverse Brazilian research groups, which is reflected in each work presented here whilst still maintaining a sensitive approach to the applied nature of contemporary Applied Linguistics Research constructs and to language teacher development in Brazil.

Through various empirical research orientations, this volume challenges interested readers on:

  • reviewing critical research methodologies for Teacher Education in Applied Linguistics;

  • discussing how socio-historical-cultural studies have offered ways to overcome the contradictions and become agents with mobility and with potential to transform the living conditions of our communities.

  • Investigating the practicum experience by looking at different forms of participation for colearning and for developing critical reflexivity, ethical attitude, (pre)professional confidence and autonomy;

  • problematizing the field of language teaching for novice and experienced educators in Brazil through teacher’s narratives and professional self-making;

  • analyzing how the dimensions of verbal-visual utterances (artifacts) practiced in school spaces - embedded of multiple languages - mediate the formation of human consciousness;

  • problematizing decolonial discourses on “unpreparedness to teach languages at schools”, common in the area of language teacher education in Brazil;

  • analyzing how inclusive practices and policies can be incorporated into a pedagogical project in different Brazilian undergraduate institutions;

  • debating the emergency of a complex additional language teacher/adviser under the complexity theory framework, disturbances in the teaching and learning subsystems of pre-service education;

  • The first paper, by Magalhães and Fidalgo, reviews critical research methodologies employed in teacher education projects within the field of Applied Linguistics. For the authors, despite the dynamically and continuously shifting in the area considered as “movable praxis” (PENNYCOOK, 2001PENNYCOOK, Alastair. 2001. Critical applied linguistics: a critical introduction. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.:173), migratory, economic, cultural and political vicissitudes also challenge us to review critical research methodologies. Departing from Action Research (AR) and Participative Research (PR) to Critical Collaborative Research (PCCol) - adhered by the research groups LACE1 1 Language in School Contexts Activities (PUC-SP). , ILCAE2 2 Linguistic Inclusion in Scenarios of Educational Activities (PUC-SP and UNIFESP). and GEICS3 3 Research Group: Studies about the Deaf Identity and Culture (UNIFESP). , the article proposes that language is a mediating tool at the core of its discussion. In this perspective, the authors emphasize how PCCol can create milieus in which participants can collaboratively act. Based on how participants would like to engage in the world, Magalhães and Fidalgo find support in PCCol as a methodology to analyze cultural artifacts in the process of researching, in the process of human development.

Liberali’s proposal comes from a collaborative school project (DIGIT-M-ED Hyperconnecting Brazil)4 4 Integrated with LACE (Language in School Contexts Activities) research group (PUC-SP). for transforming urban education in São Paulo. In the author’s view, contradictions are at the basis of our contemporary lives marked by violence, disbelief, abandonment, despair, helplessness, dehumanization and exploitation. Departing from contradiction not as a paralysis, but as transformation, the study reflects upon how socio-historical-cultural studies offer ways to overcome the contradictions and move forward. In the author’s words, we must rethink “our reality in a collaborative and critical search for forms of development beyond who we are and what we originally can” be. Through the presentation of two critical-collaborative actions that have been implemented: Carnival on Roosevelt Square and De-occupy Crackland, the author discusses opportunities for transforming urban education as a means to promoting transformative stances in which participants were not only observing, but experiencing, analyzing, criticizing, deliberating and transforming themselves, transforming society.

In the third article, Mateus, Miller and Cardoso, analyze, grounded on Critical Discourse Studies and Sociocultural Activity Theory, ways of experiencing the practicum, teacher education and development. Engaged on an interventionist collaborative perspective of three interrelated research projects (university/schools), the authors explore the fundamentals of coteaching/deliberative dialoguing as an approach to enhancing English language teacher education in public schools. For the authors, opportunities for colearning and for developing critical reflexivity, ethical attitude, (pre)professional confidence and autonomy come from varied forms of participants’ involvement. This study also reflects upon how debating the present and deliberating about future possibilities can offer opportunities for colearning and historically overcoming teacher educators’ boundaries, as well as those of school teachers and teachers-to-be within a University campus and in field-based experiences.

Reichmann and Romero’s paper, the fourth study in this collection, deals with Language Teachers’ Narratives and Professional Self-Making. Determined to problematizing the field for novice and experienced educators in Brazil, the authors reflect upon teacher development, teacher literacy and identity construction, by using narrative studies as part of the procedure adopted in their research groups (IDOLin)5 5 Identity of Language Teachers (UFLA). (GELIT)6 6 Study Group on Literacy, Interaction and Work (UFPA). (Educator’s Literacy), besides discussing the relevance of implicit and explicit theories, methodological choices, teacher representations and practices to enable awareness-raising and transformation. For the authors, educational projects focused on narrative approaches can pose significant challenges. However, it can potentially impact the awareness-raising and identity construction of its participants.

Tanzi Neto, in the fifth study, discusses one of the research tools of NUVYLA7 7 Nucleus of Studies and Research of Vygotsky School in Applied Linguistics (UFRJ). , i.e., how verbal-visual mediation seen as cultural artifacts of power and control can be addressed in school context research in the field of Applied Linguistics. Based on Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Bernstein, the author ponders on how the dimensions of verbal-visual utterances (artifacts) practiced in school spaces, constituted of multiple languages, mediate the materialization of human consciousness. For this, the study analyzes two public school contexts in Brazil. The first context, which is not perceived by its participants as a place to carry out new life projects, nor as a space of belonging, shows a social base of more hierarchical discursive relations or of more controlled verbal-visual discursive utterances. The second context, seen as school context of belonging and recognition by its members to achieve future life projects, reveals a reconfiguration of the dialogical and axiological positions of its participants, a context of privileged voices, explicit multifaceted identities, less hierarchical social positions in a more diverse perspective.

Mastrella-de-Andrade and Pessoa propose in the sixth article a critical, decolonial glance at language teacher education in Brazil from the perspective of being prepared to teach. By confronting teacher educators with poststructuralist and decolonial scholars’ works in the field of Applied Linguistics, the authors draw our attention to themes such as language, the subject and teaching to reflect upon “how we can decolonize English teaching in Brazil in reference to teacher education processes”, and “how we can educate teachers to feel more prepared and open to teach, and less dependent on centre-based rational models of language teaching” - questions which they answer by analysing empirical material. According to their standpoint, teacher education courses in Brazil should challenge modernist conceptions of teaching, the subject and language, advancing from specific fractions of knowledge to productive spaces for the construction of contexts that go beyond methods and textbooks, gazing at decolonial agents that know how to talk (SKILIAR, 2006SKLIAR, Carlos. 2006. A inclusão que é nossa e a diferença que é do outro. In: RODRIGUES, David. (Org.). Inclusão e educação: doze olhares sobre a educação inclusiva. Summus Editorial. p. 15-34.: 32), since language is not only a language system, but interrelated repertoires.

Tonelli, Medrado and Mello, in the seventh study, discuss how public policies and several other kinds of transformation are needed in the educational contexts to cater for the current legislation that regulates the inclusion of students with specific educational needs in regular schools. Based on a study of inclusive practices of different research groups (ALDEI)8 8 Acting of Language, Teaching and Inclusive Education (UFPB). , (GPELPI)9 9 Research Group Teaching Languages and Inclusive Practices (UFPB, UEL, UFU). , carried out in three Brazilian Universities, the authors analyze how inclusive issues have been or can be incorporated into the pedagogical project. Following a critical, autonomous and informed perspective (CELANI, 2010CELANI, Maria Antonieta Alba, 2010. Perguntas ainda sem resposta na formação de professores de línguas. In: GIMENEZ, Telma e MONTEIRO, Maria Cristina de Góes (Org.) Formação de Professores de línguas na América Latina e Transformação Social. Campinas: Pontes Editora. p. 57-67.), the authors reflect upon the teacher practicum and/or the individual projects of teacher-educators in each institution and the possibilities to contemplate some space for inclusive practices in the classroom.

The volume is concluded with Borges and Magno e Silva, whose study address the emergence of the notion of additional language teacher/adviser under the complexity paradigm. Grounded on the complexity theory framework, the authors expose the disturbances in teaching and learning subsystems (classroom, each individual student, lesson plan, syllabus, textbook, learning material, others, teachers, etc.) and in suprasystems (curriculum, school, local community, government, etc.) of pre-service education. For the authors, who follow the uses of methods and approaches to language teaching and learning and to different systems linked to the profession sphere, the complex teacher/adviser can value all sub- and suprasystems and also embrace the fragmented identities with a view to affective dimensions and conciliates diverse historical conceptions correlated to this profession. In this perspective, the authors defend a sense of plausibility and advising as two guiding principles in Second Language Teacher Education based on the complexity theory that may advance from the teaching system to the learning system.

Reference

  • BOURDIEU, P. 2002. Language & Simbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • BURBULES, N. C.; TORRES, C. A. 2004. Globalização e Educação: Perspectivas Críticas. Porto Alegre: Artmed Editora.
  • CELANI, Maria Antonieta Alba, 2010. Perguntas ainda sem resposta na formação de professores de línguas. In: GIMENEZ, Telma e MONTEIRO, Maria Cristina de Góes (Org.) Formação de Professores de línguas na América Latina e Transformação Social. Campinas: Pontes Editora. p. 57-67.
  • MOITA LOPES, L. P. 2009. Linguística Aplicada como lugar de construir verdades contingentes: sexualidade, ética e política. Gragoatá, v.27, p. 33-50. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://www.gragoata.uff.br/index.php/gragoata/article/view/195 Acesso em 20 mai. 2019.
    » http://www.gragoata.uff.br/index.php/gragoata/article/view/195
  • PENNYCOOK, Alastair. 2001. Critical applied linguistics: a critical introduction. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  • SKLIAR, Carlos. 2006. A inclusão que é nossa e a diferença que é do outro. In: RODRIGUES, David. (Org.). Inclusão e educação: doze olhares sobre a educação inclusiva. Summus Editorial. p. 15-34.
  • 1
    Language in School Contexts Activities (PUC-SP).
  • 2
    Linguistic Inclusion in Scenarios of Educational Activities (PUC-SP and UNIFESP).
  • 3
    Research Group: Studies about the Deaf Identity and Culture (UNIFESP).
  • 4
    Integrated with LACE (Language in School Contexts Activities) research group (PUC-SP).
  • 5
    Identity of Language Teachers (UFLA).
  • 6
    Study Group on Literacy, Interaction and Work (UFPA).
  • 7
    Nucleus of Studies and Research of Vygotsky School in Applied Linguistics (UFRJ).
  • 8
    Acting of Language, Teaching and Inclusive Education (UFPB).
  • 9
    Research Group Teaching Languages and Inclusive Practices (UFPB, UEL, UFU).
  • 1
    Researchers that presented in AILA 2017 - GT Formação de Educadores [Teacher Education Working Group]
  • 2
    All other researchers of this volume are part of the Research Group called Educators Development in Applied Linguistics affiliated to ANPOLL (National Association for Graduate Studies and Research in Languages, Literature and Linguistics), as mentioned before.

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    22 July 2019
  • Date of issue
    2019

History

  • Received
    20 Jan 2019
  • Accepted
    15 May 2019
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