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Affectivity and agency in English teaching for Youth and Adult Education

Afetividade e agência no ensino de língua inglesa na Educação de Jovens e Adultos

ABSTRACT

This research addresses some links between affectivity and the agency of English language teachers, in the context of Youth and Adult Education. The literature review includes studies on affectivity from the perspective of Paulo Freire and on the articulation between agency and emotions. The research is a collective case study, whose context is based on two municipal public schools, located on the outskirts of São Bernardo do Campo (in São Paulo, Brazil). Two English language teachers who work in two junior high schools take part in the study. The investigation revealed three main findings: (1) affectivity facilitates the teaching-learning process of the English language; (2) teachers’ agency is influenced by conflicting emotions; and (3) there are differences between affectivity in agency and affectivity as agency.

KEYWORDS:
Affectivity; teacher agency; Paulo Freire; Youth and Adult Education

RESUMO

Esta pesquisa aborda as ligações entre a afetividade e a agência de professoras de Língua Inglesa, no contexto da Educação de Jovens e Adultos. A fundamentação teórica inclui estudos sobre a afetividade na perspectiva de Paulo Freire e a articulação entre agência e emoções. A pesquisa é um estudo de caso coletivo, cujo contexto são duas escolas públicas municipais, localizadas na periferia de São Bernardo do Campo (São Paulo, Brasil). Participam do estudo duas professoras de Língua Inglesa de duas escolas dos Anos Finais do Ensino Fundamental. A investigação revelou três descobertas principais: (1) a afetividade facilita o processo de ensino-aprendizagem da Língua Inglesa; (2) a agência das professoras é influenciada por emoções conflitantes; e (3) há diferenças entre a afetividade na agência e a afetividade como agência.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
afetividade; agência docente; Paulo Freire; Educação de Jovens e Adultos

1 Introduction

This work is an excerpt from my master’s research (SATYRO, 2018SATYRO, Diego. Estratégias de ensino de língua inglesa e afetividade na EJA: olhares múltiplos. 2018. 286 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2018.), developed within the scope of Applied Linguistics, with a focus on affectivity, emotions and teaching of English as an additional language. This article, however, expands the discussion about the English language teacher’s agency.

The aim of this research is to interpret some of the relationships between affectivity and the English language teacher’s agency towards Youth and Adult Education (Educação de Jovens e Adultos or EJA, an acronym, in Brazilian Portuguese). I support my argument under two theoretical lines: affectivity in Freire’s (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.) pedagogy and the work of applied linguists on emotions and agency (WHITE, 2016WHITE, Cynthia Joan. Agency and Emotion in Narrative Accounts of Emergent Conflict in an L2 Classroom. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 39, issue 4, p. 579-598, set. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026...
; BENESCH, 2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
; MILLER et al., 2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; KAYI-AYDAR, Hayriye; VARGHESE, Manka; VITANOVA, Gergana. Editors’ introduction to interdisciplinarity in language teacher agency: Theoretical and analytical explorations. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-6, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.07.008.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.07...
; MILLER, GKONOU, 2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
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). Even though I reserve the term affectivity to cover a set of notions (affect, emotion and feeling), I will approach the differences among these words in the next section.

The research reported in the article is connected to a series of other studies about how affectivity influences, challenges, and changes the teaching and learning of an additional language process, in the field of Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. According to Pavlenko (2013PAVLENKO, Aneta. The affective turn in SLA: From ‘affective factors’ to ‘language desire’ and ‘commodification of affect’. In: GABRÝS-BARKER, Danuta; BIELSKA, Joanna (ed.). The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Buffalo: Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2013. p. 3-28.), this line of investigation has been historically interdisciplinary (see PAVLENKO, 2013PAVLENKO, Aneta. The affective turn in SLA: From ‘affective factors’ to ‘language desire’ and ‘commodification of affect’. In: GABRÝS-BARKER, Danuta; BIELSKA, Joanna (ed.). The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Buffalo: Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2013. p. 3-28., p. 24). The author claims that, in the last two decades, the interest on affect and emotions1 1 I prefer the term affectivity to affection, as I will detail next. However, I respectfully maintain the cited author’s word choices in the body of the text. has increased, generating what she designates an “affective turn” (PAVLENKO, 2013PAVLENKO, Aneta. The affective turn in SLA: From ‘affective factors’ to ‘language desire’ and ‘commodification of affect’. In: GABRÝS-BARKER, Danuta; BIELSKA, Joanna (ed.). The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Buffalo: Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2013. p. 3-28., p. 5)2 2 “Until recently, such feelings [love for the music of a foreign language] remained unnamed and undertheorized in the study of second language acquisition (SLA). In the past decade, however, we have witnessed an affective turn […]” (PAVLENKO, 2013, p. 5). in Second Language Acquisition.

Some studies attached to this line of investigation were carried out by Arnold (1999ARNOLD, Jane. The whole story: Holistic language teaching. Resource, Basel, v. V, n. 1, p. 8-12, 1999., 2011ARNOLD, Jane. Attention to Affect in Language Learning. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, Heidelberg, v. 22, issue 1, p. 11-22, 2011.). Initially, the applied linguist supported the idea of a holistic approach to foreign/second language teaching, which functioned as a call for attention to affect and its connection to students’ motivation. More recently, Arnold (2011ARNOLD, Jane. Attention to Affect in Language Learning. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, Heidelberg, v. 22, issue 1, p. 11-22, 2011.) redefined the concept of affect, but her main argument remains the same: “an integration of affect and cognition can enhance learning” (ARNOLD, 2011ARNOLD, Jane. Attention to Affect in Language Learning. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, Heidelberg, v. 22, issue 1, p. 11-22, 2011., p. 14).

Considering the expansion of the scope of research on the role of affectivity in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, this article draws on the “critical theory of affect” (PAVLENKO, 2013PAVLENKO, Aneta. The affective turn in SLA: From ‘affective factors’ to ‘language desire’ and ‘commodification of affect’. In: GABRÝS-BARKER, Danuta; BIELSKA, Joanna (ed.). The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Buffalo: Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2013. p. 3-28., p. 23). It means that I am not supported by a single paradigm, characterized by a particular discipline. It also indicates a commitment to a specific research agenda: instead of discussing affective factors and students’ or teachers’ motivation or anxiety, I will discuss how the participants experience affect, invest (or not) in this dimension of their action, embracing potential idiosyncrasies and contradictions. Hence the link between affectivity and agency, as I will soon unfold.

The context of the study is based on two municipal junior high schools, which offer Youth and Adult Education evening courses. These schools are in the outskirts of São Bernardo do Campo, a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, in low-income neighborhoods. Two English language teachers take part in this interpretative research (BORTONI-RICARDO, 2008BORTONI-RICARDO, Stella Maris. O professor pesquisador: introdução à pesquisa qualitativa. São Paulo: Parábola, 2008.), designed in the form of a collective case study (ANDRÉ, 2006).

The theme of affectivity and emotions in the specific context of Youth and Adult Education has already been exploited by some Brazilian researchers attached to the field of Education (OLIVEIRA, 1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
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; ALMEIDA, 2012ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. O coordenador pedagógico e a questão do cuidar. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de; PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e questões da contemporaneidade. 6. ed. São Paulo: Loyola, 2012, p. 41-60.a; BARCELOS, V., 2012BARCELOS, Valdo. Educação de jovens e adultos: currículos e práticas pedagógicas. 3. ed. Petrópolis, RJ. Vozes, 2012.). Such interest can be explained in terms of the social identity of this educational modality. Youth and Adult Education courses fulfil the role of ensuring the right to education for young people, adults and elders, who have been denied such right (BRASIL, 2010BRASIL. Conselho Nacional de Educação. Parecer CNE/CEB n. 6/2010. Relatores: Adeum Hilário Sauer, Cesar Callegari, Clélia Brandão Alvarenga Craveiro, Francisco Aparecido Cordão, Mariadas Dores de Oliveira, Mozart Neves Ramos e Raimundo Moacir Mendes Feitosa. Reexame do Parecer CNE/CEB n. 23/2008. Institui Diretrizes Operacionais para a Educação de Jovens e Adultos - EJA. Brasília, 7 abr. 2010. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://bit.ly/2ZHpkjK . Acesso em: 22 fev. 2021.
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). The subjects who seek these evening courses carry stories of school failure and social exclusion.

Particularly, the English Language teacher who works at Youth and Adult Education deals with several challenges: the unwillingness displayed by some students (SCHEYERL, 2009SCHEYERL, Denise. Ensinar língua estrangeira em escola pública noturna. In: LIMA, Diógenes Cândido de (org.). Ensino e Aprendizagem de língua inglesa: conversas com especialistas. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial , 2009. p. 125-139.) who seem not to attribute meaning to English language learning; the restricted number of hours (SATYRO, 2018SATYRO, Diego. Estratégias de ensino de língua inglesa e afetividade na EJA: olhares múltiplos. 2018. 286 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2018.); and the absenteeism of students (PRADO, LANGE, SCHLATTER & GARCEZ, 2014PRADO, Vanessa Viega; LANGE, Catilcia Prass; SCHLATTER, Margarete; GARCEZ, Pedro M. O ensino de línguas adicionais na Educação de Jovens e Adultos: quando a aula de inglês pode fazer a diferença. In: LEFFA, Vilson José.; IRALA, Valesca B. (org.). Uma Espiadinha na Sala de Aula:Ensinando Línguas Adicionais no Brasil. Pelotas: EDUCAT, 2014. p. 137-170.).

Thus, in this article, I explore the importance of affectivity for the teaching-learning process of the English Language in Youth and Adult Education. I highlight the influence of interpersonal relationships between teachers and their students. Based on the literature and the data discussion, I finally propose a differentiation between affectivity in agency and affectivity as agency.Some criteria that differentiate these notions are the awareness of the role that affectivity plays in educational action and the articulation between this notion and a broader vision of education and society.

2 Theoretical framework

Herein I introduce the theoretical background in three subsections. They cover the following topics: the general profile of Youth and Adult Education’s students; affectivity in Paulo Freire’s pedagogy; and the links between affectivity and agency through the lens of Applied Linguistics.

2.1 Youth and Adults Education subjects

Although the participants in this study are two educators, I think it is important to present general aspects of the Youth and Adult Education learners. This discussion can contribute to the understanding of the power of affectivity and, especially, its influence on the agency of (general) English Language teachers. In order to outline this profile, I refer to the works of some Brazilian educators (OLIVEIRA, 1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
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; ARROYO, 2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50.; DAYRELL, 2011DAYRELL, Juarez Tarcísio. A juventude e a Educação de Jovens e Adultos: reflexões iniciais - novos sujeitos. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 54-68.; JARDILINO, ARAÚJO, 2014JARDILINO, José Rubens Lima; ARAÚJO, Regina Magna Bonifácio de. Educação de Jovens e Adultos: sujeitos, saberes e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 2014.; ZANARDO, 2017ZANARDO, Nivia Dantas Ribeiro. O Currículo crítico-libertador respondendo aos desafios do contexto intergeracional nas salas da EJA. 2017. 124 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação: Currículo) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2017.).

According to Oliveira (1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
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, p. 51), the adult and the young people in Youth and Adult Education courses are “excluded [subjects] from the school”3 3 Original text: “excluído da escola” (OLIVEIRA, 1999, p. 51). I am completely responsible for this and any other passage translated from Brazilian Portuguese into English, with an exception to some of Paulo Freire’s quotes. In this case, I have resorted to some passages from books published in English. . For the author, the adult who seeks courses in this modality usually has an unsystematic passage through school. Many times, he or she is an internal migrant and has experience as a rural worker. The teenager, on the other hand, looks for Youth and Adults Education courses to conclude more advanced stages of schooling. They are also more involved with literacy and urban practices.

Although it was conducted 15 years later, the study carried out by Jardilino and Araújo (2014JARDILINO, José Rubens Lima; ARAÚJO, Regina Magna Bonifácio de. Educação de Jovens e Adultos: sujeitos, saberes e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 2014.) confirms the characteristics raised by Oliveira (1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
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). However, the authors highlight the phenomenon known as juvenilization (juvenilização, in Brazilian Portuguese). Juvenilization consists of the massive entry of young students4 4 According to Opinion CNE/CEB No. 6/2010 of the Ministry of Education and the National Council of Education (BRASIL, 2010), the minimum age for students to enroll in Youth and Adult Education courses, in elementary schools is 15 years old. in Youth and Adult Education classes. The authors state that this fact is not exclusive to Brazil, but it can be found in other Latin American countries.

When researching juvenilization in Youth and Adult Education schools in the city of Belo Horizonte (the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, in Brazil), Dayrell (2011DAYRELL, Juarez Tarcísio. A juventude e a Educação de Jovens e Adultos: reflexões iniciais - novos sujeitos. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 54-68., p. 63) concludes that the students’ school experiences are marked “by failures, sporadic dropouts and returns, until the definitive exclusion”5 5 Original text: “por repetências, evasões esporádicas e retornos, até a exclusão definitiva” (DAYRELL, 2011, p. 63). from regular sequential elementary and secondary/middle school.This means that these students had attended school during their childhood and part of their adolescence. Nevertheless, their stay in school was not guaranteed.

On a national scale, Jardilino and Araújo’s (2014JARDILINO, José Rubens Lima; ARAÚJO, Regina Magna Bonifácio de. Educação de Jovens e Adultos: sujeitos, saberes e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 2014.) research corroborates this picture. Based on the 2012 School Census, cross-referencing the ratio of students enrolled and their ages, the researchers found that most students enrolling in Youth and Adult Education courses, in secondary/middle school, had left regular sequential education (i.e., a 12-years schooling system).

Unfortunately, school dropout is not the only cause of enrolment in Youth and Adult Education courses. During schooling in this modality, this phenomenon remains a long-standing problem, as reported by Arroyo (2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50.), and Prado, Lange, Schlatter & Garcez (2014PRADO, Vanessa Viega; LANGE, Catilcia Prass; SCHLATTER, Margarete; GARCEZ, Pedro M. O ensino de línguas adicionais na Educação de Jovens e Adultos: quando a aula de inglês pode fazer a diferença. In: LEFFA, Vilson José.; IRALA, Valesca B. (org.). Uma Espiadinha na Sala de Aula:Ensinando Línguas Adicionais no Brasil. Pelotas: EDUCAT, 2014. p. 137-170.). The dropout in Youth and Adult Education courses manifests itself in the form of excessive absences; sometimes for long periods, such as weeks and months. Many students, both adults and youth, are unable to attend school daily.

As an example, when conducting two parallel studies in two schools with Youth and Adult Education courses in the region of Porto Alegre (the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), the applied linguists Prado, Lange, Schlatter, and Garcez (2014PRADO, Vanessa Viega; LANGE, Catilcia Prass; SCHLATTER, Margarete; GARCEZ, Pedro M. O ensino de línguas adicionais na Educação de Jovens e Adultos: quando a aula de inglês pode fazer a diferença. In: LEFFA, Vilson José.; IRALA, Valesca B. (org.). Uma Espiadinha na Sala de Aula:Ensinando Línguas Adicionais no Brasil. Pelotas: EDUCAT, 2014. p. 137-170.) observed that, in both cases, only half of the enrolled students attended English language classes. In my research, I identified the same fact (SATYRO, 2018SATYRO, Diego. Estratégias de ensino de língua inglesa e afetividade na EJA: olhares múltiplos. 2018. 286 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2018.)6 6 Zanardo (2017) conducted a study with Youth and Adults Education students in a municipal school of São Bernardo do Campo. The author witnessed the problem of dropout in the classes she followed. Her data, collected in the same field research (2016), confirm this phenomenon, despite the educational public policies instituted by the municipality, focused on this modality and its specificities. .

Thus, considering the role played by affectivity in the teaching-learning process, I understand that evasion can hinder the strengthening of bonds between teachers and students.This difficulty is further aggravated in the specific case of English, due to the reduced weekly studying hours.

If many adults, especially the elders, seek out Youth and Adult Education courses because they did not have access to school when they were children and teenagers, what leads so many young people to resort to this modality? The reasons are numerous and of different natures. Besides the causes previously presented by Dayrell (2011DAYRELL, Juarez Tarcísio. A juventude e a Educação de Jovens e Adultos: reflexões iniciais - novos sujeitos. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 54-68.), I can point out, from my experience as a teacher and from the accounts of the participants in this study, other additional reasons, such as teenage pregnancy, the need to work, and family neglect.

Youth and Adult Education students are subjects who were not fully included in Basic Education. At some point in the teaching-learning process, dropping out of school seemed like a viable option for them. Consequently, enrolling in a Youth and Adult Education course is equivalent to a second chance. In a way, the students of this modality seem to believe that they can change their narratives through formal education.

With respect to this second chance, I mention the work of Barcelos, V. (2012BARCELOS, Valdo. Educação de jovens e adultos: currículos e práticas pedagógicas. 3. ed. Petrópolis, RJ. Vozes, 2012.), who interpreted accounts of Youth and Adult Education students on their (re)entry into school. For the educator, this (re)entry is simultaneously full of dreams (not fulfilled), insecurity, fear, and shame.

In an attempt to build a theoretical framework, I understand that looking at Youth and Adult Education students can take, simultaneously, an affective and a political stance. By political, I refer to the ideas of Paulo Freire (2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.) and Arroyo (2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50.). According to the educator from Pernambuco, all education has political biases, because it deals with power relations and their forms of maintenance or transformation.

For the Spanish educator, inspired by Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, this political bias should influence the way of looking at Youth and Adult Education students. In his view, seeing students as oppressed is a more politicized view than “seeing them as poor, lazy, or violent, or as failing or lagging behind” (ARROYO, 2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50., p. 40)7 7 Original text: “vê-los como pobres, preguiçosos ou violentos, ou como reprovados e defasados” (ARROYO, 2011, p. 40). .

In short, an affective and political view on these students recognizes the cogs of social oppression and refuses the ‘angle of the gap’. This perspective, in my opinion, guides the educator’s gaze toward what, in his/her opinion, the student might lack. The teacher who fixates on this angle may associate his/her practice to a kind of gap-filling task, disconnected from any political dimension. Paulo Freire’s (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.) pedagogy opposes this view. I will put this theory under scrutiny in the next subsection.

2.2 Affectivity in Paulo Freire’s pedagogy

To exploit affectivity in Paulo Freire’s (1921-1997) pedagogy, a critical and decentered look at closed or fixed concepts is required. From Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) to Pedagogy of Freedom: ethics, democracy, and civic courage (1997)8 8 In Brazil, this book was published as Pedagogia da Autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa (FREIRE, 2002). (see FREYRE, 2000FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of Freedom: ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Trad. Patrick Clarke. Prefácio de Donaldo P. Macedo. Lanhan: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.), the educator discusses affectivity. According to Dalla Vecchia (2016DALLAVECCHIA, Agostinho Mário. Afetividade. In: STRECK, Danilo R.; REDIN, Euclides; ZITKOSKI, Jaime José (org.). Dicionário Paulo Freire. 3. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2016. p. 26-27.), in Paulo Freire’s work, this theme appears indexed by different words: love, amorosity9 9 The Brazilian applied linguist Barcelos, A (2020, p. 98) translates Paulo Freire’s neologism amorosidade as “amorosity” in her article. I subscribe to her lexical choice. , affect, and affectivity. Thus, I understand that all these terms refer to the same dimension or domain. Faced with this linguistic diversity, considering that the author does not point out conceptual differences, I adopt the Freirean term affectivity.

In this regard, I make a brief digression: I totally agree with Candido Ribeiro (2012CANDIDO RIBEIRO, Douglas. Estados afetivos de professoras de Língua Inglesa em formação inicial. 2012. 140 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Letras) - Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa-MG, 2012. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4854 . Acesso em: 4 set. 2021.
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) on the extensive use of the term affectivity by Brazilian scholars in the field of Education (OLIVEIRA, 1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
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; GALVÃO, 2003GALVÃO, Izabel. Expressividade e emoções segundo a perspectiva de Henri Wallon. In: ARANTES, Valéria Amorim (org.). Afetividade na escola: alternativas teóricas e práticas. 3. ed. São Paulo: Summus , 2003. p. 71-88.; DANTAS, 2006; ALMEIDA & MAHONEY, 2007ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de; MAHONEY, Abigail Alvarenga. (org.). Afetividade e aprendizagem: contribuições de Henri Wallon. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2007.; ALMEIDA, 2010ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. Cognição, corpo e afeto. Revista Educação. São Paulo, p. 20-31, out. 2010. (História da Pedagogia: Henri Wallon), 2012ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. O coordenador pedagógico e a questão do cuidar. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de; PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e questões da contemporaneidade. 6. ed. São Paulo: Loyola, 2012, p. 41-60., 2012aALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. A pesquisa sobre afetividade, aprendizagem e educação de jovens e adultos: explicitando por que, para que e como. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de (org.). Afetividade, aprendizagem e educação de jovens e adultos: relatos de pesquisa na perspectiva de Henri Wallon. São Paulo: Loyola , 2012a. p. 11-28., 2012bALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. Wallon e a Educação. In: MAHONEY, Abigail Alvarenga; ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de (org.). Henri Wallon: psicologia e educação. 11. ed. São Paulo: Editora Loyola, 2012b. p. 71-87., 2014ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. Como me Constituí Professora: Explicitando o Implícito. Revista Ciências Humanas, Taubaté, v. 7, n. 1., p. 4-26, jan-jun. 2014. DOI: http://doi.org/10.32813/2179-1120.2014.v7.n1.a128. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.rchunitau.com.br/index.php/rch/article/view/128 . Acesso em: 9 jun. 2020.
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, 2019ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. A escola, espaço para conhecimento, convivência e representação do mundo. In: PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza; ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e suas questões emergentes na escola. São Paulo: Edições Loyola , 2019. p. 9-26. (O coordenador pedagógico, 14).)10 10 These researchers are strongly attached to the area of Educational Psychology. Their works have been inspired by prominent figures such as Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), Henry Wallon (1879-1962) and Carl Rogers (1902-1987). . Almeida (2012aALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. A pesquisa sobre afetividade, aprendizagem e educação de jovens e adultos: explicitando por que, para que e como. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de (org.). Afetividade, aprendizagem e educação de jovens e adultos: relatos de pesquisa na perspectiva de Henri Wallon. São Paulo: Loyola , 2012a. p. 11-28.), by the way, explicitly interconnects inputs from a developmental theory with Paulo Freire’s pedagogy. This way, I subscribe to this word choice, when discussing the Freirean education. Affectivity seems to be a more comprehensive term (CANDIDO RIBEIRO, 2012CANDIDO RIBEIRO, Douglas. Estados afetivos de professoras de Língua Inglesa em formação inicial. 2012. 140 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Letras) - Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa-MG, 2012. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4854 . Acesso em: 4 set. 2021.
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). which might include affect, emotion, and feeling. It is, as I see, a human capacity to affect and be affected11 11 The idea of being affected is particularly interesting. Given the space limits, I will not be able to make this point. Nonetheless, I emphasize that a subject can be affected by something not human, as a musical melody, a familiar smell, or an idea. , in a social, cultural, and political context.

In my view, for Freire (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.), affectivity is expressed mainly through interpersonal relationships12 12 By “[interpersonal] relationships”, I certainly do not make a reference to romantic relationships, but to the friendly bonds co-built by students and teachers. in educational spaces. For these relationships to positively influence the teaching-learning process, there must be dialog and respect.These points will be addressed in greater detail below.

In proposing his project on education on liberation, Freire (2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., p. 111) states that “love is also dialog”13 13 Original text; “o amor é, também, diálogo” (FREIRE, 2016, p. 111). . Dialog, for the author, is not a face-to-face conversation, but a dialog of worlds. For different worlds to dialog, that is, for distinct existences to communicate, it is necessary to break with verticalized power relations. Dialog, then, requires respect for people’s historicity and ethical commitment.

Love and dialog, according to Freire (2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.), are intertwined. Invested with love, teachers could genuinely dialog with their students. Love, therefore, is not a “cheesy” feeling, as the author himself warns (FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., p. 111)14 14 Original text: “piegas” (FREIRE, 2016, p. 111). , but is embedded in the educational action.

Regarding dialog in the context of Youth and Adult Education, I highlight Zanardo’s (2017ZANARDO, Nivia Dantas Ribeiro. O Currículo crítico-libertador respondendo aos desafios do contexto intergeracional nas salas da EJA. 2017. 124 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação: Currículo) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2017.) work. The researcher investigated juvenilization in intergenerational classes. One of the findings of her research, guided by Paulo Freire’s thought, is that dialog can reduce student dropout and absenteeism. For many youngsters in Youth and Adult Education courses, coming to school and feeling welcome increases their school attendance.

Additionally, according to Freire (2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.), love and amorosity (the capacity to love) call for a commitment to freedom. Love is a radical force because it is a choice and not something innate. The act of loving is a recognition of one’s existence, no matter how different people are. This means engagement in the struggle against any form of oppression. In other words, affectivity is inseparable from politics in a liberating education.

Affectivity and knowledge are also integrated.Freire (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., p. 52) postulates that “affectivity is not excluded from cognoscibility”15 15 Original text: “a afetividade não se acha excluída da cognoscibilidade” (FREIRE, 2002, p. 52). . The author deals with this topic as a knowledge that often requires courage from the educator. This argument suggests that the construction of bonds in the classroom presupposes intentionality on the part of the teacher.

Another suggestion arising from this argument refers to the very difficulty of relating to students. The construction of bonds between teachers and students is a two-way street. Therefore, it cannot be reduced exclusively to the teacher’s efforts to build positive affective bonds. For the author, affectivity is not an intrapsychic or incidental phenomenon, resulting from a so-called affinity between teachers and students. It is intentionally produced and is at the core of everything that people do, which includes the teaching-learning process. In this regard, I believe it is pertinent to resume thesewords of Freire:

I believe that the basic question that we educators should confront, quite lucid and ever more competent, is that our relationship with the learners is one of the roads that we can take to intervene in reality over both the short and the long term (FREIRE, 2005FREIRE, Paulo. Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare teach. Trad.: Donaldo Macedo, Dale Koike e Alexandre Oliveira. Boulder: Westview Press, 2005., p. 102)16 16 Original text: “Creio que a questão fundamental diante de que devemos estar, educadoras e educadores, bastante lúcidos e cada vez mais competentes é que nossas relações com os educandos são um dos caminhos de que dispomos para exercer nossa intervenção na realidade a curto e a longo prazo” (FREIRE, 2017, p. 140). .

From this perspective, positively relating to students constitutes an ambitious educational project. It is not just a matter of establishing a friendly atmosphere in the classroom, but of interfering in the concrete reality, in the sense of humanization. In other words, it is a matter of making investments in social change, not merely encouraging students to stay in school or study English.

Humanization is associated with the human being’s ontological vocation to be with others (FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.). In the liberating education project proposed by the author, the human being is not viewed as a being in itself. He/she is, in short, a relational being, who can act in the world through the relationships he/she builds.

In this relational and collective process, values, such as solidarity, tolerance, and social justice, are forged. The emancipation to which Freire (2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.) refers demands, therefore, the strengthening of bonds. Without them, a new project of society is not possible. Thus, there is no viable unheard of, an expression that Freire (2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.) employed to debate the necessary utopia we need to collectively engage in the construction of a fairer society.

Following the author’s argumentation, I understand that maintaining dichotomies such as knowledge/affectivity, mind/body, and teacher power/student power, among others, linked to the banking education model, does not facilitate the construction of classroom relationships or the teaching-learning process.In fact, there is an inverse effect: such dichotomies lock the relating process and hinder a critical and progressive education.

Besides the relationships between teachers and students, another, more subtle, form of affectivity manifestation is the little nothings (SATYRO, 2018SATYRO, Diego. Estratégias de ensino de língua inglesa e afetividade na EJA: olhares múltiplos. 2018. 286 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2018.)17 17 When I suggested the metaphor little nothings to describe the subtle, but affectively powerful interactions between English language teachers and students, I did not know the Portuguese song “A vida é feita de pequenos nadas” (“Life is made of little nothings”, in a free translation), by the pop singer and song writer Sérgio Godinho. The song has a political discourse and highlights values such as friendship and camaraderie. The song can be listened to online: https://bit.ly/3gyCzwI (access on: April 7, 2021). This connection puts in evidence, I strongly believe, the dialogic nature of language. . This notion arose from reading an account written by the Brazilian educator about his experience as a student in adolescence (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.). After handing a text to a demanding Portuguese Language teacher, the young Paulo Freire received a gesture of approval from his master: a simple (but powerfully meaningful) nod of the head.

Examining this situation, the author realizes how this gesture was etched in his memory. Gestures like this characterize the little nothings. They are associated with attitudes of “socializing [...] and informal character” (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., p. 19)18 18 Original text: “caráter socializante [...] e informal” (FREIRE, 2002, p. 19). , which, for the author, should be discussed in teacher training courses. Exemplifying this notion, I understand that everyday compliments, smiles, and even the way of welcoming students at the beginning of class are materializations of little nothings.

In summary, based on the works reviewed (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.), I understand affectivity to be integrated into a system of which politics, cognition, and action are components. For these components to systematically operate, it is necessary to produce affectivity in the relationships between teachers and students. This production requires dialog and respect and can be manifested in quotidian classroom situations, such as the little nothings.

After presenting Paulo Freire’s ideas on affectivity, I will initiate the discussion about emotions and agency in the field of Applied Linguistics. However, this topic entails another subsidiary discussion: what are emotions, after all? And how about agency? Have scholars reached a consensus on these terms? A straight answer to these questions is ‘no’. In what follows, I will then define these terms, before showing their possible associations.

2.3 Affectivity in and as agency

For Freire (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.), affectivity is expressed in actions, manifested in the form of dialog and what I have called little nothings (SATYRO, 2018SATYRO, Diego. Estratégias de ensino de língua inglesa e afetividade na EJA: olhares múltiplos. 2018. 286 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2018.). Conscious of this, I move on to associate the author’s ideas with the concept of agency, according to Haggard & Tsakiris (2009HAGGARD, Patrick; TSAKIRIS, Manos. The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and Responsibility. Current Directions in Psychological Science, New York, v. 18, n. 4,p. 242-246, 2009. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01644.x.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009...
), Edwards (2015EDWARDS, Anne. Recognising and realising teachers’ professional agency. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, London, v. 21,n. 6, p. 779-784, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044333.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015....
), White (2016WHITE, Cynthia Joan. Agency and Emotion in Narrative Accounts of Emergent Conflict in an L2 Classroom. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 39, issue 4, p. 579-598, set. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026...
), Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
), Miller et al. (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; KAYI-AYDAR, Hayriye; VARGHESE, Manka; VITANOVA, Gergana. Editors’ introduction to interdisciplinarity in language teacher agency: Theoretical and analytical explorations. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-6, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.07.008.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.07...
), and Miller & Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
). From reading these researchers, I differentiate affectivity in agency from affectivity as agency.

Bagno (2017BAGNO, Marcos. Dicionário crítico de sociolinguística. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2017.), a Brazilian sociolinguist, suggests that the use of the term agency in language studies comes from English sociology. Agency is the ability of the individual to act amidst the social structures, reproducing and transforming them (BAGNO, 2017BAGNO, Marcos. Dicionário crítico de sociolinguística. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2017.). For Haggard and Tsakiris (2009HAGGARD, Patrick; TSAKIRIS, Manos. The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and Responsibility. Current Directions in Psychological Science, New York, v. 18, n. 4,p. 242-246, 2009. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01644.x.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009...
, p. 242), experimental psychologists, agency “refers to a person’s ability to control their actions and, through them, events in the external world”. Action resulting from agency, therefore, calls for awareness and anticipation, according to these authors.

Similarly, Edwards (2015EDWARDS, Anne. Recognising and realising teachers’ professional agency. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, London, v. 21,n. 6, p. 779-784, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044333.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015....
), a researcher in the field of Education, relates the teachers’ agency to their decision-making power. Agentive professionals evaluate their choices and act guided by a commitment to social responsibility. Additionally, Edwards (2015EDWARDS, Anne. Recognising and realising teachers’ professional agency. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, London, v. 21,n. 6, p. 779-784, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044333.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015....
) argues that to make such choices, teachers need to recognize social and educational demands. Agency, thus, follows from the dialectic between the needs of conscious professional practice and teachers’ actions.

Based on the mentioned authors, I raise some points to establish the relationship between agency and affectivity. One of them is the need for the professional to be conscious of his/her actions. This means that the agentive teacher knows that affectivity constitutes, influences, and changes the teaching-learning process. Another point is the recognition of the production of affectivity as a demand. If this issue is treated as something fortuitous, determined by nuances of affinities, there will be no dialectic between the conscious professional practice and the teacher’s actions.

As for the teaching of English as an additional language, the links between agency and emotions have been put forth by some applied linguists: White (2016WHITE, Cynthia Joan. Agency and Emotion in Narrative Accounts of Emergent Conflict in an L2 Classroom. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 39, issue 4, p. 579-598, set. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026...
), Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
), Miller et al. (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; KAYI-AYDAR, Hayriye; VARGHESE, Manka; VITANOVA, Gergana. Editors’ introduction to interdisciplinarity in language teacher agency: Theoretical and analytical explorations. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-6, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.07.008.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.07...
), and Miller & Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
).At this point, I need to take a digression: these researchers do not use the term affectivity, but emotions. Similarly to the discussion about the term affectivity, there is no rigid definition for emotion, which resonates in Silva e Barcelos’ (2021SILVA, Jamylla Barbosa; BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira. Desvelando a paixão pelo ensino de professores de inglês em formação inicial. Revista X, Curitiba, v. 16, p. 381-408, 2021. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/article/view/77263 . Acesso em: 5 set. 2021.
https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/articl...
, p. 383) comment: “There are several definitions for the complex concept of emotions”19 19 Original text: “Existem várias definições para o complexo conceito de emoções” (SILVA; BARCELOS, 2021, p. 383) . Furthermore, the adoption of this term can be partially explained by the discipline, language, and culture from which this theoretical construct derives.

As reported by Candido Ribeiro (2012CANDIDO RIBEIRO, Douglas. Estados afetivos de professoras de Língua Inglesa em formação inicial. 2012. 140 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Letras) - Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa-MG, 2012. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4854 . Acesso em: 4 set. 2021.
https://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/12345678...
), English-speaking researchers in the field of Education mostly employ the term emotion(s), not affectivity, in their texts20 20 See Candido Ribeiro (2012, p. 20)’s analysis to know this discussion in detail. . Damásio (1994DAMÁSIO, António R. Descartes’s error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Avon Books, 1994.), a neuroscientist, also uses emotion (and feeling) in his study, published originally in English21 21 Considering the literature reviewed for this work, I emphasize Damásio’s (1994) study. Unlike the researched educators or applied linguists, Damásio (1994) precisely differentiates emotion from feeling. Roughly speaking, an emotion is a set of body states alterations attached to certain mental images. A feeling is the experience of living an emotion. In the author’s words, “if an emotion is a collection of changes in body state connected to particular mental images that have activated a specific brain system, the essence of feeling an emotion is the experience of such changes in juxtaposition to the mental images that initiated the cycle” (DAMÁSIO, 1994, p. 145, author’s italics). . In North-American sociology, Hochschild (1979HOCHSCHILD, Arlie Russell. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology, Chigado, v. 85, n. 3, p. 551-575, nov. 1979. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://bit.ly/2Vl3hk7 . Acesso em: 6 set. 2021.
https://bit.ly/2Vl3hk7...
) coins the term emotion work, which has triggered discussions by Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) and Miller & Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) in the field of Applied Linguistics. In brief, given the transdisciplinary nature of the research in the applied studies of language (SIGNORINI & CAVALCANTI, 1999SIGNORINI, Inês; CAVALCANTI, Marilda. Introdução. In: SIGNORINI, Inês; CAVALCANTI, Marilda (org.). Linguística Aplicada e Transdisciplinaridade: questões e perspectivas. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras, 1999.), I believe that the influence of English-speaking scholars attached to the ‘emotions studies’ can be perceived in the work of some national and international applied linguists. In Brazil, some examples are Barcelos, A. & Silva, D. (2015BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira; SILVA, Denize Dinamarque da. Crença e emoções de professores de inglês em serviço. Contexturas, Belo Horizonte, v. 24, p. 6-19, 2015. ISSN: 0104-7485.), Barcelos, A. (2020BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira. Revolutionary Love and Peace in the Construction of an English Teacher’s Professional Identity. In: OXFORD, Rebecca L.; OLIVERO, María Matilde; HARRISON, Melinda; GREGERSEN, Tammy (org.). Peacebuilding in Language Education: Innovations in Theory and Practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2020. v. 1, p. 96-109.), and Barcelos, A. & Silva, J. (2021)22 22 It is interesting to notice the co-existence of terms affectivity and emotion(s) in the book edited by Mastrella-de-Andrade (2011), whose chapters were written by Brazilian applied linguists. Maybe the confluence of these terms reveals not just different scholarly perspectives, but a characteristic of the research recently carried out in Brazil. .

Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
, p. 2) states that emotions are “physically-manifested, but socially-constructed”. Also, in line with Silva and Barcelos (2021SILVA, Jamylla Barbosa; BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira. Desvelando a paixão pelo ensino de professores de inglês em formação inicial. Revista X, Curitiba, v. 16, p. 381-408, 2021. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/article/view/77263 . Acesso em: 5 set. 2021.
https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/articl...
), emotions are discursively produced, constituting one’s identity. In this framework, it is possible to investigate teachers’ and students’ emotions through their language uses. The works of White (2016WHITE, Cynthia Joan. Agency and Emotion in Narrative Accounts of Emergent Conflict in an L2 Classroom. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 39, issue 4, p. 579-598, set. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026...
) and Miller & Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) go in the same direction: to these applied linguists, emotions are socio-historically and dialogically constructed, through the relationships between actors. Teacher agency, in this case, is not tied to personality characteristics. According to Miller and Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
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), teachers invest in students’ relationships and emotions; there is, thus, a conscious choice in the educator’s action.

Admitting that there are conceptual differences between affectivity and emotions, I do mobilize both terms. In my view, emotions are a sort of affect and, therefore, a component of affectivity, a more comprehensive concept. In using affectivity in the title of this article, however, more than a preference over emotions, I share my scholarly affiliation to Paulo Freire’s ideas and his interlocutors in the field of Brazilian Education (ALMEIDA, 2012aALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. A pesquisa sobre afetividade, aprendizagem e educação de jovens e adultos: explicitando por que, para que e como. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de (org.). Afetividade, aprendizagem e educação de jovens e adultos: relatos de pesquisa na perspectiva de Henri Wallon. São Paulo: Loyola , 2012a. p. 11-28.; ARROYO, 2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50.; BARCELOS, V., 2012BARCELOS, Valdo. Educação de jovens e adultos: currículos e práticas pedagógicas. 3. ed. Petrópolis, RJ. Vozes, 2012.; DALLA VECCHIA, 2016; GIOVANETTI, 2011GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro. A formação de educadores de EJA: o legado da educação popular. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 243-254.; LEITE, 2013LEITE, Sérgio Antônio da Silva. Afetividade e letramento na alfabetização de adultos. In: LEITE, Sérgio Antônio da Silva (org.). Afetividade e letramento na educação de jovens e adultos. São Paulo: Cortez , 2013. p. 19-62.; OLIVEIRA, 1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe...
; SOARES, 2011SOARES, Leôncio. Do direito à educação à formação do educador de jovens e adultos. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 273-289.). Following this digression, I will return to the discussion about agency.

In agreement with Miller et al. (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; KAYI-AYDAR, Hayriye; VARGHESE, Manka; VITANOVA, Gergana. Editors’ introduction to interdisciplinarity in language teacher agency: Theoretical and analytical explorations. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-6, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.07.008.
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), the term agency encompasses two dimensions: an internal and an external dimension. The external dimension includes political and social aspects of the educational practice. The internal dimension refers to teachers’ investments in their relationships with students. For these researchers, once again, the relational factor is fundamental to the English language teaching-learning process.

Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
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) addresses emotions as agentive signals or guides, in a poststructuralist discursive approach. In her study, the author “explores teachers’ emotions as agency” (BENESCH, 2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
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, p. 1, emphasis added). From this perspective, emotions indicate conditions that may be unjust and unequal. Realizing this, agentive professionals can transform their reality.

This transformation, however, is not devoid of political and identity-wise conflicts. To address this issue, Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) and Miller & Gnokou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
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) draw on the concept of feeling rules, developed by Hochschild (1979HOCHSCHILD, Arlie Russell. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology, Chigado, v. 85, n. 3, p. 551-575, nov. 1979. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://bit.ly/2Vl3hk7 . Acesso em: 6 set. 2021.
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). Feeling rules are “a set of socially shared, albeit often latent (not though about unless probed at) rules” (HOCHSCHILD, 1979HOCHSCHILD, Arlie Russell. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology, Chigado, v. 85, n. 3, p. 551-575, nov. 1979. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://bit.ly/2Vl3hk7 . Acesso em: 6 set. 2021.
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, p. 583). They are institutional regulations that work as social guidelines to legitimize how (and I would add, what) people (are allowed to) feel.

Feeling rules constitute the social structures in which teachers act. Being an educator and getting angry or unmotivated can be seen by some school actors (e.g., students, teacher’s coordinator, and principal) as illegitimate with respect to teachers’ attributions. However, who decides whether a feeling is legitimate? Additionally, could feeling angry at the school system not be a resource to an educational change at school? Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) and Miller & Gnokou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
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) discuss these topics mobilizing both emotions, feeling rules, and agency. In the research reported in this article, I do not focus on feeling rules, although I acknowledge the explanative potential of this construct.

In summary, White (2016WHITE, Cynthia Joan. Agency and Emotion in Narrative Accounts of Emergent Conflict in an L2 Classroom. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 39, issue 4, p. 579-598, set. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026...
), Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
), Miller et al. (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; KAYI-AYDAR, Hayriye; VARGHESE, Manka; VITANOVA, Gergana. Editors’ introduction to interdisciplinarity in language teacher agency: Theoretical and analytical explorations. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-6, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.07.008.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.07...
) and Miller & Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
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) argue for the influence of emotions on the English as an additional language teachers’ agency. According to the authors, positive interpersonal relationships facilitate the learning process and serve as resources for educators’ agency.

Facing these ideas, I differentiate two nexuses between affectivity and agency: 1) affectivity in agency; 2) affectivity as agency. Sumarizing Freire’s ideas (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.), I understand that affectivity is inseparable from knowledge and interpersonal relationships between teachers and students. In my view, the teacher’s ability to act is always mediated by the affect that constitutes him/her and that is produced in the school space.

It would not be possible, therefore, to insulate affectivity, leaving it outside the classroom. It is permeating the whole teaching-learning process, in a constant dialog between the one who teaches and the one who learns. The agentive teacher reacts to the affective or emotional signals of his/her students. Consequently, teachers do not make any choice ‘bare’ of affect. Therefore, I argue that there is affectivity in agency.

Nevertheless, considering the logocentric tradition of teacher education, based on dichotomies, such as mind/body, and the primacy of cognition, it is possible that agentive professionals consider affectivity a secondary or accessory role. This would not invalidate the teacher’s decision-making power, but it could limit his/her ability to judge what to do in certain situations and contexts.

In contrast to affectivity in agency, affectivity as agency depends on the recognition and appreciation of the role played by affectivity in the English language teaching-learning process. In this case, agentive teachers would not only use interpersonal relationships as resources, but also link affectivity to a broader view of education, society, and politics. In affectivity as agency, the classroom and the school walls are, therefore, overcome. Affectivity, in this case, enables teachers’ action for something more complex than effective teaching, encompassing a political stance. This way, affectivity as agency might be the path that leads educators to a social change, in which love, respect and humanization would be at the core of society.

3 Methodology

This research is qualitative and interpretative in nature. According to Bortoni-Ricardo (2008BORTONI-RICARDO, Stella Maris. O professor pesquisador: introdução à pesquisa qualitativa. São Paulo: Parábola, 2008.) and Miller, I. (2013MILLER, Inés Kayon de. Formação de professores de línguas: da eficiência à reflexão críticaeética. In: LOPES, Luis Paulo da Moita (org.). Linguística Aplicada na modernidade recente: festchrift para Antonieta Celani. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2013. p. 99-121.), (applied) linguists, this paradigm enables the explanation of what happens in the classroom considering the personal perspectives of the participants themselves. In addition, it allows the researcher to relate the actions of the actors to broader contexts, such as the school and the community.

The research method is the case study, according to Leffa (2006LEFFA, Vilson José. Aprendizagem de línguas mediada por computador. In: LEFFA, José Vilson (org.). Pesquisa em Linguística Aplicada: emas e métodos. Pelotas: Educat, 2006. p. 05-30.), André (2008ANDRÉ, Marli Eliza Dalmazo Afonso de. Estudo de caso em pesquisa e avaliação educacional. 3. ed. Brasília: Liber Libro Editora, 2008.) and Yin (2015YIN, Robert K. Estudo de caso: planejamento e método. Trad.: Cristhian Matheus Herrera. 5. ed. Porto Alegre: Bookman, 2015., 2016YIN, Robert. Pesquisa qualitativa do início ao fim. Trad.: Daniel Bueno. Revisão técnica: Dirceu da Silva. Porto Alegre: Penso, 2016.). In Leffa’s (2006LEFFA, Vilson José. Aprendizagem de línguas mediada por computador. In: LEFFA, José Vilson (org.). Pesquisa em Linguística Aplicada: emas e métodos. Pelotas: Educat, 2006. p. 05-30., p. 14) view, a case study “is the in-depth and exhaustive investigation of a participant or small group”23 23 Original text: “é a investigação profunda e exaustiva de um participante ou pequeno grupo” (LEFFA, 2006, p. 14). .For Yin (2015YIN, Robert K. Estudo de caso: planejamento e método. Trad.: Cristhian Matheus Herrera. 5. ed. Porto Alegre: Bookman, 2015.), this method is pertinent when the contours between the phenomenon and the context are difficult to identify.

As for the type of case study, two criteria were raised: (i) the relationship between the method and the data analysis; (ii) the number of participants. Regarding the first criterion, Leffa (2006LEFFA, Vilson José. Aprendizagem de línguas mediada por computador. In: LEFFA, José Vilson (org.). Pesquisa em Linguística Aplicada: emas e métodos. Pelotas: Educat, 2006. p. 05-30.) presents three examples of case studies: exploratory (with emphasis on hypothesis testing), descriptive (with emphasis on description) and explanatory (with emphasis on description and interpretation). Considering the objective of this work24 24 To interpret some relationships between affectivity and English as an additional language teachers’ agency in Youth and Adult Education courses (equivalent to junior high school). , the explanatory type was chosen.

Regarding the number of participants, this is a collective case study, with instrumental purpose, in line with André’s (2008ANDRÉ, Marli Eliza Dalmazo Afonso de. Estudo de caso em pesquisa e avaliação educacional. 3. ed. Brasília: Liber Libro Editora, 2008.) proposal. For this author, in this format, the main interest of the researcher does not lie in a specific case (e.g., a group of teachers from a particular school), but in what a case can elucidate about a certain phenomenon.

The delimitations of this collective case study (YIN, 2015YIN, Robert K. Estudo de caso: planejamento e método. Trad.: Cristhian Matheus Herrera. 5. ed. Porto Alegre: Bookman, 2015.) are as follows: spatially, the investigated space is the English language classroom in Youth and Adult Education evening courses; temporally, the field research was conducted during September and December, 2016.

The research context is two municipal public schools, in São Bernardo do Campo (in the state of São Paulo, Brazil). They will be called Anísio Teixeira School and Darcy Ribeiro School25 25 Fictitious names. The characteristics of the two schools, in terms of geography, history, and infrastructure, can be found in the dissertation that generated this article (see SATYRO, 2018). . Both are in the outskirts of the city and offer Youth and Educational courses only at night, from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Regarding the specificities of the English Language subject, it is important to highlight its weekly studying hours. There was only one 50-minute class per week. Considering how Youth and Adult Education courses work26 26 In 2016, each Youth and Adult Education module was offered during one school semester, lasting four months, considering vacation and recess periods. This course, consisting of 16 weeks, was called Term. For the junior high school program, there were four Terms/semesters: 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, equivalent to 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grades, respectively, in comparison to the regular sequential education (a four-year program). , it is possible to estimate that in one semester there were a maximum of 16 meetings or 14 class hours.

The participants were contacted by the researcher in a teacher training session provided by the education network of the municipality, in August 2016. At this meeting, after the presentation of the research project, teachers Eliane and Giovanna27 27 Fictitious names, chosen by the participants. agreed to participate in the study. The following month, they signed the Informed Consent Form.

As for the profile of the two participants, teacher Eliane was 30 years old and teacher Giovanna was 40 years old. Both held a degree in Portuguese/English and, at the time of the research, had been working in Youth and Adult Education courses for five years. Similarly, both participants had previous professional experiences in language centers and had been English teachers for less than ten years.

The instruments for data collection were an online questionnaire to know the profile of the participants; video recordings of English language classes; informal conversations in the field28 28 The participants authorized the use of data collected in informal conversations.These conversations took place in the school itself, in the schoolyard, in the hallways, in the teachers’ room, in the kitchen, or in the library, while we were walking around the building or preparing ourselves for the interviews. However, this material was not recorded since it was not an interview. , and semi-structured interviews. Regarding the transcription of the audio/video recording, I followed Bortoni-Ricardo’s (2008BORTONI-RICARDO, Stella Maris. O professor pesquisador: introdução à pesquisa qualitativa. São Paulo: Parábola, 2008.) guidelines. Since this is interpretative research, the transcription does not show details related to prosody or phonetic-phonological aspects.

For the video recording of the classes, a semi-professional camcorder with a microphone was used. Five classes were filmed by the researcher: two of them were conducted for the 8th grade by teacher Eliane; and three of them, for the 5th, 7th, and 8th grades, were given by teacher Giovanna. The filming took place on four different days during the month of November.

As for the interviews, four sessions were audio recorded. Each participant was interviewed twice. The first interview occurred before the video recording of the classes, and the second, after the filming. In total, just over an hour of interview time was audio recorded with each participant.

Finally, to discuss the data, categories were raised, as indicated by André (2006), Almeida (2012ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. O coordenador pedagógico e a questão do cuidar. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de; PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e questões da contemporaneidade. 6. ed. São Paulo: Loyola, 2012, p. 41-60.), and Leite (2013LEITE, Sérgio Antônio da Silva. Afetividade e letramento na alfabetização de adultos. In: LEITE, Sérgio Antônio da Silva (org.). Afetividade e letramento na educação de jovens e adultos. São Paulo: Cortez , 2013. p. 19-62.). For the development of these categories or “units of meaning” (ALMEIDA, 2012ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. O coordenador pedagógico e a questão do cuidar. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de; PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e questões da contemporaneidade. 6. ed. São Paulo: Loyola, 2012, p. 41-60., p. 24)29 29 Original text: “unidades de significado” (ALMEIDA, 2012, p. 24). , the interpretative steps were: reading, rereading, and coding the data. The proposed categories are: (i) the little nothings, (ii) the relationships between teachers and students, and (iii) the personal perspectives on the role played by affectivity in the teaching-learning process.

4 Data Discussion

Initially, to introduce the following categories, I have adopted these criteria: preliminarily, episodes or scenes from the classroom; afterwards, excerpts from interviews with the participants. I will now present the categories of analysis.

4.1 The little nothings

As I presented in the theoretical section, the little nothings are materializations of affectivity, according to Freire’s (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.) pedagogy. They are informal, apparently unpretentious actions that motivate and engage students. Below, I present an episode of interaction between a participant, teacher Eliane, and her student. The context is an 8th grade class at school Anísio Teixeira School, on November 10. There are 15 students in the classroom. Most of them are young. At this moment, the teacher has just written on the blackboard her teaching objective for that evening.

Excerpt 1

The mentioned student, “Gabi”, was sitting in front of the teacher.She did not look directly towards the teacher. She kept her eyes down, staring at her school supplies. When she heard her name, “Gabi” looked at the teacher and changed her stance. The student seemed to start paying more attention to what the teacher was saying.

In teacher Eliane’s gesture, there is an example of little nothings.She recognized a demand in those first minutes of class: to welcome a student who had probably dropped out of a Youth and Adults Education course in another semester, as indicated by the expression “it’s been a long time, right?”.

I could observe another example of little nothings in Giovanna’s actions. In a 5th grade class, the participant asked a student to write on the blackboard because she had “pretty handwriting.” The student initially replied: “Me?”. To her, that invitation sounded absurd. Motivating the student, the teacher replied, “Yeah. Come (smiling). Come, here, write the translation [...]”. The student, a woman over 40, went to the board and wrote, with the teacher’s help, video store (locadora, in Brazilian Portuguese).

In the educational action of the two participants, I found some little nothings, expressed in the form of smiles, compliments, and jokes. Based on Freire (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.), I do not see in these gestures mere classroom management strategies, or motivation techniques, but, above all, a recognition of the students’ existences. They are not only individuals in the classroom, but persons with their histories, likes, dislikes, potentials, and difficulties.

As the works of Arroyo (2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50.), Dayrell (2011DAYRELL, Juarez Tarcísio. A juventude e a Educação de Jovens e Adultos: reflexões iniciais - novos sujeitos. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 54-68.), and Jardilino and Araújo (2014JARDILINO, José Rubens Lima; ARAÚJO, Regina Magna Bonifácio de. Educação de Jovens e Adultos: sujeitos, saberes e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 2014.) show, these students often ‘pass through’ night school.They do not create bonds easily, because they feel shame and fear, reflections of their previous experiences with the school institution (BARCELOS, V., 2012BARCELOS, Valdo. Educação de jovens e adultos: currículos e práticas pedagógicas. 3. ed. Petrópolis, RJ. Vozes, 2012.). However, I noticed that, in teachers Eliane and Giovanna’s groups, students were seen, recognized, and called by their own names.

For Freire (2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.), when the teacher makes a point of calling the students by their names, it demonstrates, more than a formality, care. In our culture, the proper name constitutes people’s identity. In the context of the English class in Youth and Adult Education courses, due to the poor weekly studying hours, I expected that teachers would face difficulty in memorizing the students’ names. Notwithstanding the limited hours, they managed to know every student by his/her name.

Similarly, the care behind the little nothings can be interpreted as an investment in the relationships between teachers and students. Furthermore, assuming that the little nothings are signs of conscious and intentional work, it is appropriate to relate them to aspects of the participants’ agency.

In this direction, which articulates the little nothings to teacher agency, I understand that teacher Eliane did not simply want to be nice, when she interrupted her explanation to talk to the student (see Excerpt 1). The educator wanted to guarantee visibility to that student, because she interpreted her posture and realized that she, “Gabi,” needed to feel welcomed. Therefore, she preferred to call her by a nickname.Such a lexical choice dialogically emphasized a relationship of positive affect between educator and student. From this point of view, the little nothings can be interpreted as the surface of an agentive competence.

In the next subsection, I will exploit what lies beneath the little nothings: the relationships.

4.2 Relationship between teachers and students

If the little nothings are the tip of the iceberg, the submerged part of the large floating mass of ice are the interpersonal relationships between teachers and students. I start from the premise that the classroom is a space of coexistence, where relationships are established. The essence of this co-existence is affectivity, which does not mean that these relationships are necessarily harmonious, healthy, and enduring. They are affected and affecting, in a dynamic loop, in which there is nothing fixed or permanent. Affectivity, as we discussed, is enmeshed in the context. As the classroom dynamics change, the relationships change as well.

Therefore, in an English language class, the teacher affects his/her students all the time, just as he/she is also affected by the students’ actions. From this perspective, influenced by Freire’s (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.) ideas, I consider positive relationships those which engage teachers and students in their teaching-learning process32 32 I am aware, however, that by ‘positive’, and its implicit opposite, ‘negative’, I tend to be subjective, which is not my intention. Maybe future studies can address this question, problematizing the way scholars can qualify teachers and students’ relationships. .

To support this argument, I present the excerpt below. The context is an 8th grade class at school Darcy Ribeiro School, on November 08. There are 11 students in the classroom. While they are doing a reading activity, Rodrigo, who is quite young, asks the teacher for assistance.

Excerpt 2

Prior to this episode, another situation had occurred. As soon as we (the teacher and I) arrived in the classroom, we were told by some students that Rodrigo was at school and that he knew the time English class would start. The students added: “he is smoking downstairs”. Teacher Giovanna slowly nodded her head.

When Rodrigo returned to class, the teacher stopped her instructions and handed him the printed activity. In his seat, the student seemed to have difficulty in doing the task with a classmate (the teacher had organized the students in pairs). From the back of the room, I could see Rodrigo’s uneasiness. I also observed that teacher Giovanna was helping the students in pairs and was attentive to the young man’s posture.

At the moment the student asked for help (see turn 1), the educator used that request as an opportunity to strengthen the affective bond. By employing the additional language (see turn 2), more than offering linguistic input, the participant broke the ice. She signaled to Rodrigo that the dialog was open between them.

I consider that teacher Giovanna’s stance was inclusive. Perhaps, Rodrigo realized the consequence of his delay. He felt lost in trying to do the English activity.Additionally, we must remember that this is an English language class. Although the students used to speak Brazilian Portuguese (L1), most of the time, the task mobilized additional language resources in the written modality. Teacher Giovanna was sensitive to the student’s difficulty and invested in the affectivity. This investment might have been relationship-centered, but it comprehended the language. This way, English was not a mere medium of communication; it was also a resource to bring teacher and students closer.

Returning to the studies on emotions and agency, according to White (2016WHITE, Cynthia Joan. Agency and Emotion in Narrative Accounts of Emergent Conflict in an L2 Classroom. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 39, issue 4, p. 579-598, set. 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amw026...
), Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) and Miller & Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
), another point can be raised from excerpt 2: the construction of emotions themselves. For these researchers, emotions are socio-historically elaborated by social actors. Thus, joy, signaled in the form of applause and laughter (turn 5), would be the fruit of dialogic work, initiated by teacher Giovanna (turn 2).

As supported by Freire (2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.), joy cannot be separated from the experience of learning. Taking this position as true, I understand that teacher Giovanna’s action had a direct impact on the learning process. As a hypothetical interpretation, expanding the episode of interaction (Excerpt 2) discussed, I claim that joy would not lie only in the conviviality among people, but also in the recognition that it is possible to learn an additional language, at any age and social class. Besides, students can live joy in the English language learning process, what recursively promotes joy to the teacher involved in this activity. In the future, empirical studies can investigate this ‘affective loop’ in teachers and students’ interaction.

Considering the specificities of Youth and Adult Educations courses, I agree with Arroyo (2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50.) about the importance of a happy and colorful school. The author compares the harshness of Youth and Adult Education students’ lives to the coldness of some night schools in Brazil. According to the author, it is necessary to offer these students a counterpart, so that they do not give up on formal education. Such an initiative necessarily involves building positive interpersonal relationships, something that was in teachers Eliane and Giovanna’s horizon.

In what follows, I will present and interpret what the participants say about the role played by affectivity in their daily practice.

4.3 Personal perspectives on the role of affectivity in the teaching-learning process

The little nothings and the positive interpersonal relationships with students are resources mobilized by teachers Eliane and Giovanna.But what do these educators say about the role played by affectivity in the English language teaching-learning process in Youth and Adult Education? The following excerpts address this question. The first one was taken from the second interview with teacher Eliane, conducted in December 2016:

Excerpt 3

For teacher Eliane, affectivity is integrated into the everyday life at school. In turn 2, when referring to this theme, she uses the personal pronoun “we”, which points to a collective context, broader than the English language classroom. “We” possibly encompasses other school actors, such as teachers, teachers’ coordinator, school staff and the principal. Notwithstanding this acknowledgement, the influence of affectivity in the educational process is seen in a contradictory way. On the one hand, there is the need to be constantly welcoming to students, considering their personal trajectories and the social exclusion they face; on the other hand, there are the students’ difficulties in committing themselves to the teaching-learning process. Teacher Eliane posits herself in the middle of this affective battle.

I synthesize the importance of welcoming the students, in teacher Eliane’s view, in this conceptual metaphor, derived from her words: THE MUNICIPAL YOUTH AND ADULT EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL IS A MOTHER. With this image in mind, the participant criticizes the structure of the institution itself - a structure of which she is a part, what can justify the use of “we”, previously. Just like a mother, the school could make some mistakes by excesses. In this case, the excesses are associated with the flexible policy adopted by the school system (e.g., the ‘condescending’ attitude towards students’ absences and lateness)36 36 Due to space limitations, I will not deal in this article with the institutional flexibilities provided by the participating schools.I understand, however, that this is a pertinent discussion when researching aspects of Youth and Adult Education courses. In many cases, the students are not able to commit to the school routine, because of their own survival. It is possible, from my point of view, to view this routine as a “limit-situation” (see FREIRE, 2005, p. 99 or FREIRE, 2016, p. 126) for some learners. .

The contradiction viewed by teacher Eliane does not deny the influx of affectivity in the teaching-learning process. She is very clear when she acknowledges, for instance, the role played by motivation (e.g., “he or she didn’t come that day, you have to encourage him or her”). In this excerpt, I view an encounter between what is said and what is done in the classroom (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.). There is coherence between what the teacher claims to value and what was observed in class, as shown in Excerpt 1.

Teacher Elaine’s account shows, then, how agency is not devoid of contradictions. For the educator, the school is tolerating students’ inappropriate attitudes. Nevertheless, the participant does not create the school regulations; actually, she is regulated by them. At the same time, she has an ethical and personal commitment to the students’ engagement in learning. In other words, her agency is crossed by a conflict between (i) the desire for more institutional rigor and an increasing interest on the part of the students versus (ii) her willingness to include every person in the teaching-learning process, regardless the concrete conditions. This conflictive nature of agency can demonstrate how difficult it is to choose what to do and how to do anything in classroom.Also, I suppose this account sheds light on a sensitive issue: the ‘affective exigency’ with which teachers live, when they must juggle several demands, from the institution, the students, and themselves.

Another element that can be identified in excerpt 3 is the dialog (see FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016. or FREIRE, 2005FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of the opressed. Trad.: Myra Bergman Ramos. Intr.: Donaldo Macedo. Nova York: Londres: Continuum, 2005.; ZANARDO, 2017ZANARDO, Nivia Dantas Ribeiro. O Currículo crítico-libertador respondendo aos desafios do contexto intergeracional nas salas da EJA. 2017. 124 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação: Currículo) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2017.) between the teacher and her students. This factor can also be found in the next excerpt.Like teacher Elaine’s account, teacher Giovanna links the importance of affectivity in the English language teaching-learning process with the students’ historicity. The following excerpt is part of the second interview with the participant in December 2016:

Excerpt 4

This interview was conducted after a few months of interaction between the participant and me. At the end of this period, there was an apparent change in the teacher’s consciousness (turn 1). Previously, for Giovanna, affectivity was synonymous to being ‘kind’ to students, an “individual or personality factor” (ARNOLD, 2011ARNOLD, Jane. Attention to Affect in Language Learning. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, Heidelberg, v. 22, issue 1, p. 11-22, 2011., p. 13). She was even suspicious of my research goal, when I initially told her that what I was trying to demonstrate (i.e., the connection between affectivity and agency). With the development of the research, her overview changed. She began to recognize affectivity as an inseparable component of the teaching-learning process in Youth and Adult Education.

Regarding this shift in perspective, I return to the discussion of Haggard and Tsakiris (2009HAGGARD, Patrick; TSAKIRIS, Manos. The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and Responsibility. Current Directions in Psychological Science, New York, v. 18, n. 4,p. 242-246, 2009. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01644.x.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009...
) and Edwards (2015EDWARDS, Anne. Recognising and realising teachers’ professional agency. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, London, v. 21,n. 6, p. 779-784, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044333.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015....
). Although these researchers come from different fields and disciplines, for both, agency predicts awareness of the decisions made and likely to be made. Applying these ideas in teacher Giovanna’s account, it appears that she became more aware of the facilitative role played by affectivity in the teaching-learning process. The depth of her awareness, however, seems to be guided by a logic of teaching effectiveness, and not by a social problematization, in which affectivity is viewed as a resource for social change (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., 2014FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da tolerância. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2014., 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017.).

After the data discussion, I will summarize the research theoretical contributions in the next and final section.

Final remarks

Teachers Eliane and Giovanna’s affectivity in the agency is the result of a dialogic process (see FREIRE, 2005FREIRE, Paulo. Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare teach. Trad.: Donaldo Macedo, Dale Koike e Alexandre Oliveira. Boulder: Westview Press, 2005. or FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.) mainly (but not exclusively) between them, educators, and the Youth and Adult Education learners. On the horizon of these professionals lie the students’ existence. They, the teachers, recognize the learners’ difficulties to survive in vulnerable conditions and seek ways to include them in the educational action.These ways are the little nothing materializations and the construction of affective bonds or positive interpersonal relationships.

The emphasis on interpersonal relationships shows the facilitating factor of positive affectivity in the English language teaching-learning process. This conclusion corroborates the findings of Benesch (2018BENESCH, Sarah. Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’decision-making. System, Ansterdan, n. 79,p. 1-10, jul. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.03.15.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) and Miller and Gkonou (2018MILLER, Elizabeth R.; GKONOU, Christina. Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs. System, Amsterdam, n. 79, p. 1-11, jul. 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.002.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03...
) on the articulation between emotions and agency. That is: agentive teachers make choices, taking into consideration the students’ affect. They, educators, do not act upon their wishes, desires or regulations, disconnected from what students feel and how they feel.

However, the research suggests that the effort in trying to include these students, which emerges in agency, does not deal completely nor specially with positive emotions, such as joy, happiness, or a sense of fulfillment. Affectivity is not a value-led judgment. It is a capacity to affect and be affected. Therefore, the orientations of affect can be diverse and point to positive or negative experiences. In other words, the link between affectivity and agency reveals contradictions: on one side, there is the need to constantly welcome and motivate students; on the other side, there is discomfort and unease, considering the concrete conditions for teaching.

I also return to the contrast between affectivity in agency and affectivity as agency. The research findings make clear the presence of affectivity in agency. Moreover, during the development of the study, the participants became more aware of the role played by affectivity in teaching English, which could have pointed to affectivity as agency.However, in both teachers’ accounts, there is no evidence of a broader conception of education, which envisions affectivity as fuel for social change.

I believe that affectivity as agency is an eminently political process. The construction of positive affective bonds would not only facilitate, in this case, the learning of additional languages (what can be viewed as affectivity in agency), but would strengthen bonds of solidarity and social justice, in the sense of humanization (see FREIRE, 2005FREIRE, Paulo. Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare teach. Trad.: Donaldo Macedo, Dale Koike e Alexandre Oliveira. Boulder: Westview Press, 2005. or FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016.). In my view, future research can highlight the links between affectivity, agency, and the political vision of situated educational projects.

Finally, I think that the lack of connection between affectivity, agency, and politics can be explained by two disconnections: (i) the overall relationship between affectivity and the teaching-learning process and (ii) the link between education and politics. These disconnections roll by together, in line with the logocentric and supposedly neutral teacher education logic.This is not, then, a specific problem related to the influence of affectivity in the teaching-learning process of English as an additional language. These disconnections affect education in general. Future studies might explore (language) teacher education projects that address these issues.

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  • ZANARDO, Nivia Dantas Ribeiro. O Currículo crítico-libertador respondendo aos desafios do contexto intergeracional nas salas da EJA. 2017. 124 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação: Currículo) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2017.
  • 1
    I prefer the term affectivity to affection, as I will detail next. However, I respectfully maintain the cited author’s word choices in the body of the text.
  • 2
    “Until recently, such feelings [love for the music of a foreign language] remained unnamed and undertheorized in the study of second language acquisition (SLA). In the past decade, however, we have witnessed an affective turn […]” (PAVLENKO, 2013PAVLENKO, Aneta. The affective turn in SLA: From ‘affective factors’ to ‘language desire’ and ‘commodification of affect’. In: GABRÝS-BARKER, Danuta; BIELSKA, Joanna (ed.). The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Buffalo: Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2013. p. 3-28., p. 5).
  • 3
    Original text: “excluído da escola (OLIVEIRA, 1999OLIVEIRA, Marta Kohl de. Jovens e adultos como sujeitos de conhecimento e aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, n. 12, p. 59-73, set.-dez. 1999. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe/rbedigital/RBDE12/RBDE12_06_MARTA_K OHL_DE_ OLIVEIRA.pdf . Acesso em: 16 jun.2017.
    http://anped.tempsite.ws/novo_portal/rbe...
    , p. 51). I am completely responsible for this and any other passage translated from Brazilian Portuguese into English, with an exception to some of Paulo Freire’s quotes. In this case, I have resorted to some passages from books published in English.
  • 4
    According to Opinion CNE/CEB No. 6/2010 of the Ministry of Education and the National Council of Education (BRASIL, 2010BRASIL. Conselho Nacional de Educação. Parecer CNE/CEB n. 6/2010. Relatores: Adeum Hilário Sauer, Cesar Callegari, Clélia Brandão Alvarenga Craveiro, Francisco Aparecido Cordão, Mariadas Dores de Oliveira, Mozart Neves Ramos e Raimundo Moacir Mendes Feitosa. Reexame do Parecer CNE/CEB n. 23/2008. Institui Diretrizes Operacionais para a Educação de Jovens e Adultos - EJA. Brasília, 7 abr. 2010. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://bit.ly/2ZHpkjK . Acesso em: 22 fev. 2021.
    https://bit.ly/2ZHpkjK...
    ), the minimum age for students to enroll in Youth and Adult Education courses, in elementary schools is 15 years old.
  • 5
    Original text: “por repetências, evasões esporádicas e retornos, até a exclusão definitiva” (DAYRELL, 2011DAYRELL, Juarez Tarcísio. A juventude e a Educação de Jovens e Adultos: reflexões iniciais - novos sujeitos. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2011. p. 54-68., p. 63).
  • 6
    Zanardo (2017ZANARDO, Nivia Dantas Ribeiro. O Currículo crítico-libertador respondendo aos desafios do contexto intergeracional nas salas da EJA. 2017. 124 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação: Currículo) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2017.) conducted a study with Youth and Adults Education students in a municipal school of São Bernardo do Campo. The author witnessed the problem of dropout in the classes she followed. Her data, collected in the same field research (2016), confirm this phenomenon, despite the educational public policies instituted by the municipality, focused on this modality and its specificities.
  • 7
    Original text: “vê-los como pobres, preguiçosos ou violentos, ou como reprovados e defasados” (ARROYO, 2011ARROYO, Miguel Gonzales. Educação de jovens-adultos: um campo de direitos e de responsabilidade pública. In: SOARES, Leôncio; GIOVANETTI, Maria Amélia Gomes de Castro; GOMES, Nilma Lino (org.). Diálogos na educação de jovens e adultos. 4. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011. p. 19-50., p. 40).
  • 8
    In Brazil, this book was published as Pedagogia da Autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002.).
  • 9
    The Brazilian applied linguist Barcelos, A (2020BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira. Revolutionary Love and Peace in the Construction of an English Teacher’s Professional Identity. In: OXFORD, Rebecca L.; OLIVERO, María Matilde; HARRISON, Melinda; GREGERSEN, Tammy (org.). Peacebuilding in Language Education: Innovations in Theory and Practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2020. v. 1, p. 96-109., p. 98) translates Paulo Freire’s neologism amorosidade as “amorosity” in her article. I subscribe to her lexical choice.
  • 10
    These researchers are strongly attached to the area of Educational Psychology. Their works have been inspired by prominent figures such as Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), Henry Wallon (1879-1962) and Carl Rogers (1902-1987).
  • 11
    The idea of being affected is particularly interesting. Given the space limits, I will not be able to make this point. Nonetheless, I emphasize that a subject can be affected by something not human, as a musical melody, a familiar smell, or an idea.
  • 12
    By “[interpersonal] relationships”, I certainly do not make a reference to romantic relationships, but to the friendly bonds co-built by students and teachers.
  • 13
    Original text; “o amor é, também, diálogo” (FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., p. 111).
  • 14
    Original text: “piegas” (FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., p. 111).
  • 15
    Original text: “a afetividade não se acha excluída da cognoscibilidade” (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., p. 52).
  • 16
    Original text: “Creio que a questão fundamental diante de que devemos estar, educadoras e educadores, bastante lúcidos e cada vez mais competentes é que nossas relações com os educandos são um dos caminhos de que dispomos para exercer nossa intervenção na realidade a curto e a longo prazo” (FREIRE, 2017FREIRE, Paulo. Professora sim, tia não: cartas a quem ousa ensinar. 27. ed. Rio de Janeiro:/ São Paulo: Paz e Terra , 2017., p. 140).
  • 17
    When I suggested the metaphor little nothings to describe the subtle, but affectively powerful interactions between English language teachers and students, I did not know the Portuguese song “A vida é feita de pequenos nadas” (“Life is made of little nothings”, in a free translation), by the pop singer and song writer Sérgio Godinho. The song has a political discourse and highlights values such as friendship and camaraderie. The song can be listened to online: https://bit.ly/3gyCzwI (access on: April 7, 2021). This connection puts in evidence, I strongly believe, the dialogic nature of language.
  • 18
    Original text: “caráter socializante [...] e informal” (FREIRE, 2002FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 25. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002., p. 19).
  • 19
    Original text: “Existem várias definições para o complexo conceito de emoções” (SILVA; BARCELOS, 2021SILVA, Jamylla Barbosa; BARCELOS, Ana Maria Ferreira. Desvelando a paixão pelo ensino de professores de inglês em formação inicial. Revista X, Curitiba, v. 16, p. 381-408, 2021. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/article/view/77263 . Acesso em: 5 set. 2021.
    https://revistas.ufpr.br/revistax/articl...
    , p. 383)
  • 20
    See Candido Ribeiro (2012CANDIDO RIBEIRO, Douglas. Estados afetivos de professoras de Língua Inglesa em formação inicial. 2012. 140 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Letras) - Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa-MG, 2012. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4854 . Acesso em: 4 set. 2021.
    https://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/12345678...
    , p. 20)’s analysis to know this discussion in detail.
  • 21
    Considering the literature reviewed for this work, I emphasize Damásio’s (1994) study. Unlike the researched educators or applied linguists, Damásio (1994DAMÁSIO, António R. Descartes’s error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Avon Books, 1994.) precisely differentiates emotion from feeling. Roughly speaking, an emotion is a set of body states alterations attached to certain mental images. A feeling is the experience of living an emotion. In the author’s words, “if an emotion is a collection of changes in body state connected to particular mental images that have activated a specific brain system, the essence of feeling an emotion is the experience of such changes in juxtaposition to the mental images that initiated the cycle” (DAMÁSIO, 1994DAMÁSIO, António R. Descartes’s error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Avon Books, 1994., p. 145, author’s italics).
  • 22
    It is interesting to notice the co-existence of terms affectivity and emotion(s) in the book edited by Mastrella-de-Andrade (2011MASTRELLA-DE-ANDRADE, Mariana Rosa (org.). Afetividade e emoções no ensino/aprendizagem de línguas: múltiplos olhares. Prefácio: Hilário Böhn. Campinas: Pontes Editores, 2011.), whose chapters were written by Brazilian applied linguists. Maybe the confluence of these terms reveals not just different scholarly perspectives, but a characteristic of the research recently carried out in Brazil.
  • 23
    Original text: “é a investigação profunda e exaustiva de um participante ou pequeno grupo” (LEFFA, 2006LEFFA, Vilson José. Aprendizagem de línguas mediada por computador. In: LEFFA, José Vilson (org.). Pesquisa em Linguística Aplicada: emas e métodos. Pelotas: Educat, 2006. p. 05-30., p. 14).
  • 24
    To interpret some relationships between affectivity and English as an additional language teachers’ agency in Youth and Adult Education courses (equivalent to junior high school).
  • 25
    Fictitious names. The characteristics of the two schools, in terms of geography, history, and infrastructure, can be found in the dissertation that generated this article (see SATYRO, 2018SATYRO, Diego. Estratégias de ensino de língua inglesa e afetividade na EJA: olhares múltiplos. 2018. 286 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2018.).
  • 26
    In 2016, each Youth and Adult Education module was offered during one school semester, lasting four months, considering vacation and recess periods. This course, consisting of 16 weeks, was called Term. For the junior high school program, there were four Terms/semesters: 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, equivalent to 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grades, respectively, in comparison to the regular sequential education (a four-year program).
  • 27
    Fictitious names, chosen by the participants.
  • 28
    The participants authorized the use of data collected in informal conversations.These conversations took place in the school itself, in the schoolyard, in the hallways, in the teachers’ room, in the kitchen, or in the library, while we were walking around the building or preparing ourselves for the interviews. However, this material was not recorded since it was not an interview.
  • 29
    Original text: “unidades de significado” (ALMEIDA, 2012ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. O coordenador pedagógico e a questão do cuidar. In: ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de; PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e questões da contemporaneidade. 6. ed. São Paulo: Loyola, 2012, p. 41-60., p. 24).
  • 30
    Based on Bortoni-Ricardo (2008ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de. A escola, espaço para conhecimento, convivência e representação do mundo. In: PLACCO, Vera Maria Nigro de Souza; ALMEIDA, Laurinda Ramalho de (org.). O coordenador pedagógico e suas questões emergentes na escola. São Paulo: Edições Loyola , 2019. p. 9-26. (O coordenador pedagógico, 14).), as for transcription, I adopt the following procedures: square bracketsare used to fill in the utterance with words that, in the speech, were suppressed, but which may contribute to comprehension; CAPITAL LETTERS indicate an increase in the speaker’s intonation, which suggests emphasis; [+ ] shows a short pause in speech; [+++ ] marks a long pause, which may mean a moment of reflection or reformulation of the speech by the speaker. In addition, I present the excerpts verbatim.As the interactions were mainly in Brazilian Portuguese, the words originally said in English are in italics. Any grammatical or spelling errors have been preserved, to ensure fidelity to the participants’ expressions.
  • 31
    During the class and, afterwards, watching the video recording, I could not capture the student’s verbal responses. She seemed shy and interacted with the teacher very quietly.
  • 32
    I am aware, however, that by ‘positive’, and its implicit opposite, ‘negative’, I tend to be subjective, which is not my intention. Maybe future studies can address this question, problematizing the way scholars can qualify teachers and students’ relationships.
  • 33
    This is a type of correctional sentence imposed to people under the age of majority.
  • 34
    In Brazil, the age of majority, which legally demarcates childhood from adulthood, is 18-years old.
  • 35
    The Anísio Teixeira School, under the control of São Bernardo do Campo City Hall, offers Youth and Adult Education courses equivalent to Elementary and Junior High School. However, public high school teaching is under São Paulo State control. Having said that, I understand that when teacher Eliane compares the two realities, she is implicitly comparing the municipal school where she works with the state school where students are likely to enroll in high school; besides, she compares the conception of Youth and Adult Education from the municipal school system with her representation of this modality conception in the state school system.
  • 36
    Due to space limitations, I will not deal in this article with the institutional flexibilities provided by the participating schools.I understand, however, that this is a pertinent discussion when researching aspects of Youth and Adult Education courses. In many cases, the students are not able to commit to the school routine, because of their own survival. It is possible, from my point of view, to view this routine as a “limit-situation” (see FREIRE, 2005FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of the opressed. Trad.: Myra Bergman Ramos. Intr.: Donaldo Macedo. Nova York: Londres: Continuum, 2005., p. 99 or FREIRE, 2016FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 62. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2016., p. 126) for some learners.

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    02 May 2022
  • Date of issue
    2022

History

  • Received
    08 Sept 2021
  • Accepted
    28 Sept 2021
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