Habilidades orais por meio de affordances no WhatsApp: um estudo sobre o papel das presenças cognitiva, social e instrucional no contexto do ensino e aprendizagem de língua inglesa

Abstract

Based on the increasing use of computers and mobile devices, aligned to the pedagogical practice, and on the increase in studies that examine how the teacher-student-content interaction occurs, it is increasingly relevant to research how several apps may be used, in a way that both in person and online interactions are not opposite poles, but unified parts of successful educational experiences. In this scenario, the presences proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) are extremely desirable. This study aims to verify the possibility of identifying the expression of teaching, cognitive and social presences, in asynchronous oral interactions, via mobile devices, on apps such as WhatsApp, through learning opportunities that emerge with the appropriation of app resources. For our main objectives, we outlined three points: 1) to verify how teaching, social and cognitive presences, according to the framework proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000), occur in asynchronous oral interactions via WhatsApp; 2) to identify the affordances to produce oral abilities, in English, noticed by students in interactions via WhatsApp; 3) to discuss the relation between teaching, cognitive and social presences, observed in asynchronous oral interactions, as well as the affordances noticed by students to produce oral abilities in English. For the theoretical framework, we used the Community of Inquiry framework to analyze the teaching, cognitive and social presences, proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000), the concept of affordance, by Gibson (1986) and Van Lier (2000), besides some key points that guide ubiquitous and mobile learning as a study field and their possible benefits to the process of English teaching and learning. The study conducts a qualitative investigation, using the case study method, and the subjects are 14 students from a high school third-year class from the Federal Institute of Goiás, Iporá Campus. This study’s data were generated during the 2020 school year, through asynchronous oral interactions via the WhatsApp app. Thus, the results indicate an intrinsic relation between the presences, as well as an incidence of social presence, characterized by speech traces, provided by the affordance of the audio recording resource. Also, the teaching presence emerges, overall, due to the leadership attitude the students assumed; besides, the cognitive presence has more indicators in the first two categories: triggering event and exploration. The study also highlights the importance of the model to create and maintain a learning virtual environment and the possibility to use the affordances noticed on WhatsApp to produce oral abilities in English.