Um estudo de caso de professores de inglês em formação continuada: reflexão e mudança da prática e do discurso no ensino de gramática

Abstract

This research is a longitudinal study accomplished in two phases. The first phase dealt with two public schools teachers for two years while they participated in a continuing education project called EDUCONLE. The objectives of the 1ST stage of this phase were to describe how grammar teaching is accomplished in the participants' classroom; to identify whichfactors influence the way that teaching is done; and to verify if the teachers would be capable to analyze their pedagogic practices in a reflective way. The objective of the second stage of the first phase was to identify traces of changes in the teachers' discourse and in their practice related to grammar teaching. The second phase of the research was accomplished with only one of the participants, six months after she concluded her project participation. The objective of this phase was to verify if the initiated change movements in the first phase could be still identified when the teacher was no longer undertaking the continuing education project. Data were collected through narratives, uestionnaires, and stimulated recall sessions. The results show that grammar was worked in an explicit way in both teachers' classroom. Though, the way that teaching was approached differed, since one teacher focused on functions of the language working with grammar in the three dimensions of form, meaning and appropriate use in communicative contexts; and the other teacher focused on linguistic structures dealing only with forms, their rules and translation. The teachers' practice was influenced by contextual, experiential and cognitive factors that interact with each other. However, the main factor that seems to be the basis of their grammar teaching was their conceptions of language and grammar, that is the cognitive factor. The results also suggest that for the process of change to be triggered the teacher should learn to question their practice, because reflection is the basis of a changing process. Furthermore, the stimulated recall sessions proved to be effective instruments to promoteteachers moments of reflection. The change process initiated in the first phase of the research could also be verified after the teacher ended her project participation suggesting that change is something continuous as well as it is the search for development.