Navegando no universo surdo: a multimodalidade a favor do ensino de português como segunda língua em um curso EAD

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the teaching of Portuguese as Second Language (PSL) through distance learning to deaf students, according to the Multimodality Approach. The main objective of this research was to analyze the role of the multimodal resources in an online course about text production for deaf people (students or high school graduates). This course focused on the parameters of Brazilian national evaluation of basic schools (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio ENEM). In order toaccomplish this main objective, it was established some specific objectives, such as designing, creating, implementing and evaluating the distance-learning course, and evaluating the deaf students written texts. The selected method was the case study, owing to the interpretative/qualitative point of view of this research. Scholars such asSouza (2015), Ferraz (2011), Dias (2004), inspired in White and Arndt (1991), and Kress e van Leeuwen (2006) were consulted for designing and creating the course, which was implemented through the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Moodle and focused on the writing of opinion articles. After its creation, professionals of PSL to deaf people formatively evaluated the course, for us to verify its adequacy to the target audience and to make the necessary changes on it. During the evaluation ofthe professionals, the course was launched, and the deaf students were selected. They read the available contents, did the activities and wrote an opinion article following the ENEM parameters, based on a cyclical and collaborative writing process, according to Dias model (2004). Furthermore, the deaf students evaluated the course formatively, for us to obtain their general impressions. After that, we compiled the corpus, which gathered: (1) answers of three questionnaires oneanswered by the professionals, and the other two by the deaf students; (2) course design data: VLE layouts, infographics, schemas, conceptual maps, and videos made by the researcher; and (3) answers of the activities and articles written by the deaf students. In order to analyze the collected data, we followed: (1) Kress and van Leeuwens Grammar of Visual Design (2006); (2) the indicative categories of reading path proper from Social Semiotic and Multimodality, such as medium, mode,resource, typography and colors; (3) Ferraz (2011) and Souza (2015) proposals; (4) the ENEM reference matrix for written texts, used as a criterion for the development of writing capacity related to the production of an opinion article on the ENEM model, and for the evaluation of the written articles; and (5) researchers of PSL to deaf people. After the analysis, we realized that, among other matters, the semioticmodels of moving image, static image, Sign Language and linguistics, when integrated, help deaf people in their written productions, since they are immersed in a visual culture. Besides, we verified that the students were favorable to the usage of different multimodal resources for learning writing using PSL ergo, the online course was an important learning tool for this type of audience. With this research, we intend to contribute to the teaching of PSL to deaf people (especially concerning the writing of opinion articles), and to the customization experiences in VLEs in thecontext of deaf education, using the assumptions of Multimodality.