A implementação do módulo teaching through corpora em um programa de educação continuada

Abstract

The exchange of experiences between university and basic education professionals has beendiscussed as a productive relation which provides improvements in the teaching practice and inthe linguistic proficiency of the teachers who participate in continuing education programs(MARQUES, 2007). However, there are only few studies that join Corpus Linguistics (CL) toolsand the learning and teaching of the English language (MEUNIER, 2011) and even fewerinvestigations that concern CL and continuing education. Based on this necessity of a biggerintegration of these two areas, the objective of this thesis was to implement a new moduleentitled Teaching Through Corpora in the Programa Interfaces da Formação em LínguasEstrangeiras aiming to instruct the teachers who participate in the program how to use theavailable online corpora and verify the effectiveness of the new module in their discourse aboutteaching practice. For this purpose, the proposed methodology was the creation of a moduledivided in five classes in which many concepts were discussed, for instance, what CorpusLinguistics is, what a corpus is and how to apply the tools provided by Corpus Linguistics in thelanguage classroom. During the five meetings we had in the module, some available corporawere also presented, and based on them, some searches and activities were proposed in order toteach the participants how to use the corpora platforms. The data for the study were collectedthrough the initial and final questionnaires so that we could verify the impact of the module inthe discourse about teaching practice. Besides that, we also proposed a final corpus basedactivity to be an instrument of analysis in the present study. The study results indicated thatninety one percent (91%) of the participants did not have any previous knowledge about CorpusLinguistics, and one hundred percent (100%) did not know the tools Corpus Linguistics providedfor the analysis of language in use showing then the relevance of the present study. Regardingthe final questionnaire, one hundred percent (100%) of the participants claimed that they haveacquired new knowledge after participating in the module. Moreover, they also affirmed that themodule helped them develop better class preparations. Considering what could be improved inthe module, ninety three percent (93%) of the participants expressed the necessity of a biggerquantity of meetings. As a result of the final activities few participants completed the three stepsplanned for the final activity. Thus, we may conclude that the implementation of the modulerepresented a positive impact in the discourse about teaching practice and also for thedevelopment of their skills to use corpora online. However, for future applications of themodule, some changes will be needed, including a higher number of hours, consecutivemeetings, and more practical classes teaching how to use the platforms in order to make theparticipants able to develop a corpus based activity.