Construção identitária do professor de Inglês de escola pública em um curso de formação linguística

Abstract

This piece of research aims at understanding critically how São Paulo public English teachers form their identities while taking part in a language development course, as well as investigating how the relations established in the course can contribute to the transformation of their identities. The focus here is to a- discuss the transformations perceived in the way the teachers express what it means for them to be a public English teacher (throughout the two terms during which they took classes with the teacher-researcher) and b- check how and if the theoretical-methodological organization of the research led the participants to reassess and transform their own teaching. The participants of this research include 14 São Paulo public English teacher and also the teacher-researcher. The corpus consists of lessons videotaped in the language development course, as well as 3 questionnaires, and also reflective sessions videotaped. This investigation subcribes to the Critical Applied Linguistics area (MOITA LOPES, 2002; PENNYCOOK, 2001) and is grounded on the Social Cultural-Historical Theory (VYGOTSKY, [1934] 2001). The theoretical and methodological framework used was the Critical Collaborative Research (MAGALHAES 2010, 2012, 2014) which characterizes this investigation as interventionist because it focuses on understanding and transforming the participants' actions in their workplaces. This work is also grounded on the concept of critical reflection (KEMMIS, 1987; DEWEY, 1965; SMYTH, 1986), which aims at challenging why we act in an impulsive and mechanic way and also tries, as a result, to provoke transformations in school practices. In this sense, this piece of research discusses the importance of creating dialetical, multidirected and collaborative-critical relations in class through the argumentative organisation of the language. The results show how the three focal participants changed the way they perceived their roles as teachers and also how they developed an agentive and innovative attitude when teaching their own students, taking into account a view of the subject as political and historically situated