Inspiring Insights from an English Teaching Scene
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Inspiring Insights from an English Teaching Scene Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira Junia de Carvalho Fidelis Braga (Orgs) Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira Junia de Carvalho Fidelis Braga (Orgs) Inspiring Insights from an English Teaching Scene Belo Horizonte FALE/UFMG 2017 S C H O O L O F L A N G U A G E S , L I N G U I S T I C S A N D L I T E R A T U R E D E A N : G R A C I E L A I N E S R A V E T T I D E G Ó M E Z V I C E - D E A N : R U I R O T H E - N E V E S F A L E R E S E A R C H B O A R D Luis Alberto Ferreira Brandão Santos (coordinator) Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira Andréa Machado de Almeida Mattos Anna Palma Cláudia Campos Soares Claudiana Aparecida Gomes Constantino Luz de Medeiros Lyslei de Souza Nascimento Maria Lúcia Jacob Dias de Barros Sérgio Alcides Pereira do Amaral Talita Oliveira Almeida Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira – CEI – Coordinator Junia de Carvalho Fidelis Braga – CEI – Vice – Coordinator Tânia Aparecida Mateus Rosa– Executive Assistant Daniel Garcia Amaral – Administrative Assistant Gilmar dos Santos Rocha – Administrative Assistant D i a g r a m m i n g a n d G r a p h i c C o v e r D e s i g n e r : D a n i e l G a r c i a A m a r a l A word from the organizers: In organizing this book, we sought to provide a reference point to key areas in English Language Teaching, associated with the modules taught at CEI - Curso de Especialização em Inglês (FALE-UFMG). From this perspective, we invited contributions from specialists, including former CEI students, and in addition, asked them to write a short introduction to their peers’ chapters. The ten chapters encompass a wide range of topics and provide the reader with a vantage point to three main areas of specialization: Teacher Education, Identity, and Critical Literacy Language Description and Applied Theory Technology in Language Education and Corpora Studies The result, we believe, is a thought-provoking volume that will encourage anyone interested in the area to embark on an insightful journey of career development and informed teaching practice. Welcome to Inspiring Insights from an English Teaching Scene! Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira Junia de Carvalho Fidelis Braga INDEX Teacher Education, Culture and Critical Literacy PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES THAT PROMOTE SUCCESSFUL LANGUAGE LEARNING IN SCHOOLS ............................................................. 8 Climene Arruda / Laura Miccoli SENSES IN LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION: THE POWER OF NARRATIVES .................................................................................................. 26 Érika Amâncio Caetano / Andréa Machado de Almeida Mattos CRITICAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH CLASSES: DISCUSSIONS ABOUT DEAF, BLIND AND DEAF-BLIND PEOPLE................................................................. 44 Felipe de Almeida Coura Language Description and Applied Theory MULTI-WORD VERBS: A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE.................................. 65 Edelvais Brígida caldeira Barbosa / Raquel Rossini Martins Cardoso TEACHING GRAMMAR IN THE ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: AN INDUCTIVE PERSPECTIVE ............................................. 82 Adriana Maria Tenuta de Azevedo / Marisa Mendonça Carneiro TEACHING ORAL SKILLS IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE ........ 103 Marisa Mendonça Carneiro / Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira Technology in Language Education and Corpora studies CALL & MALL: USING TECHNOLOGY TO ACHIEVE EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM........................................ 121 Junia de Carvalho Fidelis Braga / Luciana de Oliveira Silva / Ronaldo Correa Gomes Junior ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING ON THE WINGS OF MOBILITY: A STUDY ON THE AFFORDANCES OF MOBILE LEARNING IN CLASSROOM PRACTICE. .................................................................................................... 142 Junia de Carvalho Fidelis Braga DDT AS PROPOSAL FOR LANGUAGE AWARENESS: GRAMMAR STUDY, WORD-CHOICE AND SEMANTIC PROSODY.............................................. 164 Bárbara Malveira Orfanò / Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira CORPUS LINGUISTICS AND ENGLISH TEACHING: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES.............................................................................................. 179 Bárbara Malveira Orfanò / Leonardo Pereira Nunes Arruda and Miccoli’s chapter entitled Pedagogical experiences that promote successful language learning in schools presents an insightful investigation regarding positive experiences as to the learning of English in Brazilian regular schools. Through a narrative study in which teachers were asked to provide accounts concerning their students’ successful learning, the authors convey a clear depiction as to how learners of English can profit from better teaching practices in such schools. An enticing source of inspiration to other language teachers. Bárbara Malveira Orfanò and Leonardo Pereira Nunes Pedagogical experiences that promote successful language learning in schools Climene Arruda Federal University of Minas Gerais Laura Miccoli Federal University of Minas Gerais “Being in this world, we need to remake ourselves as well as offer up research understandings that could lead to a better world”. Clandinin ; Connely (2000, p. 61) Introduction Teaching and learning a foreign language involve many different elements worthy of research and understanding. Brazilian Applied Linguistics (AL) literature reports that language teachers and students in schools face an array of classrooms problems that never seem to be overcome (GIMENEZ et al. , 2003; PERIN, 2003; GASPARINI, 2005; UECHI, 2006; BARCELOS ; COELHO, 2007, LEFFA, 2007). The picture painted by such research shows foreign language teaching and learning in regular 1 schools as doomed for failure. The lack of literature acknowledging successful learning experiences has always intrigued us. Some of the questions we have asked ourselves are: is it possible that nobody ever learns? Are there not exceptions? Is teaching really 11 In Brazil, regular schools are public and private institutions not exclusively dedicated to the teaching of foreign languages, as language institutes. 8 just a formality? We craved to find studies that focused on successful learning in schools. At the same time we wondered - if teachers and students knew that success is possible; that learning English in public and private schools is possible, would that encourage them to aim for an experience similar to other successful experiences in language classrooms? Our purpose is to share part of the results of a doctoral experiential narrative study that investigated students’ successful experiences in learning English (ARRUDA, 2014) in regular school. This research documented and described their success in learning English. The research objective aimed to understand how students explained their successful learning experiences since the present paradigm sustains that English teaching in Brazilian regular schools is inefficient. In the study, the focus was on students’ voices. Yet, we also collected narratives from their teachers to gain insights on how they explained their students’ success as well as on the working environment in which they worked. In this chapter we focus on the teachers’ narratives as their content may reveal some of the details to the road to success. Their pedagogical practices that emerged as part of the narratives may also contribute to improve the teaching and learning of English in regular schools. Our goal in sharing these teachers’ narratives is to help other teachers become better teachers. In the narratives, teachers explain how their students learn and talk about the actions that contribute to their students’ success. They inspire the implementation of good and successful practices. Moreover, these teachers’ data reveal that learning in schools is possible. Thus, with this paper we acknowledge the existence of successful learning experiences in public and private schools. This evidence may change the belief, shared by many, that students do not learn English in such contexts – a belief that hinders the possibility of success in teaching and learning English in Brazilian classrooms. Miccoli (2011, p.176) advises that “[one has] to believe so as to see [change].” Thus, if change in Brazilian schools is what we aim for, we have to believe that is actually possible and take actions to make the expected results become a reality. 9 1. Researching Experience Miccoli (2010) argues that understanding the complexity of classroom events can be investigated with the construct of experience as a unit of analysis. She has been conducting and supervising research on teachers’ and students’ experiences in language classrooms for almost 20 years. Thus, contributing to the comprehension of the classroom foreign language teaching and learning (MICCOLI 2013, 2014). According to Miccoli, any experience refers to events that happen to individuals. As a construct, an experience is inherently dual, for having a collective aspect - of social nature, for events happen in specific social milieu. Simultaneously, an experience has an individual and subjective nature (something that happens specifically to someone). As a natural event in our human existence, experiences are intriguing. Plato and Aristotle (REALE, 1994) had opposing views on the nature of experience. Hegel (1991) and Dewey (1938), among other philosophers, integrate experience as related to the world, the mind and human beings. Recently, cognitive science researchers have associated experience to consciousness