Meanings of error in EFL teachers discourse: a reflection about representations and pedagogical practices / Sentidos de errono dizer de professores de inglês/língua estrangeira: uma reflexão sobre representações e práticas pedagógicas

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

This work aims at analyzing meanings evoked by the signifier error in EFL teachers discourse in two institutional contexts: a public school and a language institute. From a discursive perspective, which contemplates the historical-ideological-social dimension in the study of meaning production processes, we have attempted to delineate the interdiscourse that constitutes the space of memory to which the meanings of error are anchored. In order to accomplish this task, we have conducted a literature survey on Applied Linguistics, focusing on the main theoretical models which have approached the role of errors in the scope of ELT theories. The study of this space of memory has conducted to the understanding of the interdiscourse functioning in the process of constitution of knowledge about the English language and ELT. This process legitimates specific pedagogical practices to which teachers and learners are submitted, and through which they constitute their subjectivities. The analysis of the linguistic materiality of the enunciations produced by the teachers delineated two predominant representations in the imaginary level: the representation of the English language as grammar and the representation of the English language as a communication tool. The former regulates the meanings of the signifier error through the reduction of the concept of language to a closed system controlled by rules which cannot be infringed, establishing the dichotomy right (grammatical) and wrong (ungrammatical). In the latter, which is anchored to the English as an International Language (EIL) discourse, the meanings of error evoke a judgement of the level of communicability that the learner is able to reach, summoning the teacher to prioritize orality in their classroom practices, in order to induce the learner to the adequate use of language and to the ideal fluency of the native speaker. These representations allude to the evidence of language transparency (an ideal of completeness of meaning) and to the evidence of the unity of the subject (an ideal of control over teaching and learning processes). We have concluded that the teacher occupies a place of contradictions, where learning through errors is emphasized, whereas, at the same time, there is an attempt to minimize the occurrence of errors and their effects. We have searched, throughout this work, to understand how this place of contradictions is shaped in the relation with the identitary constitution of EFL teachers through the contact with the English language and with the ideological formations that support their practices. This understanding has, thus, enabled the deconstruction of the naturalization of certain meanings produced by the enunciation of the signifier error.

ASSUNTO(S)

análise de discurso english language professor de língua estrangeira lingüística aplicada erro error foreign language teacher applied linguistics língua inglesa discourse analysis

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados