Ensino da produção oral em língua inglesa no Instituto Federal Farroupilha: uma experiência pedagógica com material didático autoral focado na instrução diferenciada

Abstract

Even though it has been legitimated and made mandatory since 1996, the teaching of foreign languages, especially the English language, seems to be unable to fulfill the needs and expectations of the Brazilian society which, in turn, repeats in its common discourse that “English in public schools does not work” (LIMA, 2011). Studies demonstrate that one of the reasons that reinforce that belief is the context where the classes of foreign languages happen, since the classrooms usually present an excessive number of students and groups that mix students with different levels of knowledge about the language, as well as the lack of adequate methodology, textbooks and educational resources (PCN, 1998. p. 21). Intending to offer some contribution to change that reality, the present work was carried out in the Professional Master’s Degree Program in Language Teaching with the development of an Authorial Didactic Material (ADM) that will be made available for other English teachers, in order to cooperate with the English teaching/learning process. This study is about the teaching of oral skills based on the differentiated instruction and the task-based teaching, due to the need presented by the public schools for teaching English in an innovative way. The theoretical framework was based on scholars who have researched the various issues discussed in this work. To talk about the English teaching in public schools, the study was based mainly in the following official documents and authors: PCNs (2000; 2002); LDB (1996); Plano CDE-British Council (2015); Almeida Filho (1998; 2001); Lima (2011); Rajagopalan (2011); Paiva (2011); Leffa (2011); Araújo de Oliveira (2011) e Micolli (2001). To discuss mixed -abilities classroom, it was used the work from Ur (1991); Ainslie (1994); Sutherland & Smith (2003); Svard (2006); Bremner (2010); Pospisilova (2008); Simánová (2010); Ma (2011); Gurgenidze, 2012) and Salli-Çopur (2005). Considering oral skills in the classroom, the authors consulted were Brown (2007); Harmer (2007) and Lightbown e Spada (2006). To talk about the task-based teaching, it was used the work from Cook (2008); Bygate (2001); Brown (2007); Ellis (2005) and Willis (1996). And finally, Tomilinson (1995; 1999; 2001); Tomilinson & Allan (2000) and Dudley & Osvath (2016), to discuss the differentiated instruction. The general objective of this study is: to develop and evaluate the implementation of a pedagogic proposition for teaching English in Instituto Federal Farroupilha, in the city of São Borja – Brazil, by means of the development and application of an ADM, having as the main focus the teaching of oral skills and the learners’ individual differences. Concerning the specific objectives, this work searches to carry out an initial diagnosis with a group of students selected for this research, in order to check their knowledge about the language, especially their oral skills. Also, it seeks to understand the pedagogical process throughout the development and application of this pedagogic proposition, which is based on the task-based teaching and the differentiated instruction with its four ways of differentiation (input, process, product and classroom environment). It is also a specific objective to identify, after that application, possible learning achievements of the students regarding the development of their oral skills and, finally, to make the ADM available, with adjustments and theoretical comments resulting from the pedagogic work developed. The ADM comprises one lesson that proposes to carry out the initial diagnosis and five other lessons that were applied from May 2017 to July 2017 in a Basic Level English Class in the Language Center of the school were this research was developed, after the identification of the research problem which deals with the matter that the teaching of oral skills in that school seems to fail. Regarding the results, the application of this ADM demonstrated that it is possible to teach foreign languages in public schools. The context of the application was composed by students with the most varied learning histories. All of them presented some progress, even the ones who were classified as weaker learners in the initial diagnosis and whose profile seems to be directly related to that common discourse of the failure of foreign language teaching in public schools. Even though the proposal was applied in a short period of time, the oral productions presented by the learners at the end of the application was in accordance to what was planned. The progress of these learners corroborates with the statement that it is possible to start a movement based on concrete pedagogic actions in classroom in order to deconstruct the belief that the public school is unable to teach English.