Formação continuada na (re)construção identitária de uma professora de inglês como língua adicional: um estudo autoetnográfico

Abstract

The education of teachers of English as an additional language is a big challenge and has been object of many studies in the last decades (CELANI, 1989; CELANI; MAGALHÃES, 2002; CELANI; COLLINS, 2003; MALATÉR, 2008; PEREIRA; OLIVEIRA, 2014; OLIVEIRA, 2022, among others). English Language, besides its communicative function, has been thought as a critical and participative tool in society. Considering this scenario, the need of redesigning teachers' education contexts arises, aiming to help these professionals reconstruct their identities and deal with the present demands of their job. The present work is the result of an autoethnographic research (CHANG, 2007; VERSIANI, 2002) carried out in the context of the Professional Master's Degree in Language Teaching at the Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA)/ Campus Bagé. It was developed in the field of Applied Linguistics (HEBERLE, 2000; MOITA LOPES, 1996) and has a qualitative nature. It dedicates itself to the presentation of a narrative that addresses how the experience of Continuing Education (GATTI, 2008) in the Master’s Degree Program mobilized the teacher/ researcher’s path in the construction of a pedagogical product, which was developed taking into consideration the theoretical concepts of the Critical Discourse Analysis defended by Fairclough (2001) and the concept of identity proposed by Norton (2000). The pedagogical product is presented as a digital scrapbook, whose title is “Online Scrapbook for English Teachers: creating and sharing memories”. This product shares with the ones who are interested issues that promote reflection on their personal and professional trajectories. The main objective of the research was to discuss the continuing education of teachers of English as an additional language, through the methodological bias of autoethnography, considering the data that emerged from the situations experienced by the teacher/researcher. In order to achieve the research objectives and provide teachers a pedagogical product that focuses on identity issues, some contexts of teachers’ education and their contributions to the Brazilian teachers’ identity (re)construction were investigated. Also, some of the Brazilian official documents that deal with teacher’s education were analyzed. In terms of results, it’s possible to affirm that the experience of continuing education in the Master’s Program at UNIPAMPA has influenced a critical reflection about the need of new practises in teachers’ education programs, being the educator’s education a right provided by law and a demand of these professionals. Thus, it is highlighted that the teacher/researcher has built transformative learnings about her own (re)construction process and about the importance of continuing education in teachers of English as an additional language’s lives and careers.