1. FOREIGN LANGUAGES
TEACHING, EDUCATION
ANDTHE NEW
LITERACIES STUDIES:
EXPANDING VIEWS
Group 4 Flávia Rodrigues, Lídia das Chagas e Mariana Clímaco
2. Introduction
These data have been analyzed generating
interpretations that lead to reflections and a
proposal of change in the focused teaching
environments.
Both reflections and proposals are present in
Orientações Curriculares para o Ensino Médio:
Línguas Estrangeiras, published by MEC in 2006.
3. Introduction
Three theoretical conceptions are expanded:
l The social changes observed in the last decades as a
consequence of technological advances influencing
language and discourse, as well as social communication;
c The epistemological changes that constitue the dialectics
in the advances of language, technology and
communication;
o The philosophy of education-pedagogy-practice dialectic
relationship that comes together new literacies and
multiliteracies.
4. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
In the last decades, there have been undeniable
social transformations. The social representations
have visibly changed.
A comparison between advertisements of different
decades would illustrate these differences with more
clarity.
6. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
“The expanding, interventionary states of the
nineteenth and twenty centuries used schools as a
way of standardizing national languages. In the
Old World this meant imposing national standards
over dialect differences. In the New World, it
meant assimilating immigrant indigenous peoples to
the standardized “proper” language of the
colonizer”, according to Cope and Kalantzis.
7. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
The authors observe that the threshold between the
public and the private has gradually turned thinner,
considering “the increasing invasion of private
spaces by mass media culture, global commodity
culture and communication and information
networks”.
This invasion results in “culture narratives that are
built up of interwoven narratives and commodities
that cross television, toys, fast-food packaging,
video games”, interfering in and recunstructing
beliefs and life courses.
8. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
The society transforms itself with the presence of
new technologies, new language and communication
modes, and new interactions.
Cope and Kalantzis would again advert that “these
new workplace discourses can be taken in two
different ways – as opening new educational and
social possibilities, or as new systms of mind control
and exploitation”, leaving a challenging question
for reflection: “how do we transform incrementally
the achievable and apt outcomes of schooling?”
9. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
An additional aspect in relation to the focused
changes themselves would be the understanding
that they are not only social but also
epistemological.
Moris criticizes this epistemology saying that it
promotes reproductive education, instead of the
development of a creative mind through the
pedagogical action.
10. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
He explains that conventional epistemology
concentrates on constructing knowledge according
to the principles of reduction – knowledge is
reduced or fragmented from the whole to the parts
– and grading – learning is designed in a pre-
established scale that starts from na easy bottom
line that gradually advances to more complex
levels of difficulty of the subject to be aprehended
by students.
11. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
Researchers show that the new languages and
technologies in the digital society introduce another
way of knowledge construction.
They name it as “performance epistemology” and
eplain it as “knowing how to proceed in the
absence of existing models and exemplars”.
12. Social and epistemological
changes in the digital society
These auhtors call attention to the emerging
practises in these interactions:
Bric
olag
e
Collag
Montage e
13. The changes in teaching and
education
The society has been transforming languages,
communication modalities, ways of communication,
interaction, knowledge construction at the same time that
it is dialectically transformed by them.
The search for knowledge uniformity and for a standard
guidance in teaching should succumb to a diversity of
pedagogical and curricular possibilities which appear to
be more congruent with the described changes.
14. The changes in teaching and
education
Besides school pedagogies, there is another pedagogy that is
rather effective in the out-of-school living and experiences. It is
dominated by Giroux as public pedagogy.
Giroux – cultural policy present in society within, for instance,
television, programs, series, advertisings, choice of pictures in
news building (power dynamic imbued with educative strength)
15. The changes in teaching and
education
The diffusion of information by talk radio, computer screens,
television, newspaper, internet and alternative media has
counted on no sociopolitical and ethical concern, considering
that although the photographic registers are implicated in
history, their conditions of production have been suppressed
making them invisible to the viewers.
It is observed that there has been much debate about what has
been done in classroom pratices, contrasting with what is
idealized for this same practice.
16. The changes in teaching and
education
Saviani defends the necessity of apprehending the dialects
within the philosophy efficacy and effectiveness.
The philosophy of education pedagogy – pratice relationship
(Saviani).
17. New literacies and the teaching of
foreign languages
Literacy is the basic teaching of reading and
writing.
Several countries with low illiteracy rate were
observed in order to identify the type of lettering
used.
Through the observations made was possible to
detect the functionally illiterate.
The functional illiterate is one who can read and
write, but can not perform a reading society.
18. New literacies and the teaching of
foreign languages
The reading includes the social interpretation of the
text, the link with the knowledge of the reader's
world, the perception of irony and sarcasm.
The technology enables easy access to all kinds of
reading and always instigates a social reading.
19. New literacies and the teaching of
foreign languages
According to Luke and Freebody it is possible to have access
to a new kind of literacy. The social literacy is a
multidisciplinary process which addresses several themes
that can be applied to the interpretation of everyday life.
The biggest concern with teaching and learning of foreign
languages also refers to the lack of infrastructure in some
schools, participation sometimes inefficient, parents, teachers
and students in knowledge construction.
20. New literacies and the teaching of
foreign languages
Learning a foreign language must not only cling to the
instrumental aspect, it is necessary to understand a little
about the culture of the country which you are learning the
language.
The question is to review how the foreign language is being
taught, not enough to use archaic methods is necessary to
incorporate issues of social teachings, so the students also
learn about citizenship, ethics, foreign culture, etc.
21. New literacies and the teaching of
foreign languages
There will always be students interested in learning a foreign
language, but what should be changed and taken into
consideration is that the method of teaching and learning
should be more comprehensive and meaningful.
It is necessary to deconstruct the idea that learning a foreign
language is limited only to linguistic and grammatical aspects
and build a new communicative way of teaching and learning.
22. Final considerations
The exposition about social and epistemoogical changes as well as
the new conceptions of language and education intends to explain the
reason for the widely defend need for the foreing languages teaching
reviewing – RENOVATE WAY OF DOING.
For implemented, it is requires much learning and maturing.
It is a knowledge that has been constructed and reconstrued.
23. Reference
MÓR, Walkyria Monte. Foreign
Languages Teaching, Education and the
New Literacies Studies: expanding
views. Belo Horizonte, [s.n.]: 2009.
