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TEXT I
The teaching of English as a foreign language in the context of Brazilian regular schools: a retrospective and prospective view of policies and practices
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The movement towards a more meaningful approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language in Brazilian regular schools reached its climax in the 20th century with the publication of the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) for the teaching of foreign languages at basic education level. Since then, the community of teachers has been divided into those who welcomed the contents, views and propositions of the document, and the ones who believed that the suggestions it contained were inappropriate. At the center of this controversy was the importance given by the official policies to the teaching of reading, as opposed to an approach, borrowed from private language institutes, which historically favored a focus on the oral skills.
A brief overview of the recent history of ELT in Brazilian regular schools
During the 1970s, the so-called audiolingual method, based on behaviorist and structuralist assumptions, was still considered the only scientific way of teaching a foreign language. Its emphasis on the oral skills and on the exhaustive repetition of structural exercises seemed to work well in the contexts of private language institutes. Those contexts were characterized by the gathering of small numbers of highly motivated students per class, a weekly time-table superior in the number of hours to the one adopted in regular schools, and plenty of audiovisual resources. Questionable in itself, both because of its results (which in time were revealed to be less efficient than believed, especially in terms of fluency) and its theoretical assumptions, the method ended up being adopted by regular schools due to its positive reputation at the time. The failure of the methodology in this context would soon become evident, generating extreme frustration both amongst teachers and students.
From the 1980s on, with the spread of ideas connected to the so-called communicative approach and the growth of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), the community of researchers and teachers interested in the context of regular schools started reviewing the assumptions and logic of English Language Teaching (ELT). Recognizing that each and every school discipline needs to justify its presence in the curriculum socially and educationally, this movement identified the skill of reading as the most relevant one for the students attending the majority of Brazilian regular schools.This understanding was achieved by considering not only the possibility of real use outside school, but also the role this approach could play in the achievement of other educational goals, such as the improvement of student's reading abilities in Portuguese as a mother tongue. This movement reached its climax with the publication of the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) for the teaching of foreign languages at basic education level by the end of the 1990s. The document recommended the focus on the teaching of reading within a view of language as discourse. However, it did not close the door on the teaching of any other skill, as long as the context made it possible and relevant.
This understanding was achieved by considering not only the possibility of real use outside school, but also the role this approach could play in the achievement of other educational goals, such as the improvement of student's reading abilities in Portuguese as a mother tongue. This movement reached its climax with the publication of the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (PCN) for the teaching of foreign languages at basic education level by the end of the 1990s. The document recommended the focus on the teaching of reading within a view of language as discourse. However, it did not close the door on the teaching of any other skill, as long as the context made it possible and relevant.
Another important characteristic of the Parameters that should not be overlooked is their emphasis on teacher's autonomy. This emphasis can be seen clearly in the fact that no content or method is imposed upon the teachers. What one can find are suggestions and relevant information for teachers to make their own decisions, taking into consideration the context within which they work. In other words, the Parameters do not force any teacher to limit their focus on the teaching of reading, if they believe they can go further than that.
To be or not to be: professional identities and beliefs
When asked why they were against the focus on reading, most teachers who take this position, told me that they considered the teaching of reading to be "not enough". Most of them also added that if the teaching of reading was designed to fit a context where one cannot effectively teach the oral skills, then we should not adapt ourselves to that context, but rather demand the improvements that would make more feasible the teaching of the so-called four skills.
Let us consider these statements more closely. The first one is about quantity, that is, by teaching "only" the reading skill, the teacher would be denying her/his students the opportunity for learning all the other skills. They would be denied the opportunity for learning to speak English, which is, after all, assumed to be the real goal of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL).
Reasonable and democratic as it may seem, such an argument fails to take into consideration at least one extremely relevant issue: the fact that in Brazil there are virtually no reports of successful teaching of the four skills in contexts other than the private language institutes. Before the mid-1980s, several different attempts were made to make ELT work out at regular schools, but only those which completely changed the characteristics of the classes (making them look almost exactly like the small, homogeneous classes of the private institutes) were able to achieve some (questionable) level of success. In other words, the integrative approach to ELT, with its claim of teaching the four skills, focusing especially on the oral skills, has never been successful in our regular schools, including most of the private ones, with very few exceptions. If that is indeed the case, then it makes very little sense to speak of giving our students more or less of something that they never really had. And even if we are to speak in such terms, then it is extremely clear (at least for those who tried it) that the communicative teaching of one skill is definitely better (and more) than the pantomime of allegedly teaching the four skills, which was never successful in the context of Brazilian schools.
Where do we go from here?
Any attempt to establish new policies for the teaching of EFL at Brazilian regular schools should start with the recognition that the PCN were a very important step towards meaningful foreign language education in this context. Without such recognition, there will always be the suspicion that the old beliefs connected to the professional identity of the teacher as an instructor are coming back.
Surely, we do not want to teach only reading forever. But sound attempts to go forward in enhancing the relevance of our teaching should start with the discussion of the three groups of reasons that justified the propositions of the PCN. The focus on reading was considered the most adequate for the majority of our schools because of practical considerations about our working conditions, social relevance, and educational relevance.
As far as practical conditions and educational relevance are concerned, virtually no major change has occurred in order to justify reframing our teaching. However, in what concerns social relevance, it is undeniable that the growth of the Internet has provided a new context for the use of the English language outside schools. For that reason, it is my belief that skills other than reading may now be taught in our classes without representing a return to a rationale that is alien to our schools. The teaching of writing in the context of Internet genres and practices is definitely necessary, if we want our students to have their own voice, becoming able to project their own local identities in global contexts.
Adapted from: ALMEIDA, Ricardo Luiz Teixeira de. Scielo Brazil – Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada - https://www.scielo.br/j/rbla/a/ nNz3Jtj85xmms8MnNfwRpMn/?lang=en. Accessed: 05/02/2024.