What Teachers Say When they Write or Talk about Discourse Analysis
CONCLUSION
Our respondents’ initiatives to change the profile of their classrooms, as a result of exposure to the discipline DA, are very limited. This is the conclusion we draw from the consistent characterization of their classroom initiatives as attempts at introducing elements learned in the DA component of the Diploma Course. This seems to be motivated, not by their attitude towards the discipline, which is overall positive, but rather by the perceived degree of effort required to face institutional constraints. At least this is what is voiced in their discourses.
It is not our intention here to minimize the institutional constraints faced by EFL teachers in Brazil. However, the perceived obstacles may also be seen as the result of informants’ misconceptions about the nature of language/discourse and the nature of FL language teaching and learning. If this is the case, then, both as syllabus planners and teachers of the DA modules, we should address: 1) the nature of language (or discourse) as a system of interconnected layers of meaning, rather than a system made up of separate components, organized hierarchically, with the implicit assumption that learning a language means covering the lower-level components first; and 2) the nature of language teaching and learning as a formative enterprise, whose most important aim is broadening students’ cultural horizons.
By addressing, and trying to change, these social representations, we would be intervening in an important dimension of our STs’ classroom practice, inasmuch as the representations carry outdated assumptions about teaching and learning. One of them is the assumption (related to 1 above) that learning has to be organized in a clear sequence, from “simple” to “more complex” elements. The other implicit assumption (related to 2 above) in these representations has to do with the misleading notion that FL teaching should emphasize linguistic competence, neglecting the nature of language as a cultural system. Teachers of a FL in public schools in Brazil should move beyond an emphasis on linguistic competence and take on the responsibility of making their students aware of the importance of the FL as a cultural system.
A possible contribution of the Diploma Course, in this sense, would be to encourage student-teachers to adopt a critical attitude towards the syllabus and classroom practices in these public institutions, with a view to constructing a syllabus and a methodology that would reflect the specific needs and interests of public-school students.
An important contribution of this research lies in the claim that if we want to improve our teacher education courses, we must pay attention not only to the “contents” we teach but also to the social experiences of student-teachers, including the social representations that are brought to bear on their classroom practices.
Had we not begun by discourse itself, i.e., by viewing language as social practice, we would have missed the fact that language is used to construe ‘worlds’ that reflect socially-situated identities and activities at play in specific situations. The tools of Discourse Analysis enabled us to investigate our STs’ knowledge, practices, beliefs and values which affect how they write, talk and eventually act.
