Changing stories : os novos pátios para o ensino de inglês como língua adicional/estrangeira

Abstract

Based on Duboc and Ferraz (2011), the concept of new literacies dates from the end of the 80´s and early 90´s in response to a need of expanding the liberal notion of literacy or, as defined by Street (1995), the autonomous model of literacy, characterized as a monolithic set of reading and writing skills which are acquired in isolation from the ideological and cultural context in which the subjects take part. Literacy, in the conventional sense, is therefore understood as the ability of reading and writing the linguistic code, while the new literacies are considered an expansion of this ability in order to consider the ideological and social aspects inherent in the Reading practices. Thus, this action research aims at investigating the (Multimodal / digital) knowledge production of an English teaching project designed for 7thgrade-elementary-school students from a private institution located in the city of Vitória, ES state. The project, called "Changing Stories" is based upon the re-reading of comics in videos. The methodology of this study is qualitative (CRESWELL, 2009) within an analytical model that allows a subjective approach in relation to the object, in order to provide linguistics and sociocultural perspectives in English teaching. The methodological design of the study was organized in three stages, namely, the project presentation for the students, the corpus construction, and the productions analysis. The review of literature suggests the need of problematizations about the limited multiliteracies practices in students from private institutions in the ES state. The results of the project and data analysis were validated, by theoretical point of view, anchored in the multimodality, as a significant English learning alternative in critique and students citizenship construction. We conclude that the “Changing Stories” project, as an English teaching proposal, eschews the historical vocabulary and grammar- based traditional epistemologies provided that it goes beyond the linguistic objectives and attempts to reach social and cultural objectives in the language education process. In this sense, the Project is closely tied to multimodal “New Patios” which aim to listen to English learners ´voices, contributing, therefore, to students´ meaning processes through multiliteracy practices.