Índices de competitividade em sala de aula de inglês como língua estrangeira no 1º ano do ensino fundamental

Abstract

This research was carried out in a public elementary school in one of the cities of the “Grande Vitória” area, the metropolitan area in the state of Espírito Santo, and has at its setting some English language classes that took place in two 1st grade classes, whose students, aged between 6 and 7 years old, are in the beginning of their literacy process. The data were generated, segmented, analyzed and transcribed within the perspective of Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (EMCA), and Competitive Episodes, constituted as analyzable segments of talk-in-interaction in an institutional school environment, could be emically perceived and demonstrated. In order to investigate how these Competitive Episodes are configured in the researched scenario, we dedicated our attention, during data analysis, on two models of Competitive Episodes: in the first, the institution's representative presents competition as a value of society to be experienced, in particular, by one of the participants who demonstrates that he is not yet aligned with this proposal and, in the second, when the competition is promoted by the institution's representative as part of a group activity, it triggers a dispute between two participants from different groups, both indicating their engagement in competition not only through speech production but also through other multimodal elements. From this analysis, this paper aims to provide the opportunity for important theoretical and methodological reflections for the comprehension of the actions that occur during English classes in the early years of elementary school, in which English as an additional language appears as an important curricular component for the formation of children in this early stage of their school life.