Language & Culture

AUTHOR: Fernando Bruno A. Molina Benites*

Learning how to prepare a stuffed paratha; knowing about the latest political controversial in Mianmar; figuring out ancient Macquarie Island’s tribes’ rites; knowing that one of the Kardashians got divorced, or discovering the profession that best fits one’s interests and lifestyle.

If you are thinking of some hours spent on the internet, with both varied and significant information they may bring, I am sorry, but you are wrong! What the paragraph above contains is a small sample of everyhing that may be presented and discussed in an English class – and if you are not ‘buying it’, just stop and think of learning a language through diverse textual genres and the multiple subjects covered by them…

Well, yes, it is around these several genres that English classes usually revolve. The PCN – National Curriculum Parameters (BRASIL, 2000) – not only puts English in a “privileged position, for serving as a ‘tool’ to all other disciplines” (p. 94), but also states that acquiring/developing skills in this language “[…] consists in mastering reading techniques – such as skimming, scanning, prediction – as well as the perception and identification of textual interpretation indexes (graphs, tables, dates, numbers, itemization, titles and subtitles, in addition to style and genre elements)” (p. 97).

It seems to be clear that bringing a certain text aiming both to apply some of the reading techniques and teach vocabulary cannot remain at the core of any class if themes and possible traits which may be appealing to students are overlooked. Thus, the experience of a teaching-learning process which prioritizes textual genres led us to the Common National Curriculum Base – the BNCC (BRASIL, 2017), whose assertions concerning English teaching point to going beyond the development of language skills, contributing indeed to the education of critical and transforming students, able to make contributions in a globalized and plural world.

Yet, it is important to point out what Leo Tolstoi has once quoted: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself” (2016). In other words, as a part of the school curriculum, English should, prior to all other functions it may assume, make students look at themselves; understand what they see; like it, and take all the opportunities to appreciate it even more, adding to the initial impressions the sign of somebody who is conscious of their role not only in a world, but also (mainly?) in a home, a neighborhood, and a community that claims for participation and, above all, innovation, improvement… and, of course, change!

Having established this, it is difficult to escape from the cliche: reading different texts is the best way to read oneself – and figuring oneself out is of pivotal importance to placing them in the world as well as making them aware of their own potential and responsibilities. All this, resorting to the BNCC, is supposed to be reached through the addition of a fifth scope to the speaking, listening, reading and writing competences naturally linked to English teaching: the intercultural dimension.

This is the ambit in which students are led to “reflect on features inherent to the interaction among cultures (students’ own and those related to the other English speakers), favoring living, respect, overcoming of conflicts and valuing diversity among peoples” (BRASIL, 2017, p. 244). In addition to this, the document also urges teachers to develop interdisciplinar activities, once these stand for an extension of perspectives and possibilities for the understanding of different information and values, as well as the exercise of social protagonism.

And that is exactly when reading – the recipe of a typical Indian dish, some piece of news concerning a country that could be our own, a study about the possible origin of a habit we still have, as well as being attentive to hearsay about celebrities or taking a vocational test – means providing amazing opportunities to open the doors for subjects (themes) and subjects (students-actors). Knowledge is, surely, a progressive construction, with its start in the lines of diverse genres… and its end where no-one could tell. Well… English as a ‘tool’ (BRASIL, 2000), right?

Allowing the magic to take place by challenging learners’ reasoning and mediating personal interaction, teachers should promote action instead of mere transmission; therefore, building takes place obliterating acceptance. Recalling the first thought here aroused, some hours spent on the internet can – when one is willing to learn – bring varied and significant information. The same may happen in an English class, since sources and receptors are there, leaving the act of learning (language, about oneself, of others, etc.) to the connection between them.

For Vargas Llosa, “Reading is a protest against the insufficiences of life” (2010); even being him only ten percent right (and he is certainly much more than this), imagine the extent and impact of the contribution reading may bring to any classroom, where any discipline is taught. Luckily, English teaching has its roots in reading countless genres, thus perpassing several areas that may be of (presente or future) students’ interest.

In brief, what is to be learned in an English class goes far beyond the language itself, making part of a group of things that are both meant by and meaningful to everything that concerns English. Thereby, working, and, besides that, exploring diverse genres in our classes is the ‘tool’ which the PCN once mentioned, and that invisibly set the tone for the BNCC: reading, developing competences, adding a new scope to these and being prepared to living with diference and able to make changes. It is possible, and also very interesting. Interesting? Hey… why not reading and talking about it in my next class?

* Fernando Bruno Antonelli Molina Benites é professor na Universidade Estadual do Paraná (Unespar). Doutorando em Ensino de Ciência e Tecnologia (UTFPR). Suas áreas de interesse são: ensino de língua e literatura, uso das TICs no ensino, letramento crítico e literário, análise de conteúdo em literatura, leitura comparada e interdisciplinaridade e intertextualidade. Lattes disponível em: <http://lattes.cnpq.br/7343217484621503>. E-mail: fernando.benites@ies.unespar.edu.br.

References

BRASIL. Ministério da Educação. Secretaria de Educação Média e Tecnológica. Base Nacional Comum Curricular. Brasília: MEC, 2017. Available in: http://basenacionalcomum.mec.gov.br/images/BNCC_20dez_site.pdf. Access: Jul. 24 2021.

______. Ministério da Educação. Secretaria de Educação Média e Tecnológica. Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (EM). Brasília: MEC, 2000.

LLOSA, M. V. Em defesa do Romance. In: Revista Piauí, n. 37, p. 64-69. Out. 2010. Available in: http://revistapiaui.estadao.com.br/edicao_37/artigo_1159/Em_defesa_do_romance.aspx. Access: Jun. 25 2020.

TOLSTOI, L. The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoi: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters and Essays on Art, Religion and Politics. 2016. Available in: https://books.google.com.br/books?id=xX3yCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT6943&lpg=PT6943&dq=tolstoy+three+methods+of+reform+google+books&source=bl&ots=VCbFlPEGg1&sig=ACfU3U0mdn1hhyPLNs0xNTjifeeQvg5xHQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwih2PiTuIfzAhVhqZUCHeA4DKQQ6AF6BAgMEAM#v=onepage&q=tolstoy%20three%20methods%20of%20reform%20google%20books&f=false. Access: Sep. 17 2021.

Images:

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/fairy-tale-fantasy-dream-night-1077863/

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/ask-writing-who-what-how-why-2245264/

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/global-globalization-globe-hands-102448/

Schoolchildren and adolescents are not ‘educated’ by schools only. Families, churches, friends, and the media are also sources of educational influence which impact on the teaching and learning processes. These social influences end up adding to the student’s educational background.

In this sense, The Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters (1997) state that ‘all communication stuff renders a source of information’. Information can be spread through print, electronic or digital means. Regarding their massive social use, information and communication channels aim to make public information content related to people’s day-to-day social contexts.

The general media play their part in the schooling setting, above all, in materials traditionally addressed to ‘didactic” use, also known as ‘teaching resources’. Among these materials, there are those which are produced for specific purposes. They are oriented and designed by following their own criteria with theoretical and pedagogical grounds. They are organized into work units aimed at a particular area of ​​knowledge in order to allow for educational work in schools.

Textbooks are considered the most influential media in Brazilian schools and it is up to teachers and schooling institutions to check out the factors that correspond to such predominance. According to Brazilian education philosopher Saviani (1997), textbooks can be a significant  support for teachers’ actions as long as they are not taken as the ‘great instructor’ in the classroom.

Saviani remarks that teaching support materials are very important. However, they are resources, they are instruments and they do not replace educational agents; ‘instruments are, since the origin of humanity, sought in the sense of maximizing, potentializing human actions’. Hence, the original definition of an ‘instrument’: ‘the extension of human arms’ (SAVIANI, 1997, p. 68). In terms of pedagogical methods, contents and practices, instruments cannot serve educators as their ‘private’ educational formula for promoting teaching and learning.

Unlike to that, the use of textbooks in the classroom implies regular critical work  analysis by both teachers and students. Teachers must often engage their students in discussions, and have them analyze every piece of information brought by any teaching materials. In this way, students will be capable of relating any information to their own settings as well as to the real conditions of the society they belong to. North-American critical educator Giroux (1997) assumes that the print and audiovisual media foster readers to  criticize, analyze, infer and interpret the (un)veiled reality.

In sum, it is important that teachers’ practices engage properly in the media use – both those with specific purposes and those of general use – with well-defined purposes and objectives. The educational use of the general media in teaching needs to go beyond the common-sense notion that they sort of play the role of ‘facilitators’ in education. It is quite the opposite since by integrating the media into teaching and learning it is needed, more than ever, to work within students’ mental faculties of reason and criticality.

REFERENCES:

BRASIL. Secretaria de Educação Fundamental. Parâmetros curriculares nacionais: introdução aos parâmetros curriculares nacionais. Brasília, DF: MEC; SEF, 1997.

GIROUX, H. Os professores como intelectuais. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 1997.

SAVIANI, D. Brasil: educação para a elite e exclusão para a maioria. Comunicação e Educação, São Paulo, v. 8, p. 63-77. jan./abr. 1997.

IMAGES:

Available at: https://www.wcrf.org/

Available at: https://www.deluxedentalusa.com/

Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/paying-teachers-to-perform-the-impact-of-bonus-pay-in-pernambuco-brazil

Communication channels have huge and intensive impact on cultural matters in society, and so, on human education. Middle and high school students come to the classroom embodied in mediatized cultures. They hold a great range of information and learn several different contents that are taught by the media every day.

The use of digital and electronic media in education render different attitudes by school teachers though.  On the one hand, there are teachers who refuse to use them for a number of reasons: they lack technical knowledge, they keep negative or apocalyptic views of the media; also, there are those who prefer to use traditional teaching tools, such as, blackboards and copy notebooks followed by very ordinary methods of teaching.

Furthermore, on the grounds of a technicist perspective of the use of media tools in education, there are those teachers who choose media-based approaches that reproduce values, beliefs and stereotypes about people and society with no educational goals at all. Thus, these   tools  set  rules and methods, tasks and contents in the classroom.

On the other hand, the overuse of these tools by teachers and educational institutions is of great concern, since they can be often introduced in school and/or academic activities with no critical sense. Therefore, how can media tools be critically and effectively used to foster cultural and educational development of students?

Pedagogical experiences based on the theoretical perspective of Media Education (PENTEADO, 1998; PORTO, 1998; MARTIRANI, 1998; KELLNER, 2001) imply a meaningful and subjective dialogism with digital, electronic and printed media. The aim is to go beyond language signs, social representations, and implicit discourses in order to educate students towards critical thinking and language awareness development, contributing to their political and cultural empowerment.

That theory requires clear articulation between methodology, media and student education. Media contents are to be seen as ‘authentic materials’ in foreign language teaching which can be analyzed in two categories: arising themes (FREIRE, 1978) (critical thinking provides an opening for questioning and critical analysis of human, historical, political and social themes); language focus (language awareness of   listening, speaking, reading, writing, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar teaching).

In 2015, a group of undergraduates from  Letras Inglês at a state university in northwestern Paraná State, studied about pedagogical uses of the audiovisual media to English language teaching.

As a final output, they ended up suggesting seven possible uses of  audiovisual media in English language teaching within a systematic methodology: a) purposes; b) reasons for the selected audiovisual media; c) a survey of arising theme(s) for discussion in the classroom; d) possible language focus, and e) student learning expectations. These audiovisual media consisted of five films, a cartoon and a documentary.

FILMS:

CARTOON:

DOCUMENTARY:

REFERENCES:

FREIRE, P. Pedagogia do oprimido. 5. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1978.

KELLNER, D. A cultura da mídia: estudos culturais: identidade e política entre o moderno e o pós-moderno. Bauru: EDUSC, 2001.

MARTIRANI, L. A. O vídeo e a pedagogia da comunicação no ensino universitário. In: PENTEADO, H. D. Pedagogia da comunicação: teorias e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 1998. p. 168.

PENTEADO, H. D. Pedagogia da comunicação: sujeitos comunicantes. In: ______. (Org.). Pedagogia da comunicação: teorias e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 1998. p. 13.

PORTO T. M. E. Educação para a mídia: pedagogia da comunicação: caminhos e desafios. In: PENTEADO, H. D. Pedagogia da comunicação: teorias e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez, 1998.

IMAGENS:

(1) Disponível em: http://snshdwallpapers.blogspot.com/2012/12/taare-zameen-per-wallpapers.html

(2) Disponível em: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Um_Sonho_Poss%C3%ADvel#/media/Ficheiro:Blind_side.jpg

(3) Disponível em: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Grande_Ditador#/media/Ficheiro:The_Great_Dictator_(1940)_poster.jpg

(4) Disponível em: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bucket_list

(5) Disponível em: https://www.amazon.com/Anne-Franks-Holocaust-None/dp/B00ZE501RS

(6) Disponível em: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack

(7) Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYRRh3lhV4

NOTA: Trabalho apresentado pela autora no evento Second Annual Latin American Conference for Teacher-research in ELT em Buenos Aires, Argentina, em 2017, sob o título “English language teaching through audiovisual media in a Brazilian teacher education program”.