AVA 2 - MÉTODOS E ABORDAGEM DO ENSINO DE LÍNGUA INGLESA

Prévia do material em texto

UNIVERSIDADE VEIGA DE ALMEIDA
LICENCIATURA EM LETRAS: HABILITAÇÃO PORTUGUÊS - INGLÊS
POLO TIJUCA
MÉTODOS E ABORDAGEM DO ENSINO DE LÍNGUA INGLESA (IL80017)
PEDRO ARIEL BOMFIM PRALLON
20184300537
ATIVIDADE VIRTUAL DE AVALIAÇÃO 2
RIO DE JANEIRO
2021.1
https://uva.instructure.com/courses/16911
Abstract
The following study aims to analyse and examine different areas of culturally biased
content in a unit from an English textbook approved by the 2015’s Programa Nacional do
Livro Didático. During
1. Introduction
When it comes to EFL education, it’s known that Textbooks play a very important role.
TESOL teaches should build their students’ English communication skills by choosing
appropriate textbooks. In Brazil, public schools should choose between those that are
approved by the Textbook National Program (PNLD). This supports the idea that the most
important piece in EFL education relies on texts. According to SADKER & SADKER
(2001, P. 134): “ Students spend as much as 80 to 95 per cent of classroom time using
textbooks and that teachers make a majority of their instructional decisions based on the
textbook.”
According to CHOPPIN (2004, P .566), Textbooks writers have an agency on what
language and cultural aspects students might be exposed to; changing realities and shaping
their knowledge where usually social conflicts, and other violent acts are systematically
silenced. Bearing this in mind, when choosing a textbook, EFL educators must confront its
bias, implicitly supporting and, at some instance, inviting students to accept it. As
ROBERTS (2001) notes, language socialization better describes how learners might come
to produce and interpret discourse (P.108).
2. Aims of the study
The following study aims to analyse and examine different areas of culturally biased
content such as colour and gender representation in a unit from the book High Up 1 (2013)
approved by the 2015’s “Programa Nacional do Livro Didático”. The collection comes in
three volumes and was supposed to be taught during the three Brazilian high school’s
years. The unit was analysed in terms of names and pronouns allocated to each gender and
the presence of non-white people in the unit. The textbook was also examined to discover
whether females and males had equal first places occurrences in instructions exercises and
sentences.
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4. Method
This study employs a qualitative and quantitative approach in which frequency non-white
people appear or are referred to in the book unit in order to find out if there is any lack of
representativity in the materials. The study also examines in which frequency of first-place
occurrences of words attributed to females and males, frequency counts of female and
male referring terms were examined in order to find out whether women and men were
treated equally.
5. Findings
The analysis regarding whether names and pronouns attribute to females and males and
non-white people’s frequencies can be seen in the table below:
Table 1. Frequency of Names, Pronouns and non-white people presence Attributed to Females and Males
from a Unit 1 of English Textbook for Brazilian High Schools.
Book Sex Appereance Names Pronouns non-white
peoples
Presence
High
Up 1
Male 75,86% [22] 62,5% [5] 90% [9] 9,07% [2]
Female 24,14% [7] 37,5% [3] 10% [1] 42,86% [3]
As table 1 shows, the percentage of appearance of men is 75,86%, where 9,07% are
non-white people in relation to 24,14% of women, where 42,86% are non-white people.
Male names and pronouns appear respectively 62,5% and 90% throughout the unit; on the
other hand, female names and pronouns are used respectively in 37,5% and 10% of the
unit, being the pronoun she only mentioned once, which is concerning since it’s a unit that
aims to teach the “verb to be” forms in the present tense.
Table 2. Frequency of First-place Occurrences by Males and Females in Instructions, Exercises or Sentences
Items Male Occurences Female Occurences
Instructions 100% [1] 0%
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Exercises or Sentences 33,33% [1] 66,67% [2]
Total 50% [2] 50% [2]
As table 2 shows, concerning instructions, the material seems to be more equalized in
terms of gender, although it’s notable the lack of non-white representation. During the unit,
there’s a passage that is directed to a black male famous person. After that, there’s an
image where a non-white girl asks a non-white boy if they were late for class, on the right
side, there are two white teenagers looking ate a paper smiling. All doodled characters
from the book are white.
Although the book unit seems to have equal first-place occurrences throughout the unit, it’s
shocking to perceive that the material lacks in terms of diversity and representation.
Another concerning point is the fact that in a unit that aims to teach the “verb to be” which
is a basic concept that will be used throughout the lessons, not acknowledging the use of
the pronoun “she” as for other pronouns might be problematic for achieving learning
outcomes.
6. Conclusions
This study was an attempt to analyse the gender and race representation in High Up 1
(2013) approved by the 2015’s “Programa Nacional do Livro Didático”. The collection
comes in three volumes and was supposed to be taught during the three Brazilian high
school’s years. The unit was analysed in terms of names and pronouns allocated to each
gender and the presence of non-white people in the unit. The results revealed that there’s
no fair treatment of females and males in the unit. i.e. the appearance of male entries
outnumbers 51,72% in relation to female ones. The use of female pronouns happens only
once through an entire unit that grammatically aims to teach the verb to be. In terms of
race, it’s clear that non-white people have a really short passage in the book, although
sometimes they might have activities just focused on them. Therefore, it can be stated that
in the unit analysed, women and non-white people were discriminated.
References:
CHOPPIN, A. História dos livros e das edições didáticas: Educação e Pesquisa. Tradução
de Maria Adriana C. Cappello. Revista Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v.30, n.3, p.
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549-566, set./dez. 2004. In FERNANDES, F. & CORDEIRO, S. 5. A História das
Gravuras e sua relação com os livros didáticos de linguas. HELB. ANO 3 - Nº 3
-1/2009.<http://www.helb.org.br/index.php/revista-helb/ano-3-no-3-12009/114-a-historia-d
as-gravuras-e-sua-relacao-com-os-livros-didaticos-de-linguas> last accessed Mar 19th,
2021
ROBERTS, C. (2001). Language acquisition or language socialisation in and through
discourse? In CANDLIN, C.N. & MERCER, N. (Eds.), English language teaching in its
social context (pp. 108-121). London: Routledge
SADKER, D. & SADKER M. (2001). Gender bias: from colonial America to today’s
classrooms. In BANKS, J.A. and BANKS, C.A.E. (Eds.), Multicultural Education: Issues
and Perspectives. 4th ed. (pp.125-151). New York: John Wiley & Sons In SHERMAN,
J.E. (2010) Uncovering Cultural Bias in EFL Textbooks. UCLA.
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http://www.helb.org.br/index.php/revista-helb/ano-3-no-3-12009/114-a-historia-das-gravuras-e-sua-relacao-com-os-livros-didaticos-de-linguas
http://www.helb.org.br/index.php/revista-helb/ano-3-no-3-12009/114-a-historia-das-gravuras-e-sua-relacao-com-os-livros-didaticos-de-linguas