(Re)thinking foreign language teaching and learning

Abstract

Education fulfills a social function. Thus, on the threshold of a pragmatic, dynamic, volatile century, the school, as well as the teaching, is replaced by new social demands. About this issue, so that the characters have a concrete engagement in the social world, it is not only necessary language skills development both in the vernacular language and in a foreign one. In view of this, this paper referred to the research effort to the main contributions of a specialized and epistemological foundation about the prospects of the teaching and learning of foreign languages. About the methodological nature of the paper, the research was exploratory as to the objectives and literature research in relation to sources of information, based on the technique of indirect documentation, the main procedure of data collection. The data were analyzed qualitatively in a critical and reflective perspective which revealed intriguing implications. First, the relevance of learning, mastery, competence and linguistic--discursive commitment in a foreign language at the threshold of an era in which international relations, techno-scientific progress and globalization are intensified. Second, the factors that (do not) enable the effective teaching and learning process of foreign languages. Thus, inferring, there are educational gaps and paradigms. Therefore, the teaching and learning process of foreign languages is flawed. One of the first steps to reverse this scenario is to understand the language as an essentially oral phenomenon, the heterogeneity of students, and the role in learning. Finally, having the pedagogical practice consolidated in the applicability, utility, real meaning of the content and activities for learning students, and, significantly, in the playfulness.