Traces of approaches in the teaching-learning of Portuguese as a Foreign language: an experience with pre-service teachers

Abstract

In the perspective of Almeida Filho (1997), Anthony (1963), Prabhu (1990) and others, we conceive an “approach” as a philosophy with the potential to guide the teaching and learning processes of its agents. In this work, we seek to analyze elements that may indicate the predominance of approaches in the teaching process of PFL, through conceptions over language teaching pointed out by pre-service teachers, as well as the performance of these agents in a project from a public university located in the state of São Paulo. This way, supported by the qualitative-interpretative paradigm, we carried out semi-structured questionnaires, class observation, field notes and audio class recording as data collection tools. From these methodological procedures, we identified that the pre-service teachers mobilized pedagogical resources aligned with a mix of grammatical and communicative-based approach, since they make use of well-known structural practices, but in a contextualized and justified way. Finally, we understand that the recognition of a certain approach can help to clarify the practices of teachers and assist in the reflection of these actions seeking improvement of professional action.