New literacies, new practices? A study of teachers' discourses about multiliteracies and new literacies at school

Abstract

This research project aims to investigate the teaching-learning processes concerning the Graduate Course Redefor for Portuguese Language teachers from São Paulo State - second edition (2011-2012). The main purpose is to understand how those teachers who took the course use the concepts Multiliteracies and New Literacies in school by means of the analysis of their discourses during the discipline LP-005 "Multiliteracies, languages and media" and the analysis of the classroom activities they propose in their Final Essays (mandatory in order to obtain the graduate degree). This way, the corpus of investigation will be: (I) the course itself, emphasizing the discipline LP-005 and the interactional tools available on the Virtual Learning Platform called TelEduc; (II) the set of Final Essays from both editions of the course, for purposes of quantitative analysis and discussion; and (III) the written material which registered the interactions occurred between one group (from second edition) and its tutor during the discipline LP-005, as well as some Final Essays (also from second edition) which contain descriptions of classroom activities focused on multiliteracies or new literacies, both material intend to be used for qualitative analysis of teachers' discourses. The research methodology is qualitative-interpretative and data were obtained in written modality (except for the discipline, which has multimedia resources) made available on the platform TelEduc. Regarding the theoretical apparatus for the discussion of data, we will use the relevant literature for the main concepts of the study: Multiliteracies and New Literacies. The discourse analysis will be held by Bakhtin and Volochínov discourse theories (mainly BAKHTIN, 1988[1934-35/1975]; BAKHTIN/VOLOCHÍNOV, 2004[1929]. Finally, this study is an important contribution to the field of Applied Linguistics because it discusses the current issue about teacher education to the work concerning Multiliteracies and New Literacies (COPE; KALANTZIS, 2000; 2009; KALANTZIS; COPE, 2008; ROJO, 2012; 2013(in press); KNOBEL; LANKSHEAR, 2002; 2007; LANKSHEAR; KNOBEL, 2008; 2011) in Portuguese Language teaching. (AU)