Multiliteracies at school: an examination study of Portuguese teachers in formation

Abstract

This BEPE project is part of our doctoral research (N°. 2013/13263-0) in course. First of all, we are going to explain briefly about the complete proposal of research, next, we are going to argue about the importance the time dedicated to an abroad internship would have to this study. The bigger project (funded by The State of São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP/Brazil) aims to investigate the teaching-learning processes concerning the Graduate Course Redefor for Portuguese Language teachers from São Paulo State/Brazil - 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 (didactic sequences) they propose in their Final Essays (mandatory in order to obtain the graduate degree). This way, the corpus of investigation is: (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. Focusing mainly the part of analysis concerning the multiliteracies activities, this BEPE project is a proposal for work to be undertaken during a stay of six months in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the United States, under the supervision of professor William Cope, PhD. In order to improve our analysis resources, we intend to exchange knowledge as well as deepen our understandings on multiliteracies and teachers training for new learning through the internship supervised by professor Cope, who has contributed extensively regarding especially the intellectual production about the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies. Furthermore, his research interests include theories and practices of pedagogy, cultural and linguistic diversity and new technologies of representation and communication, which are themes related to our project, since we are studying, besides multiliteracies in education, an online teachers training program. Thus, the main objective of this internship abroad is to promote scientific exchange with other researchers and to refine the theoretical and methodological approach to the corpus of the research in progress. (AU)