An interview with Leodécio Martins Varela – English teacher

Mailson*: As far as we are concerned, we know that the supervised practice teaching is divided into three distinct stages: diagnostic phase, classroom teaching practice phase and the writing report one. Can you talk about these stages?

Leodécio: well, in the first stage, the trainee students visit the school in order to know the place of teaching practice, school infrastructure, available resource material and, the most important, the school staff: directors, supervisors, teachers and students as well as the administrative staff. That is, in this initial practice teaching phase, the student-teachers get to know the school in its totality, and mainly, the classroom – context of students and teachers teaching and learning.

Mailson: In this sense, what does the student-teacher need to do? or what does he/she investigate in this context of practice teaching?

Leodécio:  In this phase, the diagnostic one, as we have denominated it already, the student tries; in fact, to put into practice (knowledge) he/she has already “acquired” or reached in theoretical studies through the English Letras Course curriculum components: “Estrutura e Funcionamento do Ensino Básico, Didática, Metodologia do Ensino de Inglês, Prática de Ensino I/II”, among other subjects – English. It is important to highlight that in the field of Language Studies – the Applied Linguistic investigates the language use matters. Thus, in this stage, we are concerned with – in the context of class, the language use/usage by teachers and students concerning the discursive practices in the classroom. We also would like to tell you that our English and Portuguese classrooms were the mainly focus of investigation, by all means, of the student teachers. Nevertheless, as we work in an interdisciplinary perspective, we drew the student-teachers attention to the fact that they could also observe the classes of other subjects regarding the school infrastructure (classroom), teaching methodology, the classroom characteristics and language use/usage matters.

Mailson: But what has been observed in these classrooms by these student teachers?

Leodécio: As far as they are concerned, they could see that the classrooms are so small and there is no fresh air inside them. Teachers still make the use of blackboards and chalks, the chairs are really a mess and there is light matter inside the rooms as well as there is noisy matter coming from the outside part. Regarding the teaching methodology, the student-teachers detected that there is not a defined teaching methodology because each teacher seems, by all means, to carry out his/her own methodology teaching and also that teachers base their classes, mainly, on the didactic book distributed by MEC or DIRED, which it can imply, thus, problems in group work or interdisciplinary work.  If we have to describe the classrooms, according to the student-teachers´ observation, they are full of students, some are noisy, some are interested with a sense of participation, though, some classrooms are not so many participative, some students make the use of mobile phones and, according to student-teachers, teaching is teacher centered learning.

Mailson: Among so many problems, what is the language use/usage matter faced by teachers/students in the classroom?

Leodécio: we should say that student may have trouble with reading comprehension text; lack of knowledge on textual genres, trouble on writing as well as in oral conversation.

Mailson: What is the outcome of this investigation?

Leodécio: In an overall, students from school are interested according to student-teachers´ points of view. Nevertheless, they think that teaching methodology, applied by some teachers, does not motivate student for learning. Thus, in this school some teachers´ teaching practices seem to be teacher centered learning in some classrooms, making impossible students´ effective participation in their classrooms. In the face of it, student-teachers must, thus, make a course plan considering data collection analysis, reflection on/about the existing problems in the school and forecast an alternative action plan to achieve the outlined objectives in their planning.    

   
* trainee student from the 7th period of Letras (Inglês) - Assú/RN.