O que ensinar a quem já ensina em aula de língua estrangeira? : uma proposta pedagógica para ensino de línguas estrangeiras a alunos adultos

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate what to teach, in foreign language classes, to more than fifty-year-old adult learners, who, due to their life experience, have more to teach than to learn. This study is linked to Post-Graduation Program in Education of Universidad de Caxias do Sul- Master in Education- in research line “Education, Language, and Technology” and , it is also linked to a research project “Aspects of reading training and its repercussions in the relationship between efficient professional and reading (TEAR 5)”, also developed at Universidade de Caxias do Sul. The methodological procedures used included a research instrument which consisted in a questionnaire, containing an experience account. From the latter, a textual discourse analysis was done (Bardin and Moraes) together with a dialectic analysis of the referred aspects. It was noticed that the contents of foreign language classes for older adults needs to be reformulated so as to be more significant. Based on the piece of research done, two aspects: subjectivity and expression of feelings are highlighted, which leads to suggest a “new” element to be included in foreign language teaching for this age: aesthetics, considered as a possibility of seeing life in another way. The aesthetic element, as studied by Bense, Ostrower, Hermann, and Paviani appears together with the process of reflection in the act of learning, as a means of attaining autonomy in the cognitive development of the historic individual (concept introduced by Hegel). Relating ethics and aesthetics, art and life, this proposal is composed, also referring to uses of text and language, in Vygotsky‟s and Bakhtin‟s approach, as a way of having the student talking to himself/herself, to others, and to the world. This study shows that, when this dialogue takes place, the student learns, and at the same time, builds his/her subjectivity. So, this study suggests including aesthetics elements in foreign language curricula for older adult students, and continuing research about the possibility of these points being also relevant in other areas of teaching and learning at the referred age.