Marília Mendes Ferreira

Constraints to peer scaffolding

Varios estudos, geralmente conduzidos em ambientes que favorecem a interacao, mostram que colegas podem colaborar mutuamente e de modo eficaz. Entretanto, este trabalho aborda obstaculos a criacao desse tipo de andaime que podem ter ocorrido devido ao ambiente desmotivador dos alunos utilizados na pesquisa. A analise e baseada em gravacoes de audio e video do desempenho dos alunos em duas atividades orais em uma aula de ingles como lingua estrangeira. A atividade um consistiu em uma lacuna de informacao e a dois, em um drill comunicativo. Os seguintes obstaculos foram encontrados: 1) a regulacao pelo objeto do aluno menos capaz, 2) dificuldades do aluno mais capaz em promover andaimes, 3) falta de conhecimento de ingles do aluno mais capaz. Esses empecilhos podem ser explicados pela experiencia onipresente e frustrante desses alunos em aprender ingles na escola publica brasileira e pela sua falta de socializacao na colaboracao entre paresABSTRACT:Several studies, usually carried out in settings that are conducive to interaction, demonstrate peers can provide mutual scaffolding effectively. In contrast, this article focuses on constraints to peer scaffolding which, possibly, happened because of participants’ demotivating learning environment. Analysis is based on the video and audio recordings of the performance of two beginning Brazilian students carrying out two oral tasks in an EFL class. Task one consists of an information gap and task two, of a communicative drill. The following constraints were identified: 1) the less capable peer’s object-regulation, 2) the more capable peer’s hindrance to scaffolding, 3) the more capable peer’s lack of L2 knowledge. These hindrances can be explained by the students’ pervasive and frustrating foreign language learning experience in the Brazilian public school and by the lack of socialization into scaffolding.Keywords: sociocultural theory; scaffolding; the zone of proximal development.

O livro didático importado de inglês e o ensino da escrita

The paper analyses how the textbook series Interchange, third edition, conceptualizes writing, writing instruction and if the latter changes as the series moves along. The exercises of the book were classified into five categories and it was possible to conclude that overall writing was conceived as a mere opportunity for grammar and vocabulary practice, as a mechanical decontextualized practice of language, not based on models or samples. The writing instruction adopts a worse procedure than the traditional perspective and the material seeks theoretical and market update through the insertion of process writing techniques and through labeling texts with genre names.