The role of Letras programs in the education of English language teachers working with children

Abstract

This work revisits some issues related to the signifi cant growth in the offer of English language teaching in the first grades (nursery school and fi rst four grades of primary school) in the Brazilian educational scenario. Consequently, the implications for the education of English language teachers who work with children become crucial for resignified school practices. Thus the need to (re)think some aspects concerning the Letras (Modern Foreign Languages) programs so that teachers in initial education are prepared to face one more new challenge of the contemporary world: the teaching  of foreign languages to children. This article brings the analyses of a questionnaire applied to a group of students from the Letras program taking the elective discipline “English Language Teaching to Children” at a public university in the north of Paraná state. The analyses followed the theoretical-methodological sociodiscursive interactionism principles, taking into account that the production of any text is necessarily infl uenced by the situation of production. Overall, the results reveal that there is significant concern by student-teachers with regards to their university preparation for the teaching of foreign languages (particularly the teaching of English) to children in their initial school years. Considering that, in Brazil, the Letras programs are not yet structured to meet such needs. We claim that it is highly important that such courses include, in their objectives, the education of foreign language professionals that are able to work with children

Key words: teachers’ initial education, English language to children, sociodiscursive interacionism.