Língua inglesa: a origem histórica desta disciplina curricular na educação brasileira

Abstract

The English language has had a Brazilian trajectory since the colonial period, based on socioeconomic relations with the British crown, which started to have more and more influence in Brazil after the Portuguese Crown fled. As a curricular component, its trajectory initially presents great prestige. Nowadays, English is a language of great importance in the world scenario. Whether for the labor market or for leisure, it is present as a major communication element in the globalization context we live in. Thus, it is important to understand how the teaching of the English language was institutionalized in Brazil. In this sense, this research aims at analyzing the historical process of institutionalization of the English language from its insertion in Brazilian society and in its educational system, verifying the importance of its influence, in order to understand how the teaching of the English language was structured in Brazil. Thus, an exploratory research of qualitative nature was carried out by means of a bibliographical survey of articles, theses and dissertations in the platforms "Google Acadêmico" and in the CAPES Periodicals using the keywords "trajetória da língua inglesa", "disciplina escolar língua inglesa" and "currículo escolar língua inglesa". For this, a filter was applied with the inclusion criteria for the selection of the works that met the research objective, which were: to discuss how the English language originated and how it spread; to approach how the English language was constituted as a subject in Brazil; it is published in Portuguese language; and understand the period from 2010 to 2022. Five works were analyzed, being four articles and one dissertation. From them, it was possible to understand how the whole process of institutionalization of the English language in Brazil took place and its failures, observing that it was structured in a way that reproduces the inequalities of society, being made possible for the richest classes while it is presented with poor training for the poorest layers in public schools.