Multimodalidade e prática docente de Língua Inglesa: promovendo a leitura multimodal crítica a partir de gêneros textuais do humor

Abstract

The advancement of digital technologies in our daily lives has triggered the need to use a diversity of modes and representational signs that interfere in the reading and production of information in our society. Multimodal resources have been widely used in our interactions and this reality has contributed to the spread of new discussions on reading and multiple literacies concepts, since this multimodal aspect ends up being neglected in the classroom while working with textbooks and textual genres. Authentic and multisemiotic texts arranged, such as humor genres, are sometimes treated as figurative and secondary (Oliveira, 2006), making unfeasible an approach beyond the textbook as a pedagogical resource, a transdisciplinary and critical perspective. Thus, this research aims to investigate, based on humor textual genres, the approach to multimodality through the lens of the textbook from the collection English vibes for Brazilian learners (Franco; Tavares, 2020), adopted by high school English teachers in the state public network of Paraíba, in order to propose, based on the results, a pedagogical intervetion with questions that guide a critical multimodal approach in the reading of these texts in English language classes. The theoretical foundation is found in the field of Applied Linguistics, affiliated with the theory of social semiotics and the concepts proposed by the multimodality approach (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006); with the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies represented by the New London Group (1996, 2000) and the Show me framework proposed by Callow (2008), whose discussions are centered on the development of critical multimodal literacy through the analytical reading of texts that have different semiotic modes. Moreover, the discussions by Marcuschi (2008), Bazerman (2020), and Carmelino (2014, 2022) regarding textual genres, texts in the sphere of humor and critical reading respectively are fundamental. The methodology follows a qualitative approach with descriptive and interpretative procedures for analysis. The research corpus comprises humorous texts (specifically cartoons) arranged in the reading/textual comprehension sections (Getting Started and Reading Comprehension), in the units where they appear as well as the pedagogical approach of pre-reading and reading carried out through questions. The data collection and analysis instruments are diagnostic questionnaires applied to the participating teachers; multimodal checklist/analysis of texts chosen as excerpts; multimodal checklist/analysis of the approach of activities based on the texts. The results of the analysis reveals a narrow approach of multimodality from the cartoons and the activities based on them in the textbook, that could be a glance of factors such as: a) lack of teacher training; b) difficulties in adopting and using the textbook; c) difficulties in approaching textual genres of humor, and others. Therefore, we proposed a pedagogical intervention product, from the discussions of these results, setting up a workbook as a possibility for broadening a multimodal approaching of reading the texts at english classes.