Representações do trabalho de professores em dois contextos de ensino: pensando o coletivo no curso de idiomas e em aulas particulares

Abstract

Based on the Applied Linguistics and understanding that it is by means of the language activities organized in discourse or texts that human beings perform, represent and represent themselves discursively and socially, the present research aimed at investigating the teaching work in the light of the Sciences of Work and the Sociodiscursive Interactionism (SDI) theoretical framework (BRONCKART, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2006, 2008; MACHADO, 2004, 2007), which conceive language as an activity in its social and discursive perspective. This dissertation investigated the representations of the teaching work, by means of the discourse of two students, as well as two English teachers who experienced the learning process in two different contexts: the private lessons and the language school environment. Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews we were able to find out that the teacher who works in a language school is defined by the students as a professional who has his work curtailed by pressure coming from varied instances and, therefore finds little room to reconceive norms and prescriptions. Concerning the private teacher, he is seen as a flexible and dynamic professional who finds enough room to reconceive norms and prescriptions, but who has to face restrictions to his work, such as financial instability and the compromise of the evaluation of his work due to the lack of a professional partner. The outcome of the teachers‟ linguistic and discursive analysis brought to light that the teachers‟ behaviour is first aligned with the concept of a professional moulded by the restraints of the school where he works (DE SOUZA, 2007), then with the concept of the Sciences of Work (CLOT, 1998; 2007[1999]; 2010) which conceive the worker as autonomous before the prescriptions that the institutions impose on them. The analysis also showed that the Collective of Work is present in the discourse of both, students and teachers and that there were divergences about the distance that the teachers notice between the prescribed and the realized work within the two contexts. There was convergence about the perception that the Internet, some educational sites and digital books may figure as professional partners for the private teacher.