A Artificialidade da Língua em Aula de Língua Portuguesa no Brasil

The following text is the result of a research motivated by the authors’concern about children failing literacy school. In order to understand whether the use of the language in the classroom is artificial and if this artificiality may be causing a negative impact to the teaching-learning process, this research was carried out at a private elementary school in a town in Goiás / Brazil. The main objective of this research was to observe how the use of language in the literacy classroom is developed, not only the verbal interactions between the teacher and the students, but also concerning the didactic material that was adopted. To do so, 15 classes were observed and the authors focused on: a) how teachers approach the texts; b) students’ interest while working with the texts; c) students’ level of reading and production; d) the methodology used by the teacher while she was reading to the students; e) the methodology used by the teacher to correct students’ oral and written productions; f) the organization of the classes, noticing whether the teacher followed a previously planned rigid scheme or whether she chose new directions from students’ interest; g) interlocution in the classroom. In addition to the observations, this approach to the field opened doors for informal conversations with other members of the school staff, such as the director, coordinator and other teachers. These observations were recorded in a Field Diary, which was the subject of reading, reflection and analysis by the researchers. Constant visits were done throughout one semester and they continued, sporadically, through another semester. During those visits, the authors intended to understand the practices and conceptions that surrounded everyday school life. As for the theoretical discussion about language, we based our work in the concepts of Geraldi (1984), Britto (1991), Travaglia (1996), Castilho (1998) and Perfeito (2010). To these authors, there are basic concepts of language: Language as an expression of thought, as an instrument of communication and as interaction. From Morais (2000), Pinto (2009), Cagliari (2010) and Faraco (1994), we sought theoretical basis related to the teaching of Portuguese so as not to artificialize the use of language in school. Contrasting the mentioned theories with the practice of reading and writing developed in the classroom, the authors could notice the artificiality of the language in several moments. The presented and analyzed data are certainly not enough to generalize, but they are, at least, enough to understand what happens in a certain group or/and certain conditions of speech production