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This essay looks at the discourses on lgbtq topics in English language teaching aimed at upper secondary schools in Sweden. The purpose is to find out how the discourses are created by analyzing a set of textbooks as well as interviewing teachers. The method employed in this study is critical discourse analysis supported by queer theoretical perspectives. Together these frameworks help to show how the social relationships that affect lgbtq people are affecting the educational setting in English. The study finds that a separate set of discourses appear to affect textbooks and teachers. The textbooks in this study appear to be affected by discourses that favor non-lgbtq people while the teachers in this study appear to be affected by discourses that favor lgbtq people.

[pt] O processo de ensino/aprendizagem de língua inglesa em contexto escolar tem sido avaliado como ineficiente pelos sujeitos envolvidos, a saber, professores, professores em formação e alunos, como apontam pesquisas recentes. Apesar de reconhecerem a importância desse idioma em suas vidas, tanto em âmbito pessoal quanto profissional, há uma crença que se perpetua no imaginário das pessoas, dentro e fora do ambiente escolar, de que a escola não é o local de se aprender uma língua estrangeira. Contudo, percebe-se que há uma crescente atenção a essa língua estrangeira pelas autoridades educacionais, como, por exemplo, a inserção desse componente curricular no Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD) em 2011. Sendo assim, esta tese buscou investigar as representações sociais de sujeitos (gestores, professores de inglês, professores de outras disciplinas e alunos) de duas escolas públicas (uma estadual e uma federal) sobre o processo de ensino/aprendizagem de inglês. A teoria das representações sociais desenvolvida por Moscovici (1961) é o principal referencial teórico da presente tese, que também considerou a perspectiva mais estrutural de tal teoria, denominada de teoria do núcleo central (ABRIC, 1976). Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa, foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com cada um dos 26 participantes. Após análise de conteúdo e do discurso dos participantes, essa pesquisa revelou as representações sociais nucleares e periféricas sobre o ensino/aprendizagem de inglês, assim como o posicionamento discursivo dos mesmos. Os resultados revelam que a língua inglesa é considerada importante, mas ainda é muito desvalorizada em ambiente escolar. Acredita-se que saber inglês é saber falar a língua, mas a habilidade de comunicação oral não é desenvolvida nas salas de aula. Conclui-se, portanto, que as representações sociais aqui elucidadas possam vir a informar políticas públicas, para que haja melhoria da qualidade desse ensino em contexto escolar. / [en] English education at schools in Brazil has been regarded as inefficient by teachers (both pre- and in-service) and students. Although they acknowledge the importance of learning English for their personal lives and professional careers, they do not think that English classes at schools allow one to learn this foreign language. In spite of that perception, English language education has been receiving increasing attention from the authorities at different levels, e.g., English subject was inserted in the National Program of Books (known as PNLD) in 2011. Considering those efforts, this thesis aimed at revealing the social representations of English education by listening to the voices of school managers, English teachers, teachers of other disciplines and students, in two public secondary schools (one run by the State of Rio de Janeiro and the other by the federal government). The theory of social representations developed by Moscovici (1961) was the theoretical framework of this research, which has also considered the structural perspective of the referred theory, the central nucleus theory (ABRIC, 1976). As regards to the methodology, a total of 26 participants were interviewed. After content and discourse analyses of the interviews, this research has revealed the nuclear and peripheral social representations of English education, as well as the way participants positioned themselves through discourse. Results showed that the English language is regarded as important, but is still considered inefficient in school classrooms. Participants believe that learning English is learning how to speak it, but this skill is not developed at the school environment. This study may lead us to the thinking that measures should be taken in order to improve the quality of English education at Brazilian public schools.

This is an autoethnographic study (e.g. Brodkey, 1994) based on ‘stories’ from my own personal and professional journey as an adult ESL teacher which I use to narrate some aspects of adult ESL teaching. With migration one of the most dramatically contested spheres of modern political life world wide (Hall, 1998), adult English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching is increasingly a matter of social concern and political policy, as we see in the current political debates in Australia concerning immigration, citizenship and language. In Australia as an imagined community (Anderson, 1991), the song goes ‘we are, you are Australian and in one voice we sing’. In this study I argue that this voice of normative ‘Australianess’ is discursively aligned with White Australians as native speakers (an essential, biological formulation). Stretching Pennycook’s (1994a) argument that ELT (English Language Teaching) as a discourse aligns with colonialism, I suggest that the field of adult ESL produces, classifies and measures the conditions of sameness and difference to this normative ‘Australian’. The second language speaker is discursively constructed as always a deficient communicator compared with the native speaker. The binary between an imagined homogeneous Australia and the ‘migrant’ as essentially other, works against the inclusion of the learner into the dominant groups represented by their teachers, so that the intentions of adult ESL pedagogy and provision are mitigated by this imagining, problematizing and containing of the learners as other. The role of ESL teachers is to supervise (Hage, 1998) the incorporation of this other. Important policy interventions (e.g. Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2006; ALLP, 1991a) are based on understanding the English language as a universalist framework of language competences inherent in the native speaker; on understanding language as consisting of fixed structures which are external to the learner and their social contexts; and on a perception that language as generic, transferable cognitive skills can be taught universally with suitable curricula and sufficient funding. Conversely in this study I recognise language as linguistic systems that define groups and regulate social relations, forming ‘a will to community’ (Pennycook, op. cit.) or ‘communities of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Language as complex local and communal practices emerges from specific contexts. Language is embedded in acts of identity (e.g. Bakhtin, 1981) developing through dialogue, involving the emotions as well as the intellect, so that ‘voice’ is internal to desires and thoughts and hence part of identity. Following Norton (2000) who links the practices of adult ESL learners as users of English within the social relations of their every day lives, with their identities as “migrants”, I suggest that the stabilisation of language by language learners known as interlanguage reflects diaspora as a hybrid life world. More effective ESL policies, programs and pedagogies that assist immigrant learners feel ‘at home’ within Australia as a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) rest on understanding immigrant life worlds as diasporic (Gilroy, 1997). The research recommends an adult ESL pedagogy that responds to the understanding of language as socially constituted practices that are situated in social, local, everyday workplace and community events and spaces. Practices of identity and their representation through language can be re-negotiated through engagement in collective activities in ESL classes that form third spaces (Soja, 1999). The possibilities for language development that emerge are in accord with the learners’ affective investment in the new language community, but occur as improvements in making effective meanings, rather than conformity to the formal linguistic system (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000).

[pt] O presente trabalho tem como objetivo principal a geração de entendimentos sobre o(s) papel(eis) desempenhado(s) pelas emoções – ou, mais precisamente, pelas experiências emotivas - no processo de aprendizagem de língua inglesa, tendo como plataforma analítica a construção discursiva dessas experiências afetivas no solo da prática interacional. Visando subsidiar tal investigação, teço um diálogo entre a Psicologia de inclinação sócio-histórica (VYGOTSKY, 1994; AVERILL, 1985), a Psicologia Discursiva (WETHERELL, 1998) e a Linguística Aplicada (MOITA LOPES, 2006). Como ferramental de análise do corpus investigado, articulo o instrumental teórico-analítico da Linguística Sistêmico-Funcional (HALLIDAY, 1994) em seu diálogo com o Sistema de Avaliatividade (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005) com o modelo estruturante das narrativas proposto por Labov (1972). No que tange aos expedientes teórico-metodológicos que balizam esta pesquisa, me ancoro em uma visão (inter-)subjetivista e dialógica do processo de construção de conhecimento, sistematizada teoricamente no edifício da Epistemologia Qualitativa (GONZALEZ-REY, 1997). Foram realizadas três entrevistas em formato semiestruturado, cujo eixo temático centrava-se nas experiências dos participantes com a língua inglesa. As análises desses dados sugerem que, tal qual a inter-relação entre afeto e experiência preconizada por Vygotsky (2001), os expedientes avaliativos que saturam os excertos discursivos observados orientam o processo de construção discursiva das experiências emocionais, instituindo os balizamentos sobre os quais as narrativas iluminadas são erigidas. / [en] The main objective of this work is to generate understandings about the role(s) played by the emotion(s) - or, more precisely, by emotional experiences - in the process of teaching/learning English, taking the discursive construction of these affective experiences grounded on the interactional practice as an analytical platform. To support this investigation, in this research, a theoretical dialogue between Discursive Psychology (WETHERELL, 1998), Sociohistorical Psychology (VYGOTSKY, 1994; AVERILL, 1985) and Applied Linguistics (MOITA LOPES, 2006) is crafted. As a tool for analysis of the corpus here investigated, the theoretical and analytical framework of the Systemic-Functional Linguistics (HALLIDAY, 1994), in dialogue with the Appraisal System (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005), is articulated with the structural narrative model (LABOV, 1972). Regarding its theoretical and methodological aspects, this research is grounded on a (inter-)subjectivist and dialogical view of the process of knowledge construction, theoretically systematized in the Qualitative Epistemology (GONZÁLEZ-REY, 1997). Three semi-structured interviews have been conducted, having as a thematic axis the participants experiences with the English language. Analyses of data suggest that, as well as the interrelationship between affect and experience preconized by Vygotsky (2001), the evaluative aspects of the discursive fragments guide the process of the discursive construction of the emotional experiences, setting the basis for the construction of the highlighted narratives.