O Bilinguismo No Espelho: Problematizando A Educação Bilíngue Na Alfabetização De Crianças

Abstract

In this paper, I study my professional performance in the classroom as an English as an aditional language teacher (Leffa; Irala 2014), in a bilingual institution identified in the category of school with two languages – Dual language School (Lindhom-LEARY, 2001). This research consists of an action-research based on the approach of the teacher reflecting on her own practice in the classroom. Which is found in Applied Linguistics (CAVALCANTE, 1986). I answer the following guiding questions within the school in which I work as a teacher: 1) How can the knowledge of the mother tongue help in learning English as an additional language? 2) How to work the literacy in the additional language, which tends to be predominantly used in school? 3) What is biliteracy? 4) What is the difference between literacy and biliteracy and its implications for a bilingual individual? 5) How is the learning process of reading and writing influenced by biliteracy? 6) What pedagogical resources and strategies I use in the classroom for the effectiveness of the literacy process of my students? I present literacy as a process of development and the acquisition of reading and writing, is a process already initiated in early childhood education through the development of motor and cognitive skills to understand the system of the studied languages (SOARES, 2003; BRITTO, 2005). I present literacy as an auxiliary approach to the development of literacy, as producer and reproducer of the written and oral culture as the student’s knowledge of the world.(BAKER, 2006; BRITTO; 2005; FREIRE, 1989; SOARES, 2003).I assume a holistic view of the bilingual individual, the biliteracy as the ability to use two languages in different contexts mediated by orality or writing. I argue that, in a context of additive bilingualism, the mother tongue assists in the development of the additional language and vice versa (BAKER, 2006). From the concepts and definitions presented, I make some reflections about my practice, I analyze how I use the methodology and programs of the school in order to occur the literacy process in a bilingual environment, by unfolding Linguistic, not subtracting skills, knowledge or values, but providing the addition and expansion of world knowledge and linguistic and cultural experiences of my students.