Análise Contextual de Ensino e Produção de um Vocabulário Trilíngue Intercultural: Contribuições para Futuros Materiais Didáticos de Inglês como Língua Adicional na Escola Estadual Indígena 19 de Abril

Abstract

In this work we present a study investigating the possibilities for curriculum and materials development for the teaching of English as an Additional Language (EAL) at the 19 de Abril state school in the Krahô indigenous village of Manoel Alves Pequeno, in Tocantins, Brazil. In accordance with the demands of the Krahô indigenous community and Brazilian indigenous education policy, the school’s curriculum incorporates the Krahô language and culture into the teaching of school subjects such as history and mathematics. Specialized intercultural teaching materials have been created for these subjects, but do not exist for English, a language required by the school’s curriculum. To investigate this problem, the present study is guided by the following research questions: what are the limitations for the EAL curriculum and materials at the 19 de Abril school? Given these limitations, how should the variety of EAL to be taught in the school be conceptualized? What linguistic content should be included in future teaching materials? To answer these questions, the following research methodologies were utilized: bibliographic analysis, document analysis, and quantitative and qualitative corpus linguistic analysis. The primary research objectives were: first, to carry out a situation analysis of factors present in the educational context to identify the limitations for the English language curriculum and teaching materials for the school (RICHARDS, 2001, 2006; NATION & MACALISTER, 2010); and second, to produce a trilingual vocabulary list that will serve as a contribution for future intercultural EAL teaching materials, through corpus linguistic analysis of existing intercultural Krahô textbooks. The results of the situation analysis revealed constraints on the English curriculum due to federal and state indigenous education laws and limited classroom hours reserved for English (BRAZIL, 1988, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2014; ALBUQUERQUE, 2012, 2014; MUNIZ, 2017). Findings also indicated encouraging possibilities for utilizing the school’s bilingual pedagogical practices as a starting point for the implementation of EAL into the school’s curriculum (ARAUJO, 2015; KRAHÔ, 2017). In response to these findings, we explore some theoretical contributions regarding: Global and World Englishes (KACHRU, 1992; KUMARAVADIVELU, 2003, 2016; CANAGARAJAH, 2005, 2014; GALLOWAY, 2017); multilingualism and the acquisition of third languages (CENOZ, 2000; DE ANGELIS, 2007; JESSNER, 2008; CENOZ & GORTER, 2011); cross-linguistic influence and lexical transfer (RINGBOM, 1987, 2001); lexicon and vocabulary (REY-DEBOVE, 1984; BIDERMAN, 1996, 1998; NATION, 2001, 2005); quantitative and qualitative methods for corpus compilation and analysis (BIBER, 1993; SARDINHA, 2000; O’KEEFFE & MCCARTHY, 2010; MCENERY & HARDIE, 2012); and the use of the corpus analysis concordancing software AntConc (ANTONY, 2016). To produce the trilingual vocabulary list, a small corpus of student-produced texts from three intercultural Krahô textbooks was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The analysis produced approximately 500 nouns, verbs, adjectives, and multi-word collocations in Portuguese, which were then translated into English and Krahô to compose the final trilingual list. The trilingual vocabulary list is offered as an initial lexical contribution to future intercultural EAL teaching materials that capitalize on existing linguistic knowledge possessed by the bilingual indigenous students as they learn English as an additional third language.