Ensino e espiritualidade: uma análise de representações discursivas em livros didáticos confessionais

Abstract

This study analyzes the Being Wise textbook series, published by the Mackenzie Education System (SME), a self-declared Protestant Christian confessional educational material designed for English language teaching. The corpus consists of the opening units of the textbooks used in the final years of Elementary Education (6th to 9th grades), which I use in my work as an English teacher at a private protestant confessional school. The aim of this research is to analyze the discursive representations of teaching materials, the English language, teaching and learning, teachers, and students produced by the series, as well as to problematize the implications of the articulation between religious discourse and pedagogical discourse. This research is situated within the fields of Applied Linguistics and Pêcheux’s Discourse Analysis. From these perspectives, language and teaching-learning are understood as historically situated social practices traversed by discourses that materialize particular ideologies in and through language. Methodologically, excerpts from the textbooks were selected and organized as discursive sequences, which were subsequently grouped into discursive matrices. The analyses sought to understand how the articulation between intradiscourse and interdiscourse contributes to the production of meanings regarding the investigated objects. The results indicate that religious discourse constitutes the organizing axis of the textbook series, underpinning its rationale, objectives, and pedagogical proposal. The teaching material is represented simultaneously as a pedagogical tool and an instrument of religious formation. The English language is signified as a divine gift, associated with creation and God’s purpose for humanity. Teaching and learning are represented as practices linked to obedience and the development of creation. The teacher occupies the position of a mentor responsible for the students’ academic and spiritual formation, while the student is represented as a disciple engaged in a process of intellectual and religious development. The analyses therefore show that the articulation between religious discourse and pedagogical discourse actively participates in the production of meanings about language, teaching, and subjects within the investigated textbook series.