Histórias de uma professora e o uso da tecnologia digital: o chat educacional em um contexto de ensino de inglês

Abstract

This research aims to narrate and analyze an experience of using the educational chat in the context of English language teaching and learning. Therefore, I present the stories lived by myself and my students, participants of this research, and who study at a public institution of technical education integrated into the high school, from a city in the region of Alto Paranaíba, Minas Gerais. Considering the conception of chat as emerging digital genre (ABREU-TARDELLI, 2010; COSTA, 2009; MARCUSCHI, 2005, 2008, 2010) and as an interaction space (GERVAI, 2004; MOTTA-ROTH, 2010), and taking Narrative Inquiry (CLANDININ e CONNELLY, 2006; 2011) as a theoretical-methodological approach, I wanted to understand the lived experience, through stories and composition of meanings (ELY, VINZ, DOWNING e ANZUL, 2001) from these stories. As theoretical reference, I support myself in authors which discuss aspects involving interaction in a virtual environment, using the chat tool, in language learning like Chaves (2010) and Motta-Roth (2010); I also present some conceptions of chat according to Abreu-Tardelli (2006), Gervai (2004), among others. I base myself in Berge (1995), Palloff and Pratt (1999), among others, to address the role of teachers in the virtual environment for teaching and learning, and, in Jonassen et. al. (2008) and Maia and Mattar (2007), to treat the role of students in this environment. I point out that the search experience by insertion of digital technology in my teaching practice, by using the chat tool, led me important insights, especially regarding the need to have clearly defined goals and my role as a teacher to deal with digital technologies in my practice, in order to make proper use of them for the process of teaching and learning of English. I also mention the sharing of experiences and the collaborative aspect in which using chat got us involved, giving us, students-participants and me, the possibility of building knowledge together whether in relation to the use of language or the use of digital technology.