Cursos do idiomas sem fronteiras inglês UFU: tecnologias digitais, investimento e complexidade

Abstract

Digital technologies and the process of learning languages are deeply connected at present times. Concurrently, learning English as an additional language has solidified over time and this growth is due to the necessity of learning English as a global language. Both teaching and learning English, the focus of this research, provide a context for multiple actions or policies by considering the classroom a social space. In this context, programs such as English without Borders (ISF) were created in Brazil. The program requires that students have a minimum knowledge about digital technologies for the classes and development of activities. From this context, my concern for this research emerges: I intend to understand the role of digital technologies for learning English as an additional language and I investigate the investment made by learners from ISF. In this proposal, I include: a) a research about the participants investment in additional language and b) the analysis of each learner\'s opinion towards the use of technology as a learning tool. As a result, I try to answer these questions: 1) What is the investment of the students of ISFEnglish UFU, participants in this research, when it comes to learning English? 2) What is the role of digital technologies in this investment process? For the questions that guide this research to be answered, I have adopted the premises of the Investment Theory, which considers the socio-historically constructed relationship of apprentices with an additional language and their desire to learn it and practice it, and the Complexity Paradigm in the acquisition of an additional language, which sees this process as: dynamic, non-linear, chaotic, unpredictable, sensitive to initial conditions and feedback, open, self-organizing and adaptive. This is a qualitative research, whose methodological approach is the case study, having as main collection instruments questionnaires and autobiographies, and core analysis tools those of Corpus Linguistics. The results demonstrate that participants have different behaviors on the different moments in the learning process and this diversity demands adaptation and investment. The investment or not depends on the choice of the learners to invest in their practice or withdraw and not evolve as desired to achieve their goals. This causes direct influence on the learners identity which is (re)constructed in the interaction between individual, environment and cultural elements. The data reveal that some participants demonstrate the need and they make investments tolearn, although there isn t a desire to study the target language; others demonstrate desire but they don t make investments to learn.Aditionally, for learners, digital technologies are a tool which helps and facilitates learning, but may not be considered the main way to learn, just a complementary tool. Given this context, the understanding of the language learning process should be based on diversity and not on standardized and homogenized models. I conclude that the program is a complex system and the actions of its members produce reflections on investments of apprentices and contribute to the balance and the imbalance of the system.