Parafraseando "contos": uma estratégia para a ampliação vocabular

Abstract

Based on the observation and reflection that Portuguese language teaching has for some time privileged grammar aspects over lexical aspects, we can consider the close relationship between the difficulties in understanding text and the vocabulary poverty of students. Thus, this research has the general objective of contributing with practical and theoretical subsidies for vocabulary expansion. Therefore, we used as a theoretical basis the studies of Dias (2004), Ilari (2007), Ilari and Geraldi (2006), Antunes (2012), Vilela (1994), Biderman (1999, 2001), Barbosa (2009), Xatara (2011) and other important authors for the teaching and sciences of the lexicon; for the study on reading strategies, we used the National Curriculum Parameters – PCN, and the Common National Curricular Base – BNCC, the studies of Kato (1987), Kleiman (2004, 2013), Koch and Elias (2014); we studied Guimarães (2015), Meserani (1998), Garcia (2003) and others to approach paraphrase; for the study of genre, specifically the Tale, we seek to base ourselves on the theories of Bakhtin (2011), Marcuschi (2009), Cortázar (1974) and others; and regarding the methodology, we chose the Action Research (TRIPP, 2005); for the pedagogical intervention, we developed an adaptation of the Cosson Basic Sequence (2012), with activities elaborated and applied in an of 8th grade of Elementary School class, through pedagogical workshops, according to Gonçalves et al. (2002). This intervention proposal was carried out as a way to resolve or ease the students' difficulty in interpreting texts due to the lack of sense of the meaning of some words. For that, workshops were developed with activities focused on the production of paraphrases, starting from the application of reading strategies for the understanding and interpretation of a terror Tale by Edgar Allan Poe, presented in different semioses. The workshops consisted of Motivation, Introduction, Reading, Breaks and Interpretation activities, according to the adaptation from the Basic Sequence (COSSON, 2012), so that students could identify unknown words in the studied texts and, with the assistance of school dictionaries, they could produce their own glossaries and use them to produce reproductive and creative paraphrases. The results showed that with the methodology and strategies adopted, it was possible to expand at least the students’ passive vocabulary, as well as to attract their attention and also encourage their effective participation in the proposed workshops. It was also possible to notice that it is essential to rethink the use of the dictionary in the classroom and the development of activities aimed at systematic lexical teaching, in order to achieve better results in this area. We hope that this research will contribute to future works developed in the area and encourage teachers to reorganize their pedagogical practice, giving greater emphasis to aspects related to the teaching of lexicon, in a contextualized way, with application in texts, in effective communication situations.