We don't need another hero: valuing ongoing local praxiologies in the Teaching of English to (Very) Young Learners in Brazil

• In Event: Latin America Writes Back: Praxiologies in Language Education

Abstract

All over the world, the Teaching of English to (Very) Young Learners (TEYL) has been discussed from different perspectives (Garton & Copland, 2019; López-Gopar, 2016). In Brazil, even though this is not a compulsory subject matter in primary education, it is not different. Regardless of the various, divergent, underlying arguments (Egido, Tonelli & De Costa, 2023), English has become the language chosen to be taught in public schools before 6th grade when the teaching of the language becomes compulsory (Rocha, 2010; Garcia, 2011; Tonelli & Avila, 2020; Kawachi-Furlan, & Tonelli, 2020; Seccato, Tonelli & Selbach, 2022, among others). Inspired by Decolonial Studies (Baptista, 2021; Walsh, 2020; Guilherme; Menezes de Souza, 2019) and Brazilian research carried out on the realm of language education to and with (very) young learners, in this presentation it will be presented results of a research which aimed: 1) to identify instances of coloniality in the academic discourse within the TEYL field and 2) to interrogate them by asking critical, thought-provoking questions; and 3) to interrupt such coloniality by valuing emergent, context-dependent praxiologies related to TEYL. The empirical data to achieve the first and third aims come from master’s dissertations and PhD theses published in Brazil, from 2004 to 2024, whereas the second goal is a result of our own reflections regarding the data. The analysis shows that despite not mentioning decolonial postures, the studies acknowledge the teachers' practices allowing us to question to what extent official guidelines are needed to the TEYL. After identifying this modern/colonial discourse that has been reinforced in the academic-scientific discourse (e.g., in MA and PhD studies), we have elaborated a few questions in order to interrogate such a discourse. Some of them are as follows: What may the field lose in case the calls for such a document are answered? and What may the field gain if official guidelines are published without the effective contribution of those involved in TEYL? After interrogating it by asking ourselves and other stakeholders critical questions, we attempted to interrupt it when sharing praxiologies that illustrate what has been carried out in the TEYL field, which has experienced an unprecedented expansion of topics of interest and intensification of teaching contexts. Nonetheless, such a status requires the field to look back at itself and reflect its assumptions, its heart-hold truths, and, whenever it is necessary, question them; as it was the case of calling for a regulation that, most of the time, is elaborated by top-down processes. Our ultimate contribution is to promote TEYL praxiologies that are locally rooted and can interrupt universal thoughts that do not necessarily reflect the realities of Brazilian primary public-school education concerning TEYL.

Authors

• Juliana Tonelli, Universidade Estadual de Londrina

• Alex Alves Egido, Federal University of Maranhão