Paradigms and teaching approaches: an observation of the practice of Portuguese Language teachers in the final years of Elementary Education

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the influence of teaching paradigms on the performance of Portuguese Language teachers. To this end, the methodology used was a qualitative case study, with fieldwork carried out in a Citizen Integral School (ECI) of the state education network, in the city of Campina Grande, in the state of Paraíba. Thus, the materials collected for the research were the 7th grade textbook, “Portuguese Languages” (Cereja; Vianna, 2022), notes from a field diary and a student’s notebook. In the class focused on the analysis, the teacher sometimes promoted a critical discussion of the topic studied among the students, and sometimes corrected their reading in an authoritarian manner. This result shows that, in the same class, more than one paradigm was mobilized, both the conservative and the complexity (innovative) paradigm, as well as the traditional and progressive approaches, based on a reading class that adheres to the socio-discursive model. However, it was found that during the class and the activity the complexity paradigm prevailed. Thus, it was possible to note that, even with a large number of students in the classroom, the teacher was able to give attention and a voice to her students, considering them as subjects capable of giving opinions and participating in their learning, in addition to enabling the transversality of a topic of social relevance to their school context and daily lives.