Language perspectives in distance education: reflections on linguistic education based on narratives of coordinators and teacher trainers

Abstract

In the current educational scenario, in which the processes of teaching and learning languages are inserted, language practices become more complex and, in this sense, increasingly materialize in fluid and integrated contexts, hybridizing face-to-face and distance practices. Thus, the use of technologies as well as the diverse communicative possibilities, therefore, foster the need for teaching practices that promote autonomy and interaction between the ones involved in these processes. Taking into account the complexity of this scenario in our contemporary society, it is relevant to understand the effects of the language conception that guides these practices. In this sense, we believe that learning a language, from a holistic perspective, entails the promotion of a framework of knowledge that can contribute to the social formation of an individual, as an active person in society, aware of his/her rights and duties as a citizen; what implies the importance of a language conception that guides teaching and learning concerning these aspects. Thus, it is necessary to understand how these conceptions influence educational practices in the context of Distance Education, our investigative locus, regarding the teaching and learning of languages. Therefore, it is configured as an objective of this paper to reflect on the conceptions of language in Distance Education from multisemiotic narratives produced by coordinators and teachers who train foreign language.