Leitura em língua estrangeira: a importância do conhecimento prévio nas aulas de compreensão textual

Abstract

Foreign language learning enables the access to different types of information which are not dissociated from what readers already know about reality. By reading a text, many kinds of knowledge, which have been previously framed in our knowledge, are used in order to understand it (KLEIMAN, 2002; SOLÉ, 1998). It is said that in order to comprehend effectively a text, the reader actually confronts his reality and culture with what he perceives as meanings generated by the text (KLEIMAN, 2002; FREIRE, 1983). So, during the process of reading a text in a foreign language (LE), the exploitation of prior knowledge in mother tongue (LM) and stored from learner's social and cultural representations are specially important for questioning and deconstructing meanings imposed by foreign cultures, especially hegemonic ones. Thus, the construction of reading strategies such as hypothesis formulation and the choice of reflexive questions during the reading process leads learners to making argumentative elaborations on target language with the real enunciation (PEDROSO; OLIVEIRA, 2010). So, the aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of exploiting the learner's prior knowledge on the construction of foreign language reading process, involving students in the reflection over how to understand the various forms of expression in target language. Still, it is focused on the need to confront different ways of interpreting the world through understanding, reflection and discussion of texts in order to negotiate new meanings that respect the knowledge already formed in the learner's culture or conducting a culturally sensitive meaning-construction (KRAMSCH, 1993; MENDES, 2008) in reading classes in a foreign language.