Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Brazilian Portuguese language teaching: An analysis of suggested classes available at the Teacher’s Portal

Abstract

This paper aims to present data and reflections on how information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been integrated into the content of Brazilian Portuguese classes in elementary school (6th to 9th grade) and high school, publicly available at the Teacher’s Portal website. This research is part of the project “O Portal do Professor: contribuições e implicações para o ensino de Língua Portuguesa na Educação Básica no Triângulo Mineiro”, funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) through the public notice 13/2012 – Research in Basic Education. The corpus consists of 375 classes, of which 304 are elementary school classes and 71 are high school classes. The assumption that guided this paper was that ICTs should be used to allow engagement of the students as mediators of educational practices, using a multiliteracy approach to the production of meaning. The analysis of these suggestions showed that ICTs were used for different purposes, as follows: (i) visualization of content, (ii) research, (iii) replacement of traditional tools, (iv) production of (digital) genres, (v) information and/or activity sharing, (vi) experience, interaction, and use of a genre, and (vii) transposition of modalities. Overall, the data revealed that ICTs are widely used in pedagogical proposals; however, the uses proposed in class are still questioned, considering the technologies with teaching purposes for the promotion of multiliteracies.

Keywords: teacher’s portal, information and communication technologies, multiliteracies.