WRITING AS AN ARTICULATING AXIS AND PRACTICES INVOLVING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES

 WRITING AS AN ARTICULATING AXIS AND PRACTICES INVOLVING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES

Augusto Neves. 2024

 

 Alright?

  Let's talk about writing at Basic education. I had loads of opportunities to write in an additional language after I finished high school and it was basically for pleasure, some of them I shared on the internet but now I don’t wanna talk about my experiences outside of the classroom.

When I was a student at basic education I hated the fact that I had to write as just an assignment that will be graded, especially if it was a story. I wanted to share what I wrote and let people think and comment about it. When I was in my 2nd year of high school, our teacher asked us to do something similar as a culture exchange, this was back in the days where the laboratory and the computers were only restricted to the teachers. We had to write a letter talking about Brazilian culture, including our favourite books, films and a little bit about our favourite activities. It was a program in which our letter had to be shared with someone from another country, just like a PenPal, but without the internet.

  A PenPal it’s when you write a letter to a friend, it doesn't necessarily have to be from a stranger but in most of the cases, yes. I still have that letter with me and right now I’m thinking about rereading this letter from more than 10 years ago.  So, this was my first contact as a student with the PenPal and writing in an additional language.

  Now, as an undergraduate student of English Language Arts with focus on teaching English Language as an additional language in Brazil, there is a document called BNCC that guides what and how teachers from each subject should work and this document includes the competencies and skills that the students from the basic education must achieve, it has a variety of details and codes from each subject and grade. It  sounds pretty complicated at first but it’s not. You can visit the BNCC website and translate to English from your browser. 

Now, what does this document talk about writing in English as Lingua Franca?

  It depends on what grade you’re working on. So, the key word that it’s shown it’s the writing as a social function and being authorial where the students can act as protagonists with the experiences that they have, moreover, the document describes what grammar and theme we should work on, also known as linguistic knowledge that is considered to be essential such as tense, discursive connector and the phrasal structure. The BNCC also establishes the relation between writing and intercultural dimension which includes the idea of staying in contact with other cultures that can be outside of the anglo-saxon bubble and sharing  with the classroom, around the school or around  the internet. So, this is the public target like to whom it may concern? 

  I like how BNCC defines the students as the centre of the learning process by being active as well as the writing production related to their routine. In another words it’s everything that BNCC proposes and according to Hoffart and Zanella (2015, page 165) imagination it’s a present in our lives by not only being exclusive to the children, even though for the author this is a stimulus where the creativity and imagination it’s different from each one including children and adults. There are loads of possibilities to work with writing as a social practice such as the literacy of writing and posting on the internet, it will depend on each teacher's style. We can work with blog, magazine, news, internet comments, comic books, reviews, memes, comic strips, autobiography, diary, how to write an email and PenPal. Those activities can include games such as The Secret Santa in which students can play with each other or with students from another class. And, there are loads of apps around the internet that we can work with writing and sharing including facebook groups, MeetUp and Italki. Of course some of them may sound interesting.

  I also realised that at least at some schools in my town that there is a tendency of the education system to start including digital technologies in the classroom, including the Educatron and technology laboratory. And according to Zancanaro (2016), she says that specially the young generation are more involved with the digital technologies it’s part of their world but on the flip side the traditional classroom tends to distance them from their background. Moreover, if we are following a Freirian education, it’s important to respect their background and possibly to work with the world that they live in and I second that. However, we can have a modern classroom but if the learning method it’s mechanical, then I can’t consider that the classroom it’s modern at all. Plus, in the context of basic education dealing with the internet can be such a problem when the activities involve communication with strangers. I would use caution. 

  So, I found it necessary to discuss the other perspectives as well, because I guess I also feel  insecure. Besides, technology can help even with all the red-flags that exist.

Now, let’s talk about the apps. There are a list of apps that can be helpful to the students to write, illustrate and to create books or comic books that will for sure  work with creativity. 

  Let’s get started with the famous one: Canvas, this is my favourite one where we can write infographics, posts, slides and even comic strips, although Pixton and Make Belifs Comixs may be better at creating comic strips than Canvas. 

 Storybird it’s also another good platform to work with the creation of books. Padlet, which it’s also a good app to work and share with since it’s pretty basic, I'd recommend writing simple texts. And finally blogs like this website, Blogger.

 

AND NOW, I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO HEAR FROM YOU:

*What do you think about creative writing using digital technology? Do you prefer the traditional style? Or both? 

*Do you know any free apps that can be easy to use in the classroom? 

*How do you manage to teach in the classroom using digital technologies? Do you think Pen-Pal or E-pal can be safe to work with under 18 students?

PLEASE, SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. It will help us at lot!

Cya! xx

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REFERENCES:

HOFFART, Ana Laura. ZANELLA, Daniela A. Vendramini. A produção de significados na elaboração escrita em língua inglesa na atividade social: Participação de Pen-pal. Revista Letras Raras. Vol.7, Ano 4 , No2. 2015. Pg 165.

ZANCANARO, Rejane. Blog: Uma proposta pedagógica. ÁGORA , Porto Alegre, Ano 7. 2016.

BRASIL. Ministry of Education. Base Nacional Curricular Comum. MEC. Base nacional comum: Introdução. Available at <http://basenacionalcomum.mec.gov.br/abase/#introducao> accessed on 06/02/2024 at 18:05