PROBLEMATIZING TRANSLINGUAL PRAXIOLOGIES IN THE CONTINUOUS EDUCATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS: expansion of meanings in a study group for Goiás state
Continuing education of English language teachers. Decoloniality. Translanguaging. GEPLIGO. Pamonhada.
The language teachers’ critical education is one of the central guidelines in research carried out in the field of Critical Applied Linguistics (CAL). Therefore, this research starts from my concerns regarding the continuing education of English language teachers, in which I delineate meanings from the metaphor of Pamonhada. The thesis engages in a decolonial stance with the intent to be establishing a dialogue about a local context of continuing education for English language teachers in the state of Goiás, GEPLIGO. I seek to discuss the negotiated and expanded meanings, the praxiologies experienced in this Study Group by the research agents, under the lens of translanguage. I argue in favor of understanding that translingual praxiologies may favor social and cognitive justice, considering the possibility of recognizing and valuing mobilized individual repertoires to produce meanings in a language education environment and, consequently, in everyday social practices. This reflection is based on questions related to the vision of Brazil as a monolingual one, the invention of named languages representing a nation-state symbolically, and the perception that linguistic practices encompass other elements, sensory and space, for example, in addition to the interchangeable use of one language and another. The empirical material is generated and analyzed from an interpretive perspective, reflecting a sentipensante research, through different sources – initial and final reflections, experience reports (sharing sessions), interactions in group meetings. The built translingual praxiology concept shows that meaning makings are expanded in relation to the identity of the English language teacher, which school we want, the intersection between repertoires/language and society, under a critical view of acting in and through language. The praxiologies emerged in GEPLIGO can guide language policies for continuing education for language teachers, from a local context in Goiás in the Global South.