A study of the textbook in literacy events: discourse, literacies and EFL in an educational community

• Main Author: Santos, Denise Machado dos
• Published: University of Reading 2004
• Subjects: 371.3
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.485708

This study examines how a particular educational community ofteachers and learners ofEnglish as a foreign language (EFL) in Brazil make sense of their textbooks in classroom interactions. It also aims to examine the extent to which ...-. particular interactional practices involving the textbook impinge upon the development ofbroader conceptualisations ofliteracy, as well as teaching and learning a foreign language. The data were collected in elementary classes involving the EFL textbook in a (' language school undergoing an innovation process. Concepts from interactional sociolinguistics and sociocultural theory orient the analysis, which focuses on four aspects ofthe discursive co-construction ofmeanings about the textbook during these literacy events: (1) teachers and students' ways ofopening and closing these events; (2) the development ofthe individuals' understanding about what goes on during these events; (3) the ways they talk about the textbook; (4) the ways they rearticulate the text in their own discourses. The analysis suggests that, during the literacy events mediated by the textbook, teachers and students co-constructed an interactional site predominantly marked by non-reflective and standardised behaviour, fragmentation and ,. individualism,.characteristics which were in striking opposition with the practices associated with the innovation programme. The findings ofthis study also challenge notions oftextual determinism in that the meanings negotiated by interactants often departed from the emphases in the text and involved literacy practices which individuals had been socialised into during previous social events. This thesis concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings regarding pedagogy, theory, research, materials development and teacher education.