A expressão escrita de acadêmicas de um curso de pedagogia a distância: uma intervenção histórico-cultural

Abstract

This Doctoral Thesis aimed to investigate the E-learning Pedagogy Course’s students written expression evolution possibilities. This study is justified by the alarming situation, generated by research and performance evaluations, related to the enormous difficulties of writing submitted by Brazilian students, at all educational levels. This research was based, theoretically and methodologically, on the Cultural-Historical Psychology (especially on Lev S. Vygotsky postulates), held 100% online and through qualitative approach for the collecting and analyzing data. The research was conducted during the historical period of three years and a half (2009/2 to 2012/2) and involved four Pedagogical Interventions, over this period. The Interventions (planned, implemented and evaluated on their end), carried out by the author of this work, tried to contribute to the academics’ written expression improvement and were guided by the Vygotskian concepts of consciousness and control. Its implementation was accomplished through constant dialogue with the academics, intervening directly in their texts and emphasizing the importance of developing awareness of their own writing problems and, then, they could fix them, control them. For the linguistics supports, the interventions were constructed over the Textual Linguistics’ assumptions. According to this theoretical approach, the text is considered not just as a simple sequence of sentences, but as an unit with specific structural properties, involving, in its production and interpretation, language skills and cultural and historical aspects. For the effects of interventions analysis over the textual productions, were intentionally selected three academics from the investigated class, based on their interest in collaborating with the research and on their availability to interact (online) with the researcher. The data analysis, for the interventions evaluation, showed that the academics: reacted positively to the Pedagogical Interventions; demonstrated maturity in dealing with notes concerning their own writing difficulties; sought to overcome these difficulties; became aware of their writing difficulties; assumed self-critical attitude toward the act of writing; reported that they began to pay more attention to the fact that they write for a reader and to the importance of reviewing their texts. In terms of the texts quality, it was observed: evolution on textual macrostructure organization; quantity and diversity of connectives use increase, although it was still observed inaccuracies in their use, and; number of too long periods decrease, indicating an advance on the punctuation application. The better textual macrostructure organization and the most appropriate use of connectives and punctuation contributed to the better exposure of the academics’ ideas in their texts. The work allows us to state so that the interventions contributed to the academics’ writing improvement and are expected this work contributes to the development of strategies related to teaching and learning of writing - as important cultural artifact, either as a social component or as a tool of thought.