Atividades de produção oral em língua inglesa na EaD: um estudo na licenciatura à distância de letras inglês da Universidade Federal do Ceará

Abstract

This thesis aims at evaluating oral activities presented in online oral comprehension and production courses from the Universidade Federal do Ceará’s English Letters Course, trying to identify whether 1) Communicative Approach Principles, 2) Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching Principles and 2) L2 Acquisition/Instruction Principles are part of the pedagogical practices of these activities and, therefore, are able to develop the oral production skill in its prospective teachers of English. This research, which is inserted in the field of Applied Linguistics, characterized as exploratory and descriptive, was based mainly on reflections by Brown (2000, 2001) and Ellis (2003,2005). In order to do this research, we elaborated a checklist to evaluate the oral activities presented in two courses: LING 3A: Compreensão e produção Oral and LING 4A: Compreensão e Produção Oral. The results has shown that the general characteristics of Communicative Aproach, L2 Acquisition/Instruction and Task Based Language Teaching and Learning principles are presented in the activities, nevetherless, the last one seems to be the stronger principle. Since then, these activities may have the potential to develop the oral production skills on English Letter’s Course’s prospective teachers of English. However, we have identified the activities proposed in both analyzed courses are mainly controlled or semicontrolled, and do not provide many opportunities for spontaneous speech. They are also in lower rate when compared to other types of activities presented in the courses. In conclusion, we have verified that there is a need of more spontaneous oral activities in distance education courses, specially in those which aims at developing oral skills, since speech is a crutial tool in second language teachers’ pedagogy.