Do verbal ao imagético: o letramento visual nas abordagens de leitura no ensino de língua portuguesa, inglesa e espanhola

Abstract

The image becomes a constituent part of various genres, integrating the vast discursive fields present in the social sphere of human communication and interaction. Therefore, the reader/producer of meanings is required to have specific skills so that he can insert himself in that chain of meaning production, since, as any text, images should be read, and not just displayed/observed. In what concerns education it is known that reading approaches in the classroom are based on assumptions that support the development of the reading comprehension of the learners of native and foreign languages. As the multimodal component is part of the textual displaying mode, it is important that in language classes, from a given reading approach, visual literacy be promoted and, in particular, that it be guided by a sociocultural perspective of reading which makes it possible to explore the image as text. Thus, this research aims at diagnosing reading approaches present in language teaching in the educational context and its implications for the visual literacy. To do so we have investigated the practice of three language teachers (a Portuguese one, a Spanish one and an English one) in a public school, paying attention to the teacher-material-student relationship, and the material used by the teachers. Our research is a qualitative-interpretative one and diagnostic based; and, with regard to the materials and methods used, a field study; we have resorted thus to the questionnaire, to the class observation, to the field notes and to the analysis of teaching materials as methodological tools to complete the investigation. At the end of the collection and generation of the corpus, we triangulated the data. As to the theoretical foundation, we have based this study, with regard to visual literacy (ELKINS, 2009), in the theoretical and analytical assumptions of the Grammar of Visual Design (KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 2006) and, in respect to reading approaches, in the studies of Cassany (2006), as well as in the studies on critical literacy (BAPTISTA, 2010, 2012, 2014; LUKE, 2012; CAZDEN et al., 1996). After the analysis, it is possible to say that the concept of reading established in the classroom is primarily psycholinguistic and linguistic, focusing thereby in formal aspects, so that the sociocultural aspects permeate the teaching practice infinitely. Moreover, the treatment given to the image is in general of an accessorial nature in the composition of the multimodal text when it is not perceived, although teachers are aware that the image is text and that the relationship between verbal and non-verbal text is one of complementation. Therefore, the development of visual literacy, from a sociocultural perspective, is incipient in the teaching of native and foreign languages in the context investigated.