CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CRITICAL LITERACY AND COMPLEXITY THEORY FOR THE ENGLISH TEACHER ACTING IN AN INCLUSION CLASSROOM
Critical Literacy; Complexity Theory; Inclusion; Situation of Disability; Inclusive Foreign Language.
This qualitative research aims at investigating the inclusive teaching of English underpinned by the perspectives of critical literacy and complexity theory. These theories were chosen considering their support in Applied Linguistics, as a transdisciplinary area, as well as their theoretical-practical confluences. Based on these confluences, English teachers and a support teacher have elaborated two sequences of activities together with the researcher. These activities were elaborated and implemented for students with disabilities enrolled in high school in two public schools, whose classes were taking place remotely due to the Pandemic of the New Coronavirus (COVID-19). In addition to the activities, this research has leaned on questionnaires and interviews for data generation and consequent analysis and discussion related to them. The results obtained through these instruments have showed that the teaching of English as an Inclusive Foreign Language presents several challenges. For instance, the dissociation of social and economic inequalities in the globalized world and English as a lingua franca; the lack of understanding of the school as a complex adaptive system; the stigmatization of disability and the lack of recognition of the limitations of the medical report at school. Meanwhile, the adoption of an inclusive perspective in the elaboration of activities, underpinned by Critical Literacy and Complexity Theory, has allowed the recognition of diversity and the right to difference; the evidence of students as individuals who are agents and autonomous in their learning; the importance of the use of new technologies and their affordances; the valorization of multiple languages use and the importance of nonlinearity and criticality for inclusion in the English class. Thus, the data showed that, although there were several challenges for an inclusive teaching of English, the teachers were able to resignify their conceptions and teaching practices toward students with disabilities.