Lesson Study na Formação Inicial de Professores: uma experiência com licenciandos de letras-inglês da Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará

Abstract

This study addresses the use of the Japanese practice Lesson Study in initial teacher education. It is linked to the Teacher Professional Development through Lesson Study line of the Research Group Center for Research in Applied Linguistics and EFL Teacher Education (Centro de Estudos em Linguística Aplicada e Educação de Professores de Inglês como Língua Estrangeira - Celepi) of the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa). The research aimed at investigating Lesson Study's potential of contribution to the professional learning of a group of English teachers in initial education who experienced the tool during their practicum. The theoretical basis of the study was Lesson Study - which has become more and more, in the words of Dudley (2015), the model of learning of the profession for the present – and the concepts Reflective Practice (SCHÖN 1983, 2000; ZEICHNER, 2008; FREIRE, 1996; PERRENOUD, 2002); Communities of Practice (WENGER, 1998); Pedagogical Content Knowledge (SHULMAN, 1986) and Professional Capital (FULLAN; HARGREAVES, 2012). Guided by a qualitative approach (MINAYO, 2011), we adopted as a research strategy the case study (YIN, 2001), which occurred in two stages: a bibliographic study and empirical research. The participants of the research were four student-teachers from Ufopa Language Arts course and the English teacher of the class belonging to a state public school in the municipality of Santarém-PA, where the student-teachers intervened for a period of five months. We used the participant observation, field notes of the principal researcher, audio and vídeo recordings and semi-structured interviews to collect the data. In the analysis of the data, we adopted the thematic analysis proposed by Guest, Macqueen and Namey (2011). The results pointed out difficulties in the experience of the essential aspects of Lesson Study. We also observed, in the perceptions analyzed regarding the tool, the recognition of the value Lesson Study can add to the professional learning experienced in the initial teacher education course and the manifestation and concepts worldwide recommended for the teacher education. We concluded that the reflection and action movement provided by Lesson Study might contribute significantly to the initial teacher education.