NARRATIVES OF TEACHERS FROM ÉCOLE MATERNELLE ABOUT LANGUAGE TEACHING

Abstract

The opportunity to get to know some teaching practices in an École Maternalle, in Paris/France, motivated the interest in conducting research in this territory to better understand how language teaching has taken place in this country. Therefore, the present article, the result of a master's research, intends to analyze what French teachers prioritize in relation to the teaching of the mother tongue with four-year-old children. There are also specific objectives: 1) to identify the teachers' conceptions and practices of language teaching and 2) to seek evidence of how the interviewees understand the concept of language, based on their narratives. Based on the Bakhtinian enunciative-discursive perspective, assuming Gnerre's considerations about language, as well as the New Studies on Literacy, we conducted narrative interviews with two teachers who teach at a public school located in the center of Paris. The dialogic-discursive analysis carried out shows that the teachers prioritize the learning of the linguistic code and the standard French language, that is, the teaching aims at the literacy of French children and those who came from other countries, so that, as immigrants, they can be placed in the French context.