Programas de formação docente para o inglês como meio de instrução na educação superior: características, alinhamentos e adaptação na perspectiva dos letramentos acadêmicos

Abstract

The growing process of internationalization can be examined from different perspectives. One of these perspectives is Internationalization at Home (BEELEN; JONES, 2015), focused on aspects of integration of multicultural and multilingual features in domestic university environments. As an instrument for promoting this type of internationalization, English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has also been considered a phenomenon of rapid growth (DEARDEN, 2015), especially in Higher Education and, at noticeably after 2014 (MARTINEZ, 2016), in Brazil. The Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM) was identified as a fertile ground for this practice (DUARTE; PRETTO; HENDGES, 2018) with significant interest rates from teacher and student communities (HENDGES; RODRIGUES; PRETTO, 2020). However, these same investigations signal an existing lacuna in the education of professor to work with EMI. Taking into account this gap, this work aims at analyzing samples of syllabus of teacher education courses in EMI in Higher Education focusing in 1) role of English, 2) attention to pedagogical aspects, and 3) possibilities of adaptation to the local UFSM context. Theoretically and methodologically, the analysis was guided by the Academic Literacies (LILLIS, 1997; LEA, 1998; STREET, 2010), as a critical framework that provides insights to the study of meaning making, teaching and learning, considering aspects of authorship, power, and institutionality. The corpus was composed by three syllabi of EMI teacher education available online. These samples were initially described based on the ROAD-MAPPING dimensions (DAFOUZ; SMIT, 2016;2020) to delineate initial traits of EMI concepts and the role of English. Based on rich feature analysis (BARTON, 2004), pieces of evidence of proximity to each of the three models of literacy were identified and classified though recursive reading. The literacies indicated in the syllabi were also compared to the demands UFSM professors reported in previous research. The analyzed syllabi seem to be closer to academic socialization model, treating some issues of language from the functions level, with mentions to genres, but with no specific focus at them and without developing critical problematization about multiculturalism, multilinguism, identities and power relations. Pedagogical aspects, as student-centered approach and interactive classroom, were regarded superficially. Finally, we propose a complementation of the syllabi to meet local UFSM demands.