Abstract
As Brazilian university teachers, we have taken part in some courses aimed at the professional development of in-service English teachers. However, inspired by decolonial thinking, we have seen them as reproducing logics of coloniality, an epistemological frame which hierarchizes human beings socially, ontologically and epistemically. Thus, in an attempt to fight the coloniality and power established between universities and schools, in 2016, we set up a study group – a space where we, English teachers in Goias, could talk about our profession. Our aim in this interpretive study is to discuss initial challenges of this decolonial undertaking. We do so by focusing on attendance and agency. The reflections made in this article indicate that our expectation to expand our praxis was achieved somehow, but we consider it was jeopardized due to poor attendance and lack of agency. We conclude with some following moves to challenge coloniality in educational projects. Key-words: decolonial thinking, study group, teacher education.
Highlights
Resumo: Em nossa carreira de professoras universitárias brasileiras, temos participado de alguns cursos de formação continuada de professoras/es de inglês
Grounded on “de-colonial7 thinking” (Mignolo, 2009a, p. 4), we have been trying to move away from the traditional model of in-service teacher education courses. These courses are normally offered by university teachers, seen as producers of knowledge, and attended by school teachers, seen as appliers of that knowledge
In our career as Brazilian university teachers, we have taken part in some of these courses aimed at the professional development of in-service English teachers, but we have seen them as reproducing this logic of coloniality and, we have been trying to work with the perspective of de-colonial thinking, the task of which is “the unveiling of epistemic silences of Western epistemology and affirming the epistemic rights of the racially devalued” (Mignolo, 2009a, p. 4)
Summary
Walsh (2007, p. 28, emphasis in original) affirms that knowledge “has value, color and place ‘of origin’”, which, in Latin America, is evident “in the maintenance of Eurocentrism as the only or at least the most hegemonic dominant perspective of knowledge”. Being troubled by the fact that the syllabus of literature disciplines she taught were predominantly composed by canonical works, she proposes to think less in terms of literary movements organized chronologically and more in terms of contemporary matters, such as race, ethnicity, culture, gender, citizenship, oppression, and resistance She questions whether we have been reinforcing a Eurocentric and elitist view of the world in our lessons and defends that “the classroom of English language literatures should be a compelling space for the experience of difference and alterity and for the questioning of any cultural and social hierarchies” As Makoni and Mashiri (2007, p. 62) point out, it is a “human linguistics” perspective whose central elements are the people and the activities they are engaged in
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