English teacher education and early childhood education: Curricular strategies in Brazilian federal universities

Abstract

Teaching English in Early Childhood Education is a reality in Brazil, despite its lack of requirement according to current legislations. There is a demand for professionals to teach, but English majors usually do not embrace this age group which would be the focus of Pedagogy. Therefore, a study was developed to comprehend how universities are preparing teachers for this scenario, considering there is no official requirement for curriculum organization. The aim of this paper is to reflect on teacher education and curriculum theories, focusing on how universities have changed their curriculums to deal with the “gap” found in teacher education for this context. The data collected included documents of all Federal Universities in Brazil, based on the Course Pedagogical Project (PPC) available on the website of each university. The results indicate that several Brazilian universities are developing strategies to deal with this scenario in their curriculums, using different approaches. Thus, this paper discusses the results found, specially focused on the curricular strategies adopted by some universities, and their benefits to student-teachers.