The Relation Between an English Language Textbook and a Teacher's Practice in a Brazilian Public School

Abstract

Communication has become increasingly multimodal in contemporary society. This fact has prompted reflections on how pedagogical actions reflect these changes. In this chapter, the authors investigate the relationship between the multimodal approach of a textbook and the pedagogy of an English language teacher from a public school in Brazil. The theoretical bases of the study are Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), Jewitt (2008, 2009), Bezemer and Kress (2008, 2015), Callow (1999, 2006), among others. The study conducted by the authors is an ethnographic with descriptive and interpretative features. The main conclusions indicate that teacher's manual suggests adopting critical visual literacy, but it was not materialized in the activities. Both, teacher and textbook call students' attention to the images to teach language, rather than to explore critical visual literacy. They seek to develop the written code skill. Finally, the researchers suggest that textbooks should be designed and more pedagogical training about approaches that emphasize multimodal literacies should be promoted.