THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING PHONOLOGY IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

FROM BRAZIL

Andressa Vieira Souza (UEFS)

ABSTRACT: The teaching of phonology in public schools in Brazil has several

problems, and the teachers have found many challenges to work with the
pronunciation more broadly. One of the reasons that the students cannot learn easily
the phonology of a foreign language is that the characteristics from their native
language is different. Based on the study of CDE Plan Research Institute and designed
exclusively for the British Council, this paper aims to analyze and discuss the
challenges in teaching phonology in Brazil, taking into account only public schools. It
will also address the context of English teaching, how the professors are working with
phonology in the classroom, and what are the main problems encountered in this
process.

KEY CONCEPTS: Teaching; Phonology; Public Schools.

1. INTRODUCTION:

The phonology of the English language focuses on studying the sound systems
of the language, and the teachers from the public schools are facing many problems
to teach this subject in Brazil. All this problems exists especially because phonology it
is a complex part of any language, and since English is not the first language from
Brazilians, it is hard to teach when there is not the correct tools to do that. Taking into
account that in Brazil, there is a lot of corruption, and the government does not invest
on education, as it should, sometimes the money that the authorities send to the school
does not get there with the same quantity. This is a problem very hard to fix, people
usually ignore because it depends of to many people to end with the corruption. The
bad part is that the school end up being without enough material to the study and
teaching process, and consequently this compromise the education.
2. THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE TEACHERS:
The process of teaching the pronunciation of a language is usually with the
practice of speaking and listening and phonology can be a great tool to help the student
to develop those abilities. However, unfortunately in the public schools they work with
this subject rarely and when they do, is not the way it should be. The lack of material
to do it, for example projectors, non-defective stereos, tablets, textbooks, dictionaries,
TV, desktops / notebooks and internet access makes the subject hard to learn.
Teaching a foreign language is already difficult because is a new language and
the student is not used to it and when the student notice that he cannot speak easily,
most of them gets frustrated. In addition, having difficulties to learn something, makes
the students do not appreciate the subject and consequently they will not like English
in the public schools. When you cannot learn, you do not like.
The English teachers complain a lot about the lack of teaching resources,
especially the technological ones. They said that they are extremely necessary,
because:

[...] the didactics resources have a greater relevance in teaching this

discipline than in other subjects. In the opinion of these teachers,
English is a subject, which requires more recreational, collective and
interactive activities to generate the student engagement and practical
involvement with the language.( BRITISH COUNCIL, 2005, p. 38 – Our
translation)

For 42% of the teachers, the textbook sometimes is more advanced than the
knowledge of their students, and some teachers said that is not always available,
consequently making the students share the book, causing noise during classes, and
not the good noise that is when they are practicing the English language. Many
teachers bring their own materials into the classroom, thus concluding that many of the
innovations in public school classes are through the teachers themselves.
In other words, teaching phonology in public schools is a challenge, but is
necessary for the English language be spread and teached the best way that is
possible. For this objective be successfully achieved there are some things that it is
important to do, for example, the materials that the school does not have, the textbooks
that sometimes does not come with the quantity as it should, are extremely important
to the objective of learning/teaching English in the public schools from Brazil.
3. WHY THE STUDENTS HAVE DIFFICULTIES TO LEARN:
The theory of Sociointeractionism of Vigotsky, affirms that the individual
development occurs through social relations with the society, and this process is
fundamental for the internalization of knowledge - or transformation of spontaneous
and scientific concepts - through the process of rendering intrapsychic what was
once interpsychic (JÚNIOR apud FERRARI, 2010).
Also considering the Piaget’s theory about the constructivist theory, (apud
COLL, 1992, p. 170), “knowledge cannot be conceived as something
predetermined from birth (innatism), nor as a result of the simple recording of
perceptions and information (empiricism)”. Ultimately, it should also be consider
that to teach a foreign language the materials that can transmit audios and videos
are extremely necessary, because it will provide the students to interact with the
language.
The lack of interaction with the language is one of the reasons why the
students have many difficulties to learn a foreign language, without this they cannot
become able to pronounce properly, and combining the interaction with the
teaching of phonology their pronounce can get even better. Getting to know the IPA
(International Phonetic Alphabet), the phonemes and the structure of how they are
pronounced will help the student to improve his fluency and all the frustrations will
go away.
Unfortunately, the situation in the public schools is not easy to change and
some students – the ones who have money to pay for – go to a private course to
learn English. In those courses, they work with all the parts that are necessary to
learn a new language, speaking, listening, writing and reading, and they have the
materials that are important to do this. Some of those courses even work with
phonology, which is a good thing.

4. CONCLUSÃO
In other words, when the students have the conscience of how it is the
phonology of the English language, they speak in a natural way, without having to
decorate everything. The teaching of phonology is very important for all the areas
that teach foreign languages, thus, steps must be taken to make this possible. For
example, the schools can promote campaigns that raise money to buy the needed
 materials, they can ask the community, the teachers, and the students to help if
they can. The important is to learn phonology and spread the knowledge, always.

REFERENCES:
British Council. O Ensino de Inglês na Educação Pública Brasileira. 1ª
edition, São Paulo, 2015.

TAVEIRA, Valdirécia de Rezende. GUALBERTO, Clarice Lage. Fonologia:

ferramenta de ensino para professores de inglês como língua estrangeira.
Online available at: < https://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-
rio.br/20887/20887.PDFXXvmi=> Acessed in September, 17th, 2019.
TCHAKAMBA, Manuel Tomás A. D. – "Implications of Teaching English
Phonetics and Phonology in EFL Teacher Training Course", English Didactics
Assignment Series (May 2014), Online available at https://pt.scribd.com.

JÚNIOR, Levi Vargas. Portal Educação. Síntese das concepções das

Teorias Interacionistas de Piaget e de Vigotsky. Online available at <
https://www.portaleducacao.com.br/conteudo/artigos/educacao/sintese-das-
concepcoes-das-teorias-interacionistas-de-piaget-e-de-vigotsky/19420 > Acessed in
September, 17th, 2019.