Do ideal ao possível : The Crazy Car Story : um relato interpretativo de um projeto em língua inglesa na educação infantile

This research is broadly situated within the realm of Applied Linguistics and, more particularly, within the debate concerned with the pedagogy of English language in the Early Childhood Education. It aims at providing an interpretive account of the pedagogical project The crazy car story, developed with four and five-year old students in a private school located in the central region of the city of Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. The project The crazy car story was inspired by the guidelines proposed by Referenciais Curriculares do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (RIO GRANDE DO SUL, 2009) and it aimed at integrating features of pedagogical projects based on Freire (2005), Hernández (2004, 1998), Barbosa (2004) with the use of the teaching materials used by the school and with the contents and objectives set by the classroom teacher. The foundations of this project are based on the theoretical assumptions of language (BAKHTIN, 1992[2011]; CLARK, 2000) as well as childhood learning (VIGOTSKI, 1984[2007]; CAMERON, 2001[2012]). The crazy car story attempted to ground the concepts of citizenship, ludicity, publicization and fruition as found in the official documents on the field of language and childhood education. The project, in short, consisted of producing a collective story in English, which was then materialized into a book format, built collaboratively by the class. Later, the collective story was publicized through a presentation, in English, from the students who authored it, to young students of another class in the same school. Beyond being an interpretative report, this document aims at examining the moments, during the realization of the proposed tasks, in which the concepts above seem to be publicly sustained by the actions of the students. In line with the qualitative/interpretative research methodology, the type of investigation here performed has ethnographic principles (CAVALCANTI; MOITA LOPES, 1991; ERICKSON, 1990; MASON, 1996). Data was gathered through participative observations registered in field journals, class video recordings, as well as document analysis, which contributed for a description of the teaching-learning corresponding to the author’s interpretation. Data analysis suggests that identifiable moments of learning, citizenship, ludicity, publicization and fruition have indeed emerged during the classes.