Ensino e aprendizagem de línguas adicionais na complexidade: a emergência do método por projetos

Abstract

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has increasingly garnered attention in both international and national discussions as it aims to bring students closer to everyday issues of high relevance in their communities, as well as to 21st-century life skills and competencies. This approach allows the learning of school content to emerge from reflecting on these community problems and challenges (Bender, 2014). Thus, PBL meets the demands outlined in the Brazilian National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC) by making learning meaningful in its context and time. However, in the context of additional language teaching and learning (ALTL), the absence of a Project-Based Method (PBM) grounded in discussions specific to Applied Linguistics (AL) poses challenges for teachers in its implementation, particularly when considering the classroom as a complex adaptive system (CAS). In view of this, the general objective of this study is to propose the PBM in light of complexity theory. Specifically, the following objectives were met: 1) to situate the PBM within AL by referencing the approach from which it derives, namely the Multiple Intelligences Approach; 2) to describe how the design of the PBM functions as an initial condition for PBL; and 3) to indicate how viewing the classroom as a hologram can support teachers in using the PBM as a complex method. Regarding the methodology, we conducted action research with first-year high school students at a public school in Belém, employing the following research instruments: focus group, observation protocol, and evaluation protocol. The results indicate that the PBM proposal and the suggestion of underlying procedures mitigated the difficulty of incorporating elements of PBL into ALTL, particularly due to the emergence of the managerial axis. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the PBM should operate as an initial condition, with its design being open to contingencies, and that viewing the classroom as a hologram facilitates the retroactive adaptation of the method's design. Prospectively, we hope that the PBM can support the implementation of a bilingual curriculum at the aforementioned school, as it can be utilized as a method within another approach, namely Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL).