Centros de autoacesso, identidade docente e profissionalidade

Abstract

Self-Access Centers (SACs) are places designed to foster autonomy in the course of learning an additional language. There is a SAC at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). It is called Autonomous Learning Support Base (ALSB), and it is open to the general public. Visitors are aided by undergraduate students who work voluntarily. Currently, ALSB is institutionally understood as a room where visitors find support for autonomous language learning. SACs are research fields, as demonstrated in studies developed in them. However, there is still room for enriching the experience of attending a SAC while obtaining a teaching degree in an additional language. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to investigate how a space dedicated to autonomous language learning itself can dynamically affect present and former volunteers in their development towards professional teaching and their constant building of a teaching identity. According to Murray (2018), the main features of SACs are the constant process of transformation and the dynamic relationship between socially constructed beings and this particular context. The path one takes in life is inherent to their formation; thus, the individuals who experience SACs bear a chance to establish and modify their distinctive teaching identities. The concept of Professional Teaching emerges amid enquiries concerning the construction of identities and what being a teacher embodies. It expresses “the qualities of teachers' professional practice in agreement with the demands of the educational work” (CONTRERAS, 2002, p. 74). Such qualities of professional teaching are related to the values teachers want to develop and the purposes they want to achieve. Therefore, the substance of these qualities is not fixed. Contrariwise, it is adaptable to the context and the specific situations in the reality of each teacher. The present research presents a narrative approach to qualitative enquiry with holistic analytical movements, and it comprises two methodological steps. During four months, we collected narratives from three teachers in training and four graduated teachers to analyze how they make sense of their teaching identity. Afterwards, we conducted a roundtable discussion with teachers who are currently active to elucidate doubts and introduce the complementary queries. Since the identities are constantly constructed, reformulated and influenced directly or indirectly by the spaces in which the teachers are part of, the results obtained through the mentioned instruments showed the multidimensional character of the teaching identity construction. We also identified the training potential of SACs and the different impacts caused by the center on the participants’ professional teaching and identity. They were influenced in terms of experience with space management, activity planning, daily contact with the center itself, and with other language learners.