MACAÉ: I MISS YOU!

Abstract

With the objective of inviting foreign language teachers to reflect upon their pedagogical practice, this article stimulates knowledge building with students in order to unveil their identities e promote their transformation, having as a consequence their responsible behaviour towards society. Having as a starting point for discussion English classrooms in a municipal school in Macaé, in Rio de Janeiro, and being recently appointed for a teaching position through a public examination, the author discourses on her surprises and incidents to draw her students’ attention to what was being taught. These students lived in a social context of poverty, violence and low self-esteem. During the narrative, the teacher makes comments based on educators and researchers such as Marco Antonio Moreira and Júlio César Furtado, who write about meaningful learning and who, on their turn, are based on Piaget, Vygotsky and Ausubel. Inferring that the human potential for learning is inexhaustible and that there are no ready recipes, since the methodological choices are highly dependent on the contexts where they occur, the author leaves the message that without commitment to education, every practice in the Brazilian public education tends towards failure.