Learning english in democracy: currículo e ensino da língua inglesa na reforma Simões Filho de 1951

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the English language teaching program present in the Simões Filho Curricular Reform of 1951. In order to do so, we reconstructed the historical context of that moment, both in the international sphere, which dates back to the end of the second war, the defeat of fascism, the creation of the UN, the rise of the USA as a western hegemonic power at the beginning of the Cold War, as well as the national scope, mainly concerning the debates about the directions of education in Brazil that, at that moment, needed to deal with the ambivalence of a traditional humanist curriculum identified with the authoritarian and nationalist project of the so-called Estado Novo, consolidated in the Capanema reform of 1942, and the perspective of a curriculum more aligned with liberal premises – practical, utilitarian, geared towards an industrial, urban and mass society in the shape of a capitalist modernization inspired by the North American model. In order to reach this goal, we submeted this work to: learn the process of social construction of the curriculum; to analyze the curriculum guidelines for the English language in the Curriculum Reform of 1951; to investigate how the pedagogical concepts from that period influenced the selection of content and the methodological instructions for teaching English in the Curricular Reform of 1951; to relate the curricular guidelines for the teaching of English in Brazil with the context of subordination and political-ideological alignment of Brazil with the USA as a western hegemonic power. To guide this work, we relied on the bibliographic research on the teaching of the English language in Brazil and the history of education in authors such as Romanelli (2014); Daros (2013); Dallabrida (2009); Bomeny (1999; 2000; 2002); Ribeiro Junior (2018); Souza (2008; 2009), Leffa (1999), Oliveira (1999), Gattolin (1998); Paes and Jorge (2009), Casimiro (2005); for the historiographical context we used authors such as Skidmore (1982), Ferreira (2010), Oliveira (1991), Quijano (2005); Tota (2000); and finally, for the theoretical bases of the curriculum and the analysis of educational reforms, we used authors such as Goodson (1995;1997; 2013), Jahen and Ferreira (2012); Chervel (1990). The methodological structure of this research shows its qualitative and bibliographic character, supported by a study in the scope of the State of Knowledge. Finally, we analyzed the English language teaching program of Ordinance No. 1045, from December 14, 1951, which constituted the legal-institutional basis of the Simões Filho Reform, establishing a dialogic content analysis with the bibliography, explaining there the new programmatic and methodological guidelines for teaching the English language. The document highlighted the latent tensions between the humanistic tradition as a still present heritage and the liberal perspectives, which proposed a new educational model aligned with the perspectives of the historical context, as well as the consolidation of English in the curriculum so that it could become the hegemonic foreign language to be taught in Brazil in the second half of the 20th century.