ATOS DE FALA: INVESTIGANDO O USO DA LÍNGUA MATERNA E DA LÍNGUA ESTRANGEIRA EM DUAS TURMAS DE INGLÊS DA 8ª SÉRIE

Abstract

In this article, we examine the ways two teachers of English use Portuguese and English in their foreign language classrooms. First, we identify how much English and Portuguese they use. Second, we identify the communicative functions of the two languages in their speech. Finally, we also look at the teachers’ beliefs toward the use of Portuguese and English in the classroom. Findings indicate that the teacher of the public school used Portuguese as the medium of instruction whereas the teacher of the private school used both Portuguese and English. However, both share the idea that learning English is learning grammar which might have generated the high frequency of the metalinguistic utterances in their speech.