Clara Prado
There are many reasons for why I want to attend the ISCAR SU 2012 and I´ll try to convey them as best I can.
I first got introduced to the socio-cultural-historical theory when I was taking a short course on learning theories. I had been teaching English for a while, without any formal training, and I was beginning to need it. I was surprised of how the theories helped me understand not only my students better, but myself. I began to see in my life and personality, the consequences of the ways I was taught. The course was very important for me to finally decide which way to go. I learned a lot. Not only from the teacher, but with the hole class in a collaborative way. I was surprised to see how well that went and I began my studies on Vygotsky.
My research on the socio-cultural-historical theory really began during my Masters, where I studied the use of games in the classroom, and how they could be used as a tool to mediate students feeling peer pressure to participate more in class. Now for my doctoral thesis I’m also interested I in the mediation, but this time my focus is on students with special needs where I’m currently working on my project and taking classes at university.
This year my research supervisor, Professor Angela Lessa, attended the summer university as a teacher, and she told us all in class about the experience. This is the second reason why I want to go, because this is how I found out about ISCAR. After hearing about the program I immediately thought about applying. I am sure that this experience will not only be important for my research, but also for my personal development as a teacher and a researcher.
Finally, my expectations for the course are, firstly, to enrich my research through the feedback from the students and teachers. In addition, I believe there is a great deal to be learned from listening to others talk about their work and research. Moreover, I feel that the interaction with the other participants during the week would be very valuable since we all come from a very different culture and background and I would be interested in sharing stories.
Presentation “The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the language (English) classroom”
Download presentation of the speech (PDF; 153KB)