Uma pesquisa-ação: sistemas adaptativos complexos e o espanhol em um contexto militar

Abstract

In this research, we assume the learning of a foreign language as a complex adaptive system, in which its components are in constant interaction. We aimed to understand the relationship between the fractal input and fractals sócio-historical context, affiliation and motivation in the process of Spanish language teaching and learning in a military institution. The fractal model of language acquisition developed by Paiva (2005) and other studies on complexity (MORIN, 2007; 2015) and complexity in the context of language learning (LARSEN-FREEMAN, 1997; LARSEN- FREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008; BORGES; SILVA, 2016) supported the investigation. This research is part of the interpretivist qualitative paradigm and is classified as action research. In a first collection of data with cadets, Spanish teachers and officers of the institution, the objective was to carry out a needs and interests analysis, and later on to prepare the Acercándonos teaching material to be applied to the participating cadet groups in “Spanish Language 4” classes by the researcher teacher. A new data collection was carried out in order to verify how this input (teaching material) may have promoted changes in the manifestations of these participants in relation to the Spanish language and its learning, as well as verifying the effects the integration of fractal input, affiliation, motivation and socio-historical context in the Spanish language teaching-learning process to this audience. The results show that the political context exerts a strong influence on the educational institution, which is also a political space that, in turn, influences the classroom and, consequently, the motivation of learners, but the the input (the teacher and the teaching material) acted as possible disturber that contributed to the emergence of intrinsic motivation and a subtle integrative motivation. The duration of the research did not allow us to verify whether there were signs that revealed the emergence of more significant affective bonds with the Hispanic world.