Hello, guys! Following our journey of showing you the research and extension projects that happen in our Letras-Inglês course, today we will know a little about the research project being developed by professors Ana Paula and Francini, that tackles academic literacy through didactic materials for teachers’ training.

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As they revealed for us, the idea for the project emerged from the participation of both professors on LILA. LILA is the acronym for "Laboratório Integrado de Letramentos Acadêmicos-Científicos”. In this project, they develop collective actions to help in the difficulties of students with academic writing. The “Ações em prol do Letramento Acadêmico no Ensino Superior” project is coordinated by Professor Francini and has as its general objective to map actions in academic literacies in the scope of higher education, and, as a specific objective, to analyze the actions in favor of academic literacy carried out at Unespar, which can be either in the mother tongue and/or in English. As an example of those actions, we can mention a set of workshops that professors Francini and Ana Paula had promoted to help the students who participate in Pibid and RP. In those workshops, they supported the students, helping them to develop the textual genres they needed to produce according to the demands of Pibid and RP.

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The project relies on the experiences and construction of meaning from the students to happen. Actually, the professors study how the students acquire academic literacy through didactic materials for future English teachers. In the words of professor Ana, “our own students are participants and they help us, this way, to better understand their difficulties and potentialities to help them in the best way”.

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Professor Ana has also revealed that, due to the pandemic, the research had to be adapted for the remote classes. Unfortunately, this affected the research, since the activities available in the materials are meant to be developed in pairs or groups. These adaptations may affect even the results of the research that is supposed to be done next year. Finally, professor Ana also invites those students interested in contributing to the research. As she told us, those interested can use the materials to offer voluntary monitoring for their colleagues.. Sadly, this proposal was not supported by Prograd, so it is not possible to offer a scholarship, but this would be an interesting way of applying the materials anyway.

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For those interested in participating, please contact professor Ana Paula for further information: anapaula.trevisani@unespar.edu.br / (43)98814-1238 whatsapp