“Oxe! é nóis e dexe de bestera” : um estudo sobre a monotongação e a ditongação na escrita dos alunos do 7º ano do ensino fundamental com vistas a uma proposta didática

Abstract

This study aims to investigate, in the light of phonetics and phonology, the processes of monotonation and diphthongation in the writing of 7th grade students from an middle school in the state of Sergipe. We observed through analysis of textual productions proposed during Portuguese language classes that a large number of students had difficulties in writing some words and we noticed a tendency both to reduce diphthongs (monotongation) and to produce them (diphthongation), resulting in spelling errors. Our study is based on the assumption that a large part of the difficulties our students face when writing certain words is related to speech interference that ranges from deletions to the insertion of phonetic elements. While in speech these phenomena are not stigmatized and go unnoticed, the same does not occur in writing, since this modality is standardized and obeys a closed system of conventional rules. In order to reduce spelling errors resulting from monotongue and diphthongation in students' writing, we produced an Activity Sequence and a pedagogical game called ''Ditonguei-me'' to be replicated by other teachers. The proposed Teaching Sequence is the result of a research conducted during the Professional Master's Degree Program in Languages - PROFLETRAS, and has the objective of subsidizing the work of the Portuguese language teacher who, frequently, is challenged to think of strategies to reduce the presence of students' spelling errors. This module was developed during ten classes, in the mentioned group of students. We used as theoretical support the studies developed by Aragão (2000), Bortoni-Ricardo (2004), Simões (2006), Marcuschi (2010), Cagliari (2009), Morais (2012), Seara, Nunes e LazzarotoVolcão (2015), Roberto (2016) and Cristófaro-Silva et al. (2019), among others who discussed the aspects studied here, in addition to the guiding documents of Brazilian education as the National Curricular Parameters (1997) and the Common National Curricular Base (2018). The results point out that the elaboration of a sequence of activities focused on the treatment of monotonation and diphthongation effectively contributes to the reduction of the processes addressed in this work and in the development of students' phonological awareness.