Interações e desenvolvimento da linguagem oral em crianças na creche: uma abordagem histórico-cultural

Abstract

Understanding the process of oral language development in the first years of life is essential to qualify the pedagogical work in a nursery. The Historical-Cultural Theory emphasizes that the development of oral language and the child's communication activity – as well as all kinds of human mental functions development – are not natural process, but socially mediated. It is up to the adult in charge of education the development of activities that intentionally promote the child interaction. Doing so, communication is set as a necessity, promoting development. Thus, one could ask: how is the development of oral language in early childhood according to historical and cultural perspective? How do the adult-child and child-child interactions interfere with the development of oral language of children in day care situation? How can the pedagogical work in the nursery provide significant verbal interactions? With the purpose of understanding the development process of oral language in early childhood stage, according to the assumptions of Historical-Cultural Theory; besides knowing the influence of adult-child child-child interactions for the development of oral language of children in day care situation; and also with the aim of bringing to the light how pedagogical work in day care can contribute to any significant verbal interactions between children and adults, so, these were the reasons why this research has been conducted. In fact, it is part of the Research Line number 3 – Training and Praxis of the educator before the Amazonian Challenges in the Post-Graduation Program Studies in Education of the Federal University of Amazonas. Three teachers and seven children of one and two years of age were the subjects of this research, held in a nursery called Creche Municipal Maria Ferreira Bernardes, in 2014, in Manaus-AM. The research focused on the development of oral language of young children in an interactive daycare context, based on the theoretical and methodological contributions of the Historical-Cultural Theory, according to which the higher mental functions of humans arise both from the close relationship between biological factors inherent of mankind, and cultural factors, built throughout human history – idea published by L. S. Vygotsky, its principal representative. The empirical knowledge was acquired through participatory observations of everyday life, with the support of photographs, video recordings and records in fieldwork notebook; and also by semi-structured interviews and formative meetings with the teachers. The systematization of data enabled to group the interactive situations experienced by children and their teachers – which have revealed the emergence of oral language – in two categories: 1) direct communication Interactions: through communicative activities whose reasons were personal, based on emotional communication; and 2) communicative interactions mediated by objects: a communicative activity, based on the practice of situations involving manipulation of objects. After analyzing the empirical categories, one could note that the activities proposed by the teachers and the interactions between child-child and adult-child, in the nursery, potentiate the communicative activity of children and the development of oral language, according to the theoretical assumptions of Vygotsky and his collaborators. While we recognize that children build each other interactions that carry rich meanings and produce language, we emphasize the mediating role of teachers in these moments and intentional organization of interactive experiences that promote oral language. Besides that, discussion groups with teachers about oral language development enable the expansion of references to think about the pedagogical activity, confirming the potential of formative research.