​The "Journal" Project​
This project is based on a couple of ideas and principles related to teaching and learning English in the digital age, as they say. It is then based on the idea of teaching and learning as a collaborative (but most of the time also complex and tense) process of sharing ideas, ideals, values, experiences and knowledge, in a less linear, monolithic and authoritative way.
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This project is therefore guided by the view of teaching and learning as an active and never ending process of projecting and reprojecting practices, by critically looking at the way we relate to the world and build power relations through (the English) language. Teaching - Learning is a process of constant change. It is a process of widening scopes, views. it is a process of maximizing our agency towards a more ethical society, towards a university which can contribute to the promotion of more equal relations among people in every possible way, in every possible dimension and context. It is a process of using language (English) to question, to make silenced voices heard. It is a process of ethical authorship, which enables us to act critically and resourcefully within as many social spaces as possible and desired.
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Above all, this project is grounded on a profound and true belief that a lot of good quality and meaningful language teaching and learning can happen within public education.
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​Based on the bakhtinian belief that it is the contact with the Other that makes it possible for the Self to be built, two different groups of students (in terms educational background and courses taken at UNICAMP) were brought together to carry out a collaborative writing project. ProFIS LA094 students and CEL/LA212 students. The main objective of the project was to allow them to exchange ideas and experiences and then to create a "journal-like" medium to discuss UNICAMP in times of globalization and internationalization.
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A similar genre was at first taken as a parameter:
The Chronicle-Journal | The Newspaper of the Northwest
www.chroniclejournal.com. It was supposed to be looked at critically, so that students could think of possibilities to approach different university and academic issues from different perspectives, overcoming patterns.
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As they did not know one another and as they did not have classes together, Facebook was their choice to be their main way of communication. The on-line journal, newspaper, whatever name this means of communicating/discussing university can be called, finally started to gain life. English was then used to allow these students to inform, to research, to agree and disagree, to suggest, to make decisions... to reflect about the English language role in society nowadays, about the role UNICAMP plays and should play in Campinas, in Brazil, in the wold, about the role they play as undergrads, as citizens. Most importantly, it was used to enable them to build new ways of being within university, in the world. ​
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Never-ending (re)designing process....
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UHUUUU was elected our cry for action! For a dynamic process of redesign of our ideias, of our learning.
So Loudspeakers is "a never-ending to-be reviewed/to be redesigned" onlinejournal/newspaper-almost-like production.
There are some mistakes to be corrected, some things to be rewritten... by choosing to do so, we can show what we were able of doing (in English) at some point in time. We will go on searching for ways to deal with such corrections. We will keep trying to think of ways of creating spaces to debate them, to kkep old versions together with newer ones,,,, we will try to come up with ideas to let you make part of it, as well... I do hope you enjoy our project and that you are, at this point, willing to join us! UHUU to all of us!
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By Cláudia Hilsdorf Rocha
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Two worlds have been brought together. Some images to tell their stories:
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By Gabriela and Daiane (ProFIS_LA094A)
