Concepciones y prácticas sobre la oralidad en la educación media colombiana

Abstract

Without losing sight of the spontaneity and richness of spoken language, we construct ourselves through our own voices and those of others, embracing their echoes, resonances, complaints, and evocations. In this endless stream of present and absent voices, the simultaneity of memory and listening become vital elements of the imprint left by those primal narratives that now form our narrative experience. As Raymundo Mier (2009) states, this intertwines the desire for speech and the desire for listening; that is, the act of vocal narration highlights the asymmetry between speaking and listening. To hear ourselves narrated means recovering our own voice in the mouth of another, and to listen to that voice implies assuming our own listening as a prefiguration of the other's narrative experience. Without overlooking this spontaneous nature of orality and the very fact that we are born and constituted in and through verbal exchanges, we also recognize the need for specific communicative, socio-affective, and cultural conditions to establish more democratic interactions with the contemporary world through an exercise of responsible citizenship and participation in the common public space. From this active and interactive perspective of orality, which acquires a performative power, this work presents an analysis of the disciplinary and didactic conceptions of spoken language in current Colombian schools. This analysis stems from a doctoral thesis on the development of oral discursive competence in secondary education. This study arises from a concern about the absence of a pedagogical tradition surrounding the progressive and systematic teaching of orality, particularly when contrasted with the contemporary school's ideals of educating citizens whose oral discursive mastery is a factor of inclusion in various spheres of social action. This is undoubtedly a complex task that, while not new, simultaneously demands positioning oneself in a global scenario where social actors represent new resistances and identities, other ways of interrelation, and diverse forms of emancipation and creation. Therefore, this research adopted a social inquiry with a phenomenological and interpretive approach to teaching. Its aim was to contribute to the construction of a theoretical and methodological framework that would not only improve students' communicative abilities but also facilitate the study of spoken language as an object of knowledge. Thus, the study of orality is approached from a socio-discursive interactionist perspective, considering its nature, social uses, forms of realization, and processes involved in transforming its intrinsic knowledge into didactic representations comprehensible within the educational field. This motivation led to a first hypothesis: In contemporary society and schools, there persists an imbalance in the value given to spoken language compared to written language and other forms of communication, stemming from a system of beliefs, meanings, and rules of action derived from the history and evolution of societies. Consequently, this study focuses on the conceptions of Spanish language teachers as mother tongue educators, who are considered responsible for understanding and supporting the importance of this language activity and proposing didactic actions for its reflective and systematic development. The state of the art in this research revealed the need to genuinely and effectively integrate oral comprehension and production processes into the school curriculum. This means recognizing the implications of speaking and listening activities in teaching and learning processes, thereby acknowledging the interdisciplinary dimension of orality and, consequently, a set of sociocultural, psycho-pedagogical, linguistic, and discursive conditions that enable its appreciation and understanding in school learning. Furthermore, previous research showed that proposals on orality didactics in secondary education fundamentally aim to recognize the problem and propose strategies for change, which confirmed the second hypothesis: The current school context lacks a pedagogical tradition and didactic reflection on orality; therefore, studying teachers' conceptions of spoken language teaching constitutes a first step to understanding and conceptualizing this phenomenon. The study and progressive transformation of disciplinary and didactic conceptions about language teaching necessitate pedagogical and political decisions, which in turn demand a drastic change in the traditional distributive and classificatory teaching of language. In Colombia, this issue has not been sufficiently addressed by curriculum reforms and teacher training programs in the field of language. On the contrary, in mother tongue and literature teaching programs, there is a marked disconnect between theory and pedagogical practice, knowledge that underpins teaching work. There is, however, a transition from grammar and language structure-centered training to teacher training emphasizing philosophical humanism and social research. Nevertheless, the disarticulation between their epistemological, disciplinary, and methodological frameworks and the problematic aspects of educational realities persists. A clear evidence is the occasional and intuitive treatment given to the teaching and learning of spoken language in school, due to teachers lacking solid training to guide these practices. These and other theoretical and methodological assumptions developed in this work lead to its guiding questions: What are the disciplinary and didactic conceptions of spoken language manifested in the discourse and practices of Spanish language teachers? What relationships exist and what implications do these conceptions have for spoken language teaching practices in secondary education classrooms? And, in general, what are the foundations, guidelines, and strategies that support a teacher training proposal aimed at the reflective and systematic teaching of spoken language in secondary education? Consequently, conceptualizing orality as an object of teaching implies a complex process of awareness and transformation from a reference knowledge—largely absent in schools—to teachable knowledge. Hence the importance of approaching the disciplinary and didactic conceptions of Spanish language teachers regarding spoken language teaching, to understand their operational frameworks and methodologies. This analysis highlights the disciplinary, pedagogical, and social relevance of this work, whose significance lies in the absence of studies addressing these specific topics, thus making it a reference and a tool for teacher reflection to confront the impact of the conceptions guiding their educational action. This theoretical-practical knowledge gap and the author's particularity of belonging to the teaching community shaped the research path and gave meaning to the central objective of "contributing to the study of the development of oral discursive competence in secondary education based on the analysis of disciplinary and didactic conceptions of spoken language in current Colombian schools." The work is situated in the fields of education, pedagogy, and didactics, and encounters its first conceptual tension when inquiring into the what, how, and why of spoken language teaching. The phrase "to teach spoken language" is used intentionally to give meaning to this postulate, as for some, it might seem paradoxical to think about "teaching to speak and listen," especially at advanced school levels, as in this case. It is, therefore, about reconstructing and giving meaning to orality as an object of teaching, based on the complexity of relationships that can be established between pedagogical practice and the disciplinary and didactic conceptions of orality. The first chapter succinctly presents the tensions, openness, and needs related to various notions of orality (meanings), its forms of materialization and configuration (manifestations), its approach from different disciplinary fields (perspectives), and its uses (functionality) in sociocultural and school contexts. For this purpose, the instituting and instituted dimensions of orality are adopted. The second chapter presents the analysis, interpretation, and discussion of didactic and disciplinary conceptions of spoken language teaching. Considering that various conceptions with different gradations derive from this central metacategory, they are presented through progression hypotheses derived from the most recurrent statements in interviews and discussion groups, as well as the predominant actions in didactic sequences and their self-confrontation. Contingencies and correspondences between conceptions and practices related to the teaching and learning of spoken language are analyzed, and finally, results are discussed, and theoretical and methodological contributions are made. Guidelines for formulating a teacher training proposal aimed at developing oral discursive competence will be published in another work. This proposal derives from the results obtained and is based on the theoretical assumptions of teachers' professional knowledge. The specific contribution is to propose a reference framework that integrates sociocultural, psycho-pedagogical, linguistic, and discursive dimensions as essential foundations for elaborating the aforementioned guidelines. This is done without losing sight of the sensory capacity of the spoken word—its contact, fascination, and the recognition of a certain taste, smell, and fluidity that make orality awaken sensory activity and acquire a greater sensuality than writing.