O ensino da Língua Espanhola na Educação Especial: formação docente e aprendizagem de pessoas com Deficiência Intelectual.

This investigation was aimed at planning, implementing and evaluating two embedded interventions. Intervention 1 was addressed to Spanish Language Students and had the purpose of forming a group of these future teachers for the teaching of this language in Special Education; and Intervention 2 was addressed to Persons with Special Educational Needs (PSEN) - Intellectual Deficiency area (ID), with the objective of promoting their learning and development through the teaching of this foreign language (FL). The interventions took place in a Special School in the city of Pelotas/RS and their participants were three groups of volunteer Spanish students (totaling six, during a period of three years) and 13 literate SEN students enrolled in a class of Adult and Young People Education (AYPE). The latter regularly attended the school s professional workshop, being restricted to performing manual tasks, such as cooking and woodwork, among others. The interventions have been based on Vigotski s historical-cultural theory. This researcher has dedicated part of his time to the investigation of learning disabled students, and claimed that the teaching of a foreign language could be an important tool for mental development. Vygotsky (1982c) criticized the way pedagogical action for intellectually deficient students was organized. He believed that schools ended up adapting to student s deficiencies by considering that, due to such deficiencies, they did not have the potential to develop their comprehension and abstraction capacities. Thus schools act at a training level to the detriment of the level of cognitive functions development. Data used to evaluate the interventions have been collected through classroom observations, systematically recorded in a field diary, open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and work produced by both groups of subjects. Such data have been analyzed through content analysis procedures (MINAYO, 1993). The findings from Intervention 1 suggest that the proposal has contributed to the formation of the prospective teachers in terms of overcoming their fears and insecurity; demystifying preconceptions related to PSEN; developing awareness of the importance of understanding the theories that underline teaching and learning processes; comprehending the importance of collaboration and of acting as a guide to the students; considering planning as a valuable tool, capable of benefiting teacher work as well as student learning. Intervention 2 indicated that the teaching of Spanish to PSEN is feasible and produces cognitive gains, such as: possibility of using higher psychological functions, reflection about their own mental processes (willingness and control); advances in language use (text interpretation and written production); increased interest in learning and higher degree of autonomy; development of self-esteem and receptivity to collaborative work. The findings contribute to the hypothesis that complex activities should be assigned to PSEN, aiming at their potentials rather than to their deficits. The findings also provide subsidies for the discussion about the curriculum of teacher training courses, in terms of emphasizing the importance of inclusion of Special Education themes in them.