NARRATIVES OF TEACHERS WHO WORK IN EARLY SCHOOLING:
identities and educational paths
Keywords: Applied Linguistics; teacher identity; narratives; teacher training; literacy.
This research addresses the narratives of literacy teachers working in the early years of schooling, focusing on their identity trajectories and initial and ongoing training processes. The study highlights the experiences of four literacy teachers currently working in elementary school: two from the 1st grade and two from the 2nd grade, belonging to private and public schools in Sinop, Mato Grosso. It reflects on the different ways in which identity is formed, considered fundamental, including for remaining in and working in teaching. The general objective was to analyze the trajectories of teachers working in the initial stage of schooling, based on their conceptions and narratives about their teaching careers. Specifically, it sought to highlight the challenges of literacy, identify teaching and learning practices in different contexts, describe the teaching knowledge expressed in language practices, and unveil the teachers' identities, considering their personal and professional training paths in the context of literacy. The language and meanings revealed in the narratives constituted the central object of analysis, offering insights into the career paths of these professionals, their strategies and practices, as well as the challenges faced in their school routines, including teacher training, understood as an essential element in teaching and learning. A qualitative and interpretative approach was adopted, using the narrative interview as a data collection instrument (Jovchelovitch; Bauer, 2002; Schutz, 2013), which employs a specific type of everyday communication: telling and listening to stories. Furthermore, it highlights that through narrative, people remember and place experiences within a sequence of events that construct individual and social life. The theoretical framework is based on Nóvoa (1992; 1999; 2000; 2023), who understands teacher identity as a dynamic process, constructed through the experiences, practices, and reflections of educators, in addition to offering elements for understanding the contemporary challenges of initial and continuing teacher training, especially regarding the relationship between training and profession. This framework is complemented by Pimenta (1996; 1999; 2005; 2012), who proposes three fundamental categories for the configuration of teacher identity: experiential knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and knowledge; Soares (2004; 2020), who discusses the concepts of literacy and reading comprehension; and Dowbor (2008), who emphasizes the importance of meaningful learning, in which individuals construct their own meanings articulated to their life history and their way of being in the world. Through data analysis, it became evident that the personal and professional trajectories of the teachers, which intertwine in the construction of pedagogical knowledge and the constitution of educational practice, offer contributions to the reflection on teacher professionalization.