Overcoming social blindness through the Activity Theory

PHILIPE ARAJO; RAFAELLY SILVA; YURI ARAUJO.

PART 1: The Law in Brazil

LEI N 7.853

Art. 1 Ficam estabelecidas normas gerais que asseguram o pleno exerccio dos direitos individuais e sociais das pessoas portadoras de deficincias, e sua efetiva integrao social, nos termos desta Lei. Art. 2 Ao Poder Pblico e seus rgos cabe assegurar s pessoas portadoras de deficincia o pleno exerccio de seus direitos bsicos, inclusive dos direitos educao, sade, ao trabalho, ao lazer, previdncia social, ao amparo infncia e maternidade, e de outros que, decorrentes da Constituio e das leis, propiciem seu bem-estar pessoal, social e econmico.

DECRETO 914/93.

III - incluir a pessoa portadora de deficincia, respeitadas, as suas peculiaridades, em todas as iniciativas governamentais relacionadas educao, sade, trabalho, edificao pblica, seguridade social, transporte, habitao, cultura, esporte e lazer.

PART II: The Activity Theory

Lev Vygotsky (1934) Leontiev (1978) Engestrm (1999)

Mediation Artifacts Culture.

The concept of Activity.

Relation between the activities: systems of activities.

Community Rules Division of Labour.

The Human Activity Structure

Components:

Subjects: agents, the doers of the activity. Community: anyone who is under the impact of the activity. Division of Labour: each ones tasks. Rules. Object: the thing that will satisfy every ones necessity. Mediating tools and artifacts: all the instruments we use to reach the object.(physical tools and others). Outcome: the results after the realization of the activity.

Genres:

Linguistic tools for the activity to succeed. After determining the activity, it is time to select the genres which are going to be necessary for it to happen. Social Activity: Shopping. Genres: ___. Social Activity: Going to the Museum. Genres: ___.

Social Activity: Going to school. Genres: ___.

Language Capacities:

Capacity to Act: Discoursive Capacity:

Who? Where? When? Why?

How is the text organized? What are the main ideas? What is the sequence of the facts?

Linguistic-Discoursive Capacity:

Cohesion, coherence, connectors, verbs, expressions, modalization, etc.

Lets see an example

Social Activity: Listening to an English podcast.

Components:
Subjects: Listeners, interviewer, interviewee. Community: Listeners, families, school, teachers, etc. Division of Labour: The listeners listen to the podcast, discuss it, express their opinions, answer orally the questions asked by the teacher. Rules: They can listen to the podcast twice, pay attention to the podcast, respect the speech turns and opinions. Object: To be able to understand a podcast in English. Mediating tools and artifacts: The computer, the speakers, the language, etc.

Genre

Main genre: Podcast interview.

Capacities
Of Action:

Who uses podcasts? Anybody who has internet connection Where do we find podcasts? On websites. When do we listen to a podcast? When we seek more information about something or someone, or check others opinion about something which interests us. Why? To get information about a specific topic

Capacities
Discoursive:

How is the text organized? usually by a set of questions and answers or a serie of statements and opinions where each speaker has their turns. What are the main ideas? They discuss the topic. What is the sequence of the facts? Usually it starts with introductions and presentations of the interviewer and other participants. They move either to Q.A about a very specific topic, or each one states his/her opinion first and wait for judments or comments. It ends with a summarising of the whole conversation and the final results or ideas.

Capacities
Linguistic-Discoursive:

Adjectives: the way they feel. Adverbs: the importance to the genre. Connectors: how do they use it?

PART III: Group Activity

NOW IT TURNS TO YOU! LETS WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE AN ACTIVITY PLAN!

SOCIAL ACTIVITY: choose one based on a social need.

Genres:

Which genres are necessary for the development of your activity?

Language Capacities

Capacity of Action. Discoursive Capacity. Linguistic-Discoursive Capacity.

Thank you!

References

LIBERALI, F. Atividade Social nas Aulas de Lngua Estrangeira. So Paulo: Moderna, 2009. ARRUDA, N. Atividade de Ensino e Aprendizagem de Lngua Inglesa: desafios na construo da cidadania. So Paulo: PUC, 2006. SILVA, R. A. Oficina Pedaggica: necessidades e objeto da atividade em contradio. So Paulo: PUC, 2006. http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto/d0914.htm http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l7853.htm