Representations about the teaching of reading in Portuguese as a Foreign Language

Based on a discursive perspective (ORLANDI, 1999; CORACINI, 1999) and one which also considers some concepts from psychoanalysis (LACAN, 1964), this study aims at observing representations about the teaching of reading in Portuguese as a Foreign Language for teachers who work in such area. Two teachers were interviewed orally and representations about students, language, teaching and teaching of reading were analysed from their words. We have observed discursive formations such as the native myth, the high importance of orality in foreign language teaching, the foreign language for communication and the focus on the student in language teaching. However, as far as teaching reading is concerned, it seems that there is a different layout of practices, related to other representations, for instance, that the language has ready meanings to be sought and reproduced by students. From such contradiction among representations, we see the teacher as a subject who is split and constituted by the Other.