GEALE is constituted by researchers who study written production from the point of view of its acquisition and teaching. The group emerged from the development of the research project “Acquisition and Development of Writing: orthography and accentuation”, which resulted in the creation of a Texts Database consisting of written productions of Brazilian and Portuguese children of Elementary School, in addition to texts written by EJA students (Brazilian educational program for illiterate youth and adults). The Banco de Textos de Aquisição da Linguagem Escrita (BATALE), in the way it was conceived, allows investigations that involves structural aspects – phonological, morphological and syntactic – as well as aspects related to the text and the discourse.
The studies developed by GEALE aim to: (1) descript the process of acquisition and development of the writing of children in the first grades of basic education; (2) analyze individual processes and general tendencies encountered during the period of writing acquisition; (3) compare aspects of oral language acquisition with initial writing data; (4) formulate proposals to improve the mother tongue teaching; and (5) discuss the repercussion of theoretical training in language teaching practices and in the professional development of teachers.
In the period from 2013 to 2017, GEALE hosted a broad research project within the scope of the Observatory of Education/CAPES, entitled “National Pact for Literacy at the Right Age (PNAIC): teacher training and the improvement of reading and writing rates in the literacy cycle (1st to 3rd year of Elementary school)”. The aim of the project was to keep up with the process of continued education for teachers linked to PNAIC actions conducted by the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), in order to verify the effects on children’s reading and writing rates and the teacher training practices. Two important results of the project were the inauguration of GEALE’s fifth line of investigation, listed above in item (5), and the creation of the ‘Teachers’ Text Database (BTP)’, consisting of written productions (texts, activity reports, planning) of basic education teachers that participated of the PNAIC-UFPel activities. Recently, BTP was also incorporating the productions of students from the undergraduate course on Education (Elementary Teaching License) at UFPel, who was working on the curricular internship in the first years of Elementary School.
In view of the breadth and volume of materials produced within the scope of the OBEDUC-Pacto project, a separate website was created for its dissemination, whose access link is as follows: https://wp.ufpel.edu.br/obeducpacto/. Materials and activities developed in the research projects that, since the founding of GEALE, have met and are in line with the lines of investigation from (1) to (4), are here on this page. To view the mirror of GEALE in the Research Groups Directory (Lattes/CNPq), access dgp.cnpq.br/dgp/espelhogrupo/3189572089608769.
