Accounts from English teachers in state schools

In this study, we analyse the accounts of English teachers in the state school system of two municipalities in the interior of São Paulo. The aim was to examine the underlying factors behind the process of transformation that English language teaching in state schools underwent between 1950 and 2012, and thereby to gain an understanding of the crisis currently facing English language education. This crisis is linked to school violence, widespread disengagement, low self-esteem, and dissatisfaction among pupils, teachers and school leaders, providing a panoramic view of the changes that have taken place in English language teaching over the last 60 years. Analysis of the narratives revealed that the crisis stems from a long historical process of transformation in which two major forces negatively affect the pedagogical and social/personal dimensions of the English language classroom. In this conflict, the greatest factor of imbalance lies in the force of institutional changes, and the lesser one in the inevitable force of transformations in socio-familial values.