Orality in the literacy process: the ongoing debate on how to converge pedagogical practices and a humane formative project

Abstract

This study aims to discuss literacy from a theoretical philosophical perspective. Such discussion will establish a new set of guidelines to the treatment of orality at school during the literacy process. To that end, we express the relationship between work and language from a materialist, historical, and dialectical viewpoint, using the notions of objectification and appropriation, which draw on the inseparable character of theory and practice in pedagogy. We also defend the idea that to develop a humane formative project, the school has to acknowledge that the needs of a real and historically located individual are different from those of an empirical one. With this in mind, we identify the weaknesses of hegemonic pedagogies and advocate that a pedagogical plan committed to developing orality should consider as central discourse genres traditionally treated as secondary, thereby providing a connection between oral and written modes during the production processes of texts at school.