MATERIALizing a meaningful and critical English language teaching with children: the extension project LICOMzinho and its teaching material proposal

ABSTRACT This article aims to present the proposal for teaching material developed within the extension project “Oficina On-line de Língua Inglesa para Crianças – LICOMzinho”, which offers free online English classes to children aged 8 to 11 from all over Brazil. These classes are taught by undergraduate students of the English Language and English-Language Literatures program at the Languages and Literatures Institute (ILE) of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). This extension initiative is an offshoot of an online Spanish teaching extension project for children that has been developed at UERJ since 2021. The name "LICOMzinho" is a tribute to the LICOM-PLIC Project (Languages for the Community), based at ILE, which seeks to promote linguistic education for students aged 18 to 60 through courses in various languages. Based on a perspective of meaningful (Author, 2022) and critical (Pennycook, 2004, 2021; Tilio, 2017) English language teaching with children, this study describes and analyzes the didactic sequence “James, The Micro Mayor” used in the classes from June 17th to July 12th, 2024. The teaching material proposed here is grounded in the triad of Contextualization, Conceptualization, and Transformation. Its goal is to promote situated English teaching that recognizes children as socio-historically engaged subjects in social practices, which, due to their complexity and diversity, need to be problematized. In this sense, this extension project encompasses not only the teaching of an additional language but also the development of critical linguistic education from childhood. KEYWORDS: Extension project; English language teaching with children, meaningful and critical teaching; teaching material.