Practice with genre in teaching English as a teaching tool, works as outlined in the discursive practice and confirms that the language goes beyond the strictly linguistic form, contributing to capacity building both linguistic and textual and communicative. Sóciodiscursiva interactionist perspective, this research is supported by the theories proposed by Bakhtin ([1979] 2003) of the genres in the interaction, Bronckart (1999) which highlights the sociodiscursive interactionism, Schneuwly and Dolz (2004) and Marcuschi (2003) believe that a proposal of teaching and learning organized from genre, attributing to language and interaction in building the instrumentalization of knowledge and training of the citizen. To investigate ways to use the genre as a tool for teaching language, the research gathered through empirical methodology, the familiarity of the students of the lyrics to the theme
genre, on the campus of a private institution of higher education in the city of Escada, Pernambuco. Based on an analysis of program discipline of participating classes observed the proposed work of teachers and their relation to gender. Interviews were arranged with eighteen students of Letters in the initial period, and twenty in the final period, adopting as a criterion of choice students seeking to teach the Mother Tongue, and an interview with the
teacher to realize their design and their knowledge of genres. Furthermore, we used the textual productions and the statements of students to check to what extent the work in the classroom contributes to the construction of their knowledge, since it is part of the school these students become proficient readers and text producers, and the challenge educators responsible for teaching and learning processes provide the appropriation of the genre
worked, without losing sight of its uses and its social functions. The results demonstrated that the educational institution involved in research work deals with the genre since the first period but receives high school students with little information on the subject, making the reading
and production of texts for students proficient in the first periods of the university. We
conclude this investigation, that although there is an effective work developed by the participating educational institution, there are gaps in the work with the genre in the elementary and high school, pointing to the need to review the teaching practices of mother tongue teaching for those students. A work in this direction will promote a contribution to an effective teacher training, not only in the city observed here as in other institutions for training
teachers of Language Portuguese
