Reflections on Exploratory Practice and the Affective Mind: The Exploratory Meeting as a Niche to the Construction of Affective Scaffolding in Pandemic Times

Abstract Exploratory Practice (EP), (ALLWRIGHT, 1991, 2006, 2008) is a teaching-learning and research approach, which encourages practitioners to generate understandings on issues related to quality of life that puzzle them in their personal and professional settings. Considering the impact of the Covid19 in our quality of life as practitioners, we analyze the interaction generated during one meeting of regular members of two groups of exploratory practitioners that occurred on May 27, 2020, on the virtual platform Zoom. Therefore, these Communities of Exploratory Practice interact in meetings as affective niches (STERELNY, 2010), following EP’s principle related to understanding life in the language classroom. Thus, this study focuses on the way the community members expressed their feelings as well as how and through what strategies support and affective scaffoldings were provided through discourse.