This article, which is part of a doctorate thesis in Education, examines the working context of Portuguese Language teachers at three public schools in Niterói-Rio de Janeiro, seeking to understand the specific conditions in which they carrying out their work, their limits and their possibilities, according to the versions of reality produced by the teachers themselves. For the theoretical framework, we used dialectical and historical materialism and the theory of enunciation, based on Bakhtin, which also guided the methodology adopted. As enunciative devices, we used semi-structured questionnaires, focus groups and individual interviews. As a result, we highlight the scenario of scrapping of public schools, and the precarious conditions in which the teachers live and work, due to the changes in material and non-material relations in the reality in which they work.