English education at schools in Brazil has been regarded as inefficient by teachers (both pre- and in-service) and students. Although they acknowledge the importance of learning English for their personal lives and professional careers, they do not think that English classes at schools allow one to learn this foreign language. In spite of that perception, English language education has been receiving increasing attention from the authorities at different levels, e.g., English subject was inserted in the National Program of Books (known as PNLD) in 2011. Considering those efforts, this thesis aimed at revealing the social representations of English education by listening to the voices of school managers, English teachers, teachers of other disciplines and students, in two public secondary schools (one run by the State of Rio de Janeiro and the other by the federal government). The theory of social representations developed by Moscovici (1961) was the theoretical framework of this research, which has also considered the structural perspective of the referred theory, the central nucleus theory (ABRIC, 1976). As regards to the methodology, a total of 26 participants were interviewed. After content and discourse analyses of the interviews, this research has revealed the nuclear and peripheral social representations of English education, as well as the way participants positioned themselves through discourse. Results showed that the English language is regarded as important, but is still considered inefficient in school classrooms. Participants believe that learning English is learning how to speak it, but this skill is not developed at the school environment. This study may lead us to the thinking that measures should be taken in order to improve the quality of English education at Brazilian public schools.