Reflections on the 1st. European Symposium on the Teaching of Portuguese as a Heritage Language

29 Oct, 2013

READ IN ENGLISH HERE / READ IN PORTUGUESE 

By Celeste Gatai
 

“Heritage speakers are the children of immigrants born in the host country or immigrant children who arrived in the host country some time in childhood” Montrul (2012:2)

Meet Sandra (not her real name). She is the daughter of a Brazilian mother and a Spanish father, and was born and raised in New York. Until the age of 3, she spoke English, Spanish and Portuguese. However, once she started attending school she stopped using Portuguese and Spanish at home, even though her parents continued to speak to her in their respective native languages. She learned to read and write in English. However, things changed when a Brazilian aunt moved in with them when Sandra was 12. As her aunt did not speak English, Sandra had to start speaking Portuguese again. I know Sandra well. She is now one of my students here in London, hoping to start a new career as a bilingual translator.

Unlike the majority of my students who are learning Portuguese as a foreign language, that is as “ any language other than the mother tongue” (Johnson, 2008:12), or as a language that has “no immediately local uses or speakers” (Mitchell and Myles, 2004:6), Sandra is a typical example of someone trying to reconnect with a language that she has ‘inherited’ when she was born. It soon became clear that Sandra’s learning was motivated by her desire to not only rebuild her Brazilian identity but also to, like many of my other students, invest in the acquisition of skills that might gain her new professional prospects. In fact, “identifying how L2 learners and heritage speakers differ in their linguistic competence and processing abilities is a critical step towards developing efficient pedagogical strategies in language teaching” (Montrul, 2012:7).

By Regina Mester

On the 24th and 25th of October we had the opportunity to attend here in London the 1^ST European Symposium on the Teaching of Portuguese as a Heritage Language organised by our partner Abrir (Brazilian Association of Educational Projects in the UK) and hosted by the Institute of Education. The aims of the symposium were:

a) to promote the sharing of good practice in this field, b) to initiate a collaboration between the countries where projects are being created, in order to help Brazilian expat children and their families to keep the Portuguese language and its related cultural practices alive, and c) to increase the visibility of the teaching of Portuguese as a heritage language in Europe.

Participants from Belgium, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Norway told us about the challenges they face setting up associations and out-of-school programmes to promote and maintain the Portuguese language and the culture associated with different Lusophone countries. In London there are 13 different groups in action at the moment. Of these, the majority were borne out of sheer necessity, put into place by parents trying to understand and support the difficulties being faced by their children while adapting to life in a new country.

Vídeo by Canal Tv Londres (our partner)

Doctor Ana Souza, chair of Abrir, identified 7 challenges that are invariably faced by groups in England:

a) finding appropriate meeting spaces, b) lack of teacher training courses and professional development opportunities, c) lack of an appropriate curriculum for the teaching of Portuguese as a heritage language, d) sourcing adequate teaching and learning materials, e) the mixed language ability level of participants, f) maintaining students’ motivation and, g) the lack of parents’ engagement. She added that the lack of funding and the mobility of the families involved are the underlying causes of the challenges  mentioned above.

by Regina Mester

by Regina Mester

Discussions about how the different groups have dealt with the above mentioned problems in their respective countries gave the opportunity for all to learn from each other’s experiences and witness many success stories. Doctor Edleise Mendes, of the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, pointed out the importance of joining forces and mobilizing efforts in well-organised networks across Europe so that these isolated initiatives can become part of a much larger community of practice and gain more visibility, and as a result, support. In addition, she emphasized that all involved in such projects must find new ways of “inhabiting” the Portuguese language, and reflect on what it really means to “live their lives in Portuguese”, no matter where they are. Theorists such as Montrul (2012:24) propose that research be furthered in this field through a combined socio and psycholinguistic approach, so that the language of the heritage language learners can not only be “recovered”, but also “revitalised” by their situated social experiences.

Attending the Symposium has been an invaluable experience as I now feel I understand much better the complexities of bringing up bilingual children, and how the experience of growing up in a bilingual environment impacts on these children’s futures, as illustrated by Sandra’s story. See you next month!

Bibliography:
Johnson, K. 2008. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Mitchell, R. and Myles, F. 2004. Second Language Learning Theories. Second edition, London: Hodder Education.
Muntrol, S. 2012. Is the heritage language like a second language? EUROSLA Yearbook 12:1–29. ”