Implementing training in Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages in Portugal: the case of adult immigrants with little or no schooling

ABSTRACT

Courses in Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages, in particular for adult immigrants, have been steadily expanding in Portugal over the last 15 years. These programmes aim to promote educational and labour market integration, access to Portuguese nationality, and cognitive development. This paper argues that official Portuguese learning policies have mainly targeted a population with an immigrant background that fails to represent the full range of adult immigrants’ needs. In particular, less educated adult immigrants’ educational needs have been persistently neglected. Considering that, hitherto, approximately 9% of trainees have been adult immigrants with little or no schooling, this group has not received sufficient attention in policy measures, nor has it been fully accommodated in institutional terms. As a starting point, the paper identifies the place of adult immigrant literacy in international and national discussions. Subsequently, it discusses the main official programmes offering Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages to adult immigrants. The data from the main programmes were backed up by fieldwork, in particular interviews carried out with teachers and public officials which highlight the main barriers and strategies impacting on this group. Finally, we argue that programmes should consider tailor-made solutions, given the counterproductive heterogeneity of classes and the arbitrariness of informal procedures.

A oferta do Português para Falantes de Outras Línguas destinada a imigrantes adultos tem registado uma expansão contínua em Portugal nos últimos quinze anos. Falamos de programas que têm como objectivo promover a integração escolar e profissional, o acesso à nacionalidade e o desenvolvimento cognitivo. O presente artigo discute como estas políticas oficiais do ensino da língua portuguesa têm tido como principal público-alvo uma população que não é representativa das necessidades globais dos adultos imigrantes. Referimo-nos em particular aos adultos imigrantes de baixa escolaridade, cujas necessidades escolares têm sido constantemente negligenciadas. Considerando que 9% do total de formandos são, efectivamente, imigrantes adultos com pouca ou nenhuma escolaridade, as necessidades específicas deste grupo não têm sido suficientemente acauteladas pelas políticas existentes, nem a sua acomodação institucional tem sido a mais adequada. O artigo começa por contextualizar a literacia dos adultos imigrantes nos debates internacionais e nacionais. De seguida, analisa os principais programas oficiais de ensino do Português para Falantes de Outras Línguas para adultos imigrantes. Os dados referentes a estes programas são complementados pela pesquisa de terreno, compreendendo entrevistas realizadas junto de professores e funcionários estatais cujo foco permite elucidar as principais barreiras e estratégias com impacto neste grupo de formandos. Finalmente, argumenta que os programas devem considerar soluções mais adequadas dadas as efectivas necessidades de cada público, sobretudo tendo em conta os resultados contraproducentes de turmas demasiado heterogéneas em termos de literacia e a arbitrariedade dos processos informais em curso.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult literacy learners
• language policies
• literacy
• immigrants with little or no schooling
• Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ana Raquel Matias is currently a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL) and Centre for Social Studies (CES, University of Coimbra). She is studying language policies and language attitudes in Portugal, focusing on adults and children of immigrant and African background. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Sociology at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) and the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED, Paris), with a Marie Curie Fellowship, a Ph.D. grant from the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT), and a short-term grant from Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG) to visit the Centre d'Études et de Recherches Internationales (CERI, Sciences Po). Her doctoral studies were framed in the international TIES project (The Integration of the European Second Generation), focusing on self-reported bilingual outcomes and language acculturation among descendants of Turkish immigrants in Germany, France and the Netherlands. She specialized in the intersection between sociology of migration and sociology of language, comparing policies on immigration, language integration and education.

Nuno Oliveira is currently Post-Doctoral researcher at Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL) Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) and at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. He is developing work on the meaning of governance of diversity models, both in Europe and in Latin America, with a special focus on the meaning of interculturality in Portugal. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) and among other things, he worked for the Fundamental Rights Agency of the EU as a detached national expert and was the coordinator of the Portuguese National Focal Point of the European Racism and Xenophobia network (Raxen).

Alejandra Ortiz is a Ph.D. student in Sociology with a doctoral Fellowship by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) with a doctoral project on health citizenship in immigrants mothers; she holds a Master in Sociology and a Post-graduation in Data Analyse from the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) and a Licenciatura (BA) in Sociology from the University of Social Sciences of Uruguay (UDELAR). Currently, she is a junior research at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL) and collaborates in several research projects and international networks. Her research interests are migration, citizenship, health inequalities, public policy and Latin America. She has published in Spanish and Portuguese in national and international scientific journals.

Notes

1. For instance, if between 2001 and 2006 there were mainly internal reports for the first implemented programme, from 2006 onwards, one-single external evaluation on the subsequent programme was issued.

2. These findings are the outcome of an ongoing research project on implementation of training in Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages in Portugal established in Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL).

3. To give greater detail, this advance has been gradual and has reflected several periods, declarations and reports: to start with, the 1949 United Nations General Assembly's vision of the minimum requirements for basic education; then the onset of the Cold War; later, the World Declaration on Education for All and its main documents (1990, 1996), in conjunction with International Literacy Year (1990); the 1996 Report of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century; the 1997 Hamburg Declaration (emphasizing the relationship between lifelong learning and active community engagement); the 1997 OECD report on Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society; the Dakar Framework for Action in 2000; and, recently, the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003–2012) and Resolution 56/116 acknowledging the place of literacy at the heart of lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2006). See also overview in Petrova (2012).

4. These may refer to socio-economic situations that reinforce the isolation of individuals: those employed in ‘ethnic work units’ or who work in jobs where they are isolated and do not use their oral or written language skills, or who are isolated for other social or cultural reasons – gender-related problems resulting in imbalances and inequality, or emotional barriers such as those confronted by asylum seekers and refugees.

5. This follows other definitions used in international studies, in particular the literature on the LESLLA learners since 2005, e.g. Young-Scholten et al.(forthcoming).

6. The PALOP, Portuguese-speaking African countries.

7. In Portuguese: Educação Recurrente and Iniciativa Novas Oportunidades.

8. Sumário Executivo Portugal Acolhe 2006–2007 [Executive Summary Portugal Welcomes 2006–2007], IEFP.

9. IEFP, supervised by the State Secretariat at the Ministry of Labour and funded by POEFDS (Operational Programme for Employment, Training and Social Development).

10. National Agency for Adult Employment and Training.

11. Human Potential Operational Programme (Decision C (2007) 5157).

12. Order No. 18476/2008 of 10 July.

13. At the time of writing, data on the breakdown by education level and nationality for PPT were not available. This inference is based on exploratory interviews conducted among PPT trainers, both in schools and in employment centres.

14. Considering those with primary education or less, as mentioned in the first part of this article.

15. Data obtained from the High Commission for Migration (ACM, former ACIDI) and the Interim Evaluation Study of the PPT programme, July 2014. Data for 2013 and 2014 are not yet available.

16. Data provided by Professional Training Department, IEFP, Portugal.

17. At the time of writing, the national responsible for the CB was not yet available for interview.

18. On this matter, see the Teachers’ Portal for Portuguese Foreign Language (Portal do Professor de Português Língua Estrangeira/Língua Não Materna), in International Institute for the Portuguese Language (IILP), from the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), http://www.ppple.org/conversa, an ongoing project including different researchers.