How is the bilingual development of Portuguese heritage children perceived by their parents? Results from an ethnographic case study of a non-formal learning setting in Germany

ABSTRACT

In the context of German linguistic policies, Heritage Language (HL) education ranges from formal and informal to non-formal offers. Families with migratory backgrounds seeking acquisition and maintenance of the HL frequently resort to educational or maintenance opportunities that are not institutionalized. In the region of Bavaria (Germany), the geographical context of this study, the teaching of Portuguese as an HL (PHL) mainly occurs in non-formal and informal educational spaces. The present empirical study follows an ethnographic perspective and examines how learners’ parents in such non-formal environments perceive their children's bilingualism. As a secondary focus, the linguistic educational tool ‘Mala de Herança’ (MH) (Heritage Suitcase – free translation) shall be examined in order to assess its possible input in shaping the bilingual individual, following Van Lier’s [2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning. A Sociocultural Perspective. Dordrecht: Springer.] ecological approach to language teaching. The data described in the study, obtained from parents’ interviews, were collected through semi-structured interviews and interpreted through content analysis. Results point towards a very heterogeneous perception of the ‘bilingual child’ by the parents, compatible with the reviewed literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Portuguese as a Heritage Language
• non-formal teaching and learning
• bilingual education
• ecological approach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There is a wide range of HLs spoken in Germany: Arabic, Russian, Bosnian, Dari, Farsi, French, Italian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, Vietnamese, and others. Of the 16 federate German states, 10 offer lessons in different HL. One in four Germans has a migratory background. For more data, see https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61646/migrationshintergrund-i.

2 Peers are subjects who establish amongst themselves, in specific contexts, a horizontal hierarchy of behavior, in which everyone has the same rights and responsibilities.

3 According to Stuart Hall, representation is the process by which members of a culture use language (broadly defined as any signifying system deploying signs) to produce meaning (1997, 15–30).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juliane Costa Waetzold

Juliane Costa Waetzol is a PhD student at the Faculty of Education, in the University of Hamburg.

Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer is Associated Professor for French and Spanish Teacher Education, at the Faculty of Education, in the University of Hamburg.