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ABSTRACT
This paper is part of a case study aimed at researching the multilingual repertoires of young people from a linguistic and cultural minority. Further, it analyzes the role of and the place given to heritage languages (HL) in the development of a multilingual and intercultural competence in schools. In the scope of the study mentioned above, a survey was conducted using an online questionnaire distributed to students from a migrant background. These students attended two primary and secondary schools in the central region of Portugal during the academic year 2013–2014. Results show that the respondents value their HL and perceive them as an instrument of social interaction as well as identity construction and affirmation. Additionally, the results show that both school and teachers recognize and respect the students’ linguistic and cultural capital as well as their composite and plural identities. However, they do not take advantage of this in the classroom by not promoting activities that enrich their students’ cultural and linguistic culture. In this context, the possibilities for an education in/with HL, as a pedagogical and didactic project, are not yet present in the school curriculum and habitus, on the one hand, because there are no educational language policies that incorporate it, and on the other hand, because both school and teachers do not seem to value the role and usefulness of HL in the promotion of an intercultural and multilingual education.
RESUMO
Este artigo é parte de um estudo de caso que pretende investigar o repertório plurilingue de jovens de minorias linguísticas e culturais. Esse projeto analisa ainda o papel e o espaço atribuído às Línguas de Herança (LH) no desenvolvimento da competência plurilingue e intercultural na escola. No âmbito daquele estudo, foi elaborado um inquérito por questionário on-line, que foi preenchido por alunos de origem migratória. Estes alunos frequentavam duas escolas básicas e secundárias da região centro de Portugal, durante o ano letivo 2013/2014. Os resultados mostram que os respondentes valorizam as suas LH e compreendem-nas como instrumentos de interação social e de construção e afirmação da identidade. Adicionalmente, os resultados evidenciam que, quer a escola, quer os professores, reconhecem e respeitam o capital linguístico e cultural dos alunos, assim como as suas identidades plurais compósitas. No entanto, não rentabilizam estas características, não promovendo atividades de enriquecimento das culturas linguísticas e culturais daqueles alunos. Conclui-se que, em contexto escolar, as possibilidades para uma educação em e com as LH, enquanto projeto pedagógico e didático, ainda não estão presentes nos currículos e nos habitus escolares, por um lado, porque não existem políticas linguísticas educativas que as enquadrem e, por outro, porque nem escolas nem professores parecem valorizar o papel e a utilidade das LH na promoção de uma educação intercultural e plurilingue.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Rosa Maria Faneca is a postdoctoral research fellow and member of Research Centre ‘Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers’, Department of Education (University of Aveiro, Portugal), and invited assistant professor at the Superior School of Education (Viana do Castelo, Portugal). Some of her research interests are pedagogy for linguistic and cultural diversity, HL in Portugal and teacher education. She participated in national and international projects in the field of Portuguese as a non-native language, linguistic and cultural diversity and HL education.
Maria Helena Araújo e Sá is a Professor at the Department of Education of the University of Aveiro (Portugal), where she teaches Language Teacher Education, vice-coordinates the Research Centre for Didactics and Technology in Teacher Education (CIDTFF) and co-coordinates the LALE (Laboratory of Research and Training in Foreign Languages). She has coordinated and participated in several national and international projects concerning intercomprehension and plurilingual and intercultural communication, and she has run several training courses at national and international levels, having, for instance, coordinated the Galapro – Education of trainers for intercomprehension in Romance languages – project financed by the European Union.
Silvia Melo-Pfeifer is currently a professor at the Department of Education of the University of Hamburg (Germany). She is also a member of CIDTFF (Research Centre ‘Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers’) at the University of Aveiro (Portugal). Her research interests include plurilingual and intercultural (online) interaction, images of languages, intercomprehension in Romance languages and HL education. She coordinated the educational department at the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin (Germany), between 2010 and 2013.
Notes
1. Lusophone countries are countries where Portuguese is the official language. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and East-Timor.
2. In the scope of the project Aproximações à Língua Portuguesa: atitudes e discursos de não nativos residentes em Portugal (POCI/CED/56110/2004), developed in the University of Aveiro between 2005 and 2007, one sought to characterize new audiences of learners of Portuguese as a Second Language (PSL). The objective of this project was to analyze “non-native” attitudes towards the PL, surpassing the symbolic importance assigned by the subjects to language learning with the relationship between its mastering and social integration (Ançã, Citation2007).
3. Encontro 2012: Português Língua Não Materna, partilha de práticas de ensino e de experiências de aprendizagem was a meeting which gathered teachers and researchers of PSL, organized by the Instituto de Linguística Teórica e Computacional (ILTEC) and whose main objective was to share teaching practices and learning experiences in the scope of PSL. It also enabled the dissemination of successful strategies and innovative materials (Mateus, Pereira, & Fisher, Citation2008).
4. The guidelines for the teaching of PSL, in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth grades, recommended significant alterations to the conditions of teaching Portuguese to students whose first language is not Portuguese (Legislative Order No. 12/2011 of 22 August), namely: (i) PSL students are grouped by level of language proficiency and not by educational level, cycle or school year; (ii) the teaching materials to be used should be appropriate to the students’ age; (iii) each language proficiency level group must consist of at least 10 students and, for this purpose, students of elementary and intermediate levels can be grouped together, so as to respect the minimum number required and (iv) PSL students who pass the subject at the end of the school year must be sent over to the next level of language proficiency.
5. Our translation. All the quotes were originally in Portuguese and translated in this paper for clarity purposes.
6. Angola, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Poland, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Switzerland, USA and Venezuela.
7. Angola, Belgium, Brazil, Cape Verde, China, East Timor, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Mozambique, Moldova, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Switzerland, Ukraine and Venezuela.
8. Presently in Portugal, PSL has a curricular visibility it did not have before and the PSL teacher has now more responsibility in the management of this new subject. In addition to teaching the language, the teacher must also contribute to their students’ academic success via a constant dialogue with their peers and 45 minutes/week classes devoted to the language as a means to learn the school subjects (Ministry of Education Citation2005).