Portuguese as a host language: intercultural teaching through music

Abstract

Currently, Brazil receives many refugees searching for better living conditions, who generally face numerous issues of adaptation and socialization when arrive in Brazilian territory. Since 2018 we have been developing the project of teaching Portuguese as a Host Language (PLAc) promoting access to the Portuguese, language in order to reduce the problems related with the linguistic and cultural issues that Venezuelan foreigners have finded. In this context, initially, we start from the assumption that materials to teaching Portuguese as a Host Language (PLAc) are very scarce and that using materials from Portuguese as a Foreign Language (PLE) is not sufficiently adequate, considering that students seek an immediate social integration, equal opportunities and solve everyday problems. Therefore, concerned with promoting activities in which there are real contexts of use, we aim to produce teach and learning materials for the PLAC by the interrelationship between language and culture, using Brazilian music as a guide element in our practice, promoting proximity of the foreign apprentice with the Brazilian language and culture. Theoretically, we are inserted in the field of Applied Linguistics and based on Almeida Filho (2012) studies on foreign language teaching, Grosso (2010), Amado (2010) and Ança (2003) on PLAc teaching and Byram (1997) on intercultural teaching. Methodologically, this study is characterized as a qualitative research with an interpretive bias, starting with Bogdan and Biklen (1994). The research will be carried out by following a survey of students needs about the Brazilian language and culture, planning and organizing classes in the PLAc project using music; soon classes in the PLAc project using music; right after the course will be applied and observations of the classes will be made; preparation of a class diary of the classes taught; finally, the data analysis will be carried out in order to verify if the needs presented initially were addressed in the classes, data that will later be interpreted in the light of the theory that underlies this research.