The teaching of Foreign Languages in Brazil: language policy issues

Abstract

Currently, the debate about the teaching of foreign languages in Brazil runs two different paths: one methodological, guided by the applied linguistics; and one political, guided by what Haugen (1999) refers to as “applied sociolinguistics” or, more appropriately, Language Education Policy, as per Petitjean (2006). This paper proposes a brief discussion on political linguistic matters, such as the Brazilian Educational Legislation (LDB, 9394/96, law #11.161), recommendations (PCN), linguistic representations, and multilingualism (BEACCO; BYRAN, 2003). These matters underlie many of the problems in the country's foreign language teaching, even though they are purely conceived in a methodological framework, as exposed by Celani (1997), Campani (2006) and Leffa (1999). The arguments presented lead to a complementary analysis of the foreign language teaching problems and to a language perception, grounded on the foreign languages' social role.