Representation of the Portuguese varieties in the guiding documents for the teaching/learning of Portuguese as a foreign language

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the representation of the varieties of Portuguese in the guiding documents for teaching / learning Portuguese as a Foreign Language (henceforth PLE). In the context of teaching PLE outside countries that have Portuguese as their official language, we find a large number of teachers who do not have specific language training. The promising job market in some countries absorbs speakers of other languages who have taken short courses or even professionals from other areas who have Portuguese as their mother tongue. Such professionals are not always familiar with notions such as standard language, cultured norm, linguistic variation. In these contexts, the guiding documents can offer subsidies for the planning of courses, assessments and even as the only source of theoretical reference for teachers with little or insufficient theoretical training. It is worth asking the following question: how do such guiding documents contribute to giving visibility to the varieties of Portuguese? This is the central question that we set out to answer. To this end, we analyzed some documents aimed at the systematization of content for the teaching / learning of PLE. The results show that, in most cases, such documents still offer little information that could promote the representation of the Portuguese varieties in the PLE classroom.