Mother tongue education: what Portuguese language students say they should learn in High School?

• Author(s): Mira Leal, Susana
• Date: 2012
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/1448
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade dos Açores
• Subject(s): Language Classes; Mother Tongue Education; Reading
• Document Type: Conference object
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Repositório da Universidade dos Açores

Description

17th European Conference on Reading (Mons, Belgium, July 31 > August 3, 2011) - Proceedings.

What students shall or shall not learn in mother tongue classes is not a consensual topic. The curricular policies in the Portuguese Language Area tend to follow the configuration of the educational systems as a whole and interact with other systems (social values, political programs, scientific fields, economics, technological innovations, media discussions...). Policy on mother tongue education in Portugal is changing from a cultural heritage perspective to a more communicative one. Language teaching is, however, influenced by teachers’ beliefs, values and routines, and language learning relates to students’ features, ideas and previous experiences. In a study carried out in the Portuguese Archipelago of Azores (Mira Leal, 2008), among other things, we asked high school students : Should Portuguese language classes be compulsory in High School? Why / why not? What do students do/learn in language classes? What should students do/learn? How are students assessed in language classes? How should they be assessed? What characteristics should a Portuguese language teacher have?