Teaching and learning Portuguese as a second language at schools from the German immmigration region in Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

This article aimes at examining the discourse on
Portuguese as a second language at schools from the German immigration region in Rio Grande do Sul as it appeared in the newspaper Jornal da Associação de Professores Teuto-Brasileiros
Católicos do Rio Grande do Sul between 1900 and 1939. On one hand the theoretical framework is based on sociolinguistics, mainly on the linguistic education of immigrants. On the other hand the
work of Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne was also used. The most important results of the data analysis show that: (a) Portuguese classes
should not start too early, coming after German; (b) schooling should happen in a school were German was the language of education; (c)
learning Portuguese shouldn’t be restricted to the school; (d) in the first contacts to Portuguese in school, oral activities should prevail; (e)
translation would be a very important way of learning Portuguese; (f) the teaching material should be appropriate and close to the student’s
reality; (g) children at the community schools founded and maintained by immigrants, in the regions of Rio Grande do Sul where German
immigration was most expressive, being Brazilians, should learn Portuguese, but it was necessary to assure that the immigrants and
their descendants could keep their mother tongue; a language would be the result of the use made of it and (h) the teacher education for those
schools should consider that they would have to teach Portuguese.