Abstract

MATEUS, Maria Helena Mira. Linguistic Diversity in the Portuguese School. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2011, n.18, pp.13-24. ISSN 1645-7250.

Various social institutions as well as the Ministry of Education acknowledge the sociocultural heterogeneity and linguistic diversity of the current school population. These represent a unique richness and require the creation of innovating conditions and strategies for teaching so as to both preserve the multicultural richness which stems from the contact between recentlyarrived pupils from various contexts and, simultaneously, support these children in the acquisition of Portuguese as a second language and indispensable guarantee for their academic success. In this paper we report on the Linguistic Diversity In Portuguese Schools project which was carried out between 2003 and 2007 and focussed on understanding the educational context of linguistic diversity. To do so, we began with a survey of the languages spoken by pupils during the first six years of education in primary schools within the greater Lisbon area. This study covered 410 schools and 74595 pupils originating from 75 different countries. In parallel to this work we have developed another project - still underway until 2012 - titled Bilinguism, learning Portuguese L2 and educational success. This project is more centered on the study and proposal of methodologies which would result in a satisfactory command of the Portuguese language.

Keywords : linguistic diversity; bilinguism; learning Portuguese L2.

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