This study investigates the efforts towards promoting the decolonial teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language in instructional materials adopted in early Portuguese courses at higher education institutions in the United States. A framework for qualitative analysis of course materials, textbooks, and syllabi was designed based on Zavala's…

Research on language teacher identity has grown exponentially over the last two decades. By researching language teacher identity, we develop a better understanding of how sociological issues generally impact teachers' lives. For non-native language teachers, in particular, challenges tend to originate from language ideologies around…

This paper provides fresh insights on how PIs (Polarity Items) in non-veridical contexts (questions and conditionals) are represented in the grammar of multilingual learners of Catalan at different stages of development. It explores how this non-native grammatical system interacts with other previously acquired systems of negation and the implicit…

In recent years, short videos have proliferated on various social media platforms, serving as a visual resource with a long history of use for various educational purposes, including foreign language learning (FLL). Despite the growing interest in the use of such platforms for short video learning, little is currently known about the use of these…

This text critically examines traditional methodologies for teaching grammar in the context of Portuguese as a Foreign Language (PFL). It proposes an alternative, eclectic approach, which can be used in any foreign language. Drawing on evidence from research and pedagogical practices, it highlights areas for improvement in current approaches, such…

The abrupt transition from face-to-face (F2F) to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted students' learning experiences in many ways. This survey-based study investigated the perceptions of 117 university students enrolled in beginner, intermediate, and advanced foreign language courses (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish) of their…

Portuguese language instruction is relevant to global businesses, diplomacy, security, and environmental affairs, yet it accounted for only 0.7% of total world language enrollments at universities in the United States in 2016. As part of an attempt to promote enrollments in Portuguese at an American public research institution with a top-rated…

This study investigates the motivations of both heritage and non-heritage students of Portuguese at two universities in Rhode Island where Portuguese-speaking migrant communities have settled and their language has strong visibility. Attention is drawn to motivation since it is known to be a significant factor in the development of linguistic…

The Portuguese policies of colonisation and Christianisation were closely linked. In 1549, the Portuguese monarchy adopted Catholicism as the official religion of the colonial administration and requested that the Society of Jesus establish the Catholic faith among the indigenous people in Brazil. The Jesuits established catechesis, founded the…

Concurrent with the rise in U.S. neo-nationalism is the growing influx of im/migrant children in the nation's schools. This article explores how a group of eight K-3 Brazilian bilingual teachers in a Portuguese-English Two-Way Immersion (TWI) program in the United States interact with neo-nationalist discourses pertaining to the theme of…

This article revisits the "jongo" activity 'Pisei na Pedra' (2014) integrated into the "Nossa Casinha" guide (Martins & Sala, 2022) for teaching Portuguese to migrant children. "Jongo" is seen as an Afro-Brazilian form of expression, encompassing chants, drumming, collective dance, and spirituality (Rufino, 2014,…

This study examines hegemonic discourses on English and socioeconomic development from teachers' perspectives. Specifically, it scrutinizes the sorts of positions a group of 36 teachers of English, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese in an undergraduate program of modern languages take towards both the predominant narrative of English as the…

Translanguaging has gained prominence as a pedagogical orientation that promises to promote the rights of minoritized migrant students by valuing pre-existing multilingualisms and identities. However, the effects of classroom translanguaging on teacher and student outlooks and relations of inequality are far from universal. In this paper we…

The present dissertation brings together research on heritage language acquisition and bilingual education and makes inroads into the limited research on heritage language development in school-aged bilingual children. This study explores how bilingual education, patterns of exposure, and lexical frequency shape adolescent Spanish heritage…

Developing young learners' language awareness is becoming an important educational goal in a rapidly globalised world characterised by linguistic and cultural diversity. Drawing upon previous research in the field, the article highlights the importance of promoting language diversity and nurturing language awareness from an early age. We present a…