Assessment of Intercultural Communicative Competence of Lusophone Teachers

International mobility programs and curriculum restructuration stand out as the most common practice to develop intercultural communicative competence of students, in quest of respect for diversity in its otherness. For the teacher in initial and continuing training, the aim is to train in order to deal with children, adolescents and young adults, forming the growing migration around the world. Interested in the profile of Portuguese-speaking teachers for intercultural education, we address the professionals of Angolan nationality who were present at the Fórum Juventude Europa – Lusofonia, in its issue of Coimbra 2014. With methods in line with the proposal of Schaefer (2014), we assess the ability of Knowledge Discovery, Empathy, Respect for Otherness, Tolerance for Ambiguity, Behavioral Flexibility and Communicative Awareness. In this article, we present and discuss the findings of the group of teachers from Angola based on the literature of cultural studies and emphasis on intercultural communicative competence. The considerations which allow us to analyze are around the actual limits of the subjects - in this case pre-service and in-service teachers - to signify the symbiotic nature of the relationship among themselves, the others and the world.

LINGUISTIC VARIATION: A PERSPECTIVE OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS

This study discusses the aspects related to linguistics variation from the perspective of Educational Sociolinguistics. It has as main purpose to comprehend the relation between elements resulting from Sociolinguistic and the education of Native Language, as well as to motivate a reflection about the process of teaching-learning to make a profound study of the discussion of questions related to linguistic variation in the scholar context, looking for an improvement of teaching methodology. This study makes use of a methodological approach of qualitative and bibliographic character, since it aims to develop theoretical knowledge about Educational Sociolinguistics articulating these aspects with practical elements of teaching languages. For so, it was tried to develop an education intervention proposal, in order to motivate the teachers to develop their educational practices, based on language use, communicative situations, for the purpose of improving the students communicative competence. It refers to a proposal that has not been applied yet and that should be adapted according to the extra linguistic context, in which learning community is inserted, becoming then a real intervention. For now the aim is to encourage thoughts about its viability. 

THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICAL LEADERS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH

Increasingly, social areas traditionally reserved for only a portion of the population have been open to participation by a variety of subjects. The political domain is exemplary in this regard. For a variety of reasons, positions of both the legislature as the Executive have been busy not only for individuals from urban cultures where there is a predominance of practices and literacy events, but also of rural cultures where these practices and events are not so frequent - or even that between. Using theoretical and methodological assumptions of Sociolinguistics, specifically the so-called Ethnography of Communication approach, is analyzed in this article, the communicative competence of the heterogeneous group of councilors of the Municipality of São Domingos - BA, focusing on their varying skills stylistic. It also notes it is the relationship between the socio-cultural characteristics of political leaders and their linguistic performance in the Ordinary Session, a communication event that requires a high degree of stylistic monitoring.

Reflexões sobre o Estatuto das Línguas nos Contextos Bi-multilíngues de Educação para Surdos no Brasil

RESUMO: A educação de surdos hoje no Brasil vive um período de transição,  de conflitos e contradições: por um lado o discurso da diferença cada vez mais presente na fala de educadores e em parte da legislação educacional em vigor; por outro lado a “diferença” surda continua sendo representada nas práticas escolares em geral sob a ótica da normalização que insiste em invisibilizar as especificidades linguísticas e culturais dessa minoria, apesar dos avanços alcançados pelo decreto 5626. Com esse cenário em mente objetivamos refletir sobre as pressões normativas guiadas por ideologias monolíngues (BLACKLEDGE, 2000) que tentam formatar um suposto uso ideal de português e de Libras. O capítulo está dividido em três partes: primeiro, apresentamos algumas considerações no âmbito da legislação acerca do estatuto de Libras no Brasil. Em seguida, tematizamos o processo de (in)visibilização das línguas de sinais com vistas a mostrar que a (re)construção do conceito de língua como algo fixo, também, em relação às línguas de sinais, pode ser usado para sedimentar desigualdades em relação ao surdo na escola. Por fim, refletimos, a partir de alguns dados de pesquisa, sobre as tensões existentes entre as línguas nos contextos bi-multilíngues que caracterizam a escolarização de surdos e as ideologias linguísticas que geram efeitos de hierarquização sobre os usos de Libras e de Português.

Deafness like a communicative difference

Thinking from a theoretical perspective, this paper discusses the deafness as communicative difference, starting from the notion of culture articulated by Cultural Studies and Foucault’s conception of discourse as social practice. The study shows that the difference between deaf and non-deaf is in language, communication plan and the means of exchanging dialogue, marked by oral-auditive and visual-space communicative channels, contrasting majority deafness representations that appoint arguments based on nature, biological and linguistic terms. Such representations have the effect of the search for the erasure and correction the other, regarded as deviant and abnormal.