Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Portuguese And German Repertoires Perceived By Portuguese Speaking Children In Germany: A Tale Of Two Continua, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer, Alexandra Fidalgo Schmidt

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

After a theoretical overview of the concept of heritage language (HL) from a plurilingual perspective, we will describe the project “Images on the (teaching of) Portuguese Language abroad”. For this project, several drawings were collected, produced by lusodescendant children living in Germany and attending supplementary Portuguese lessons. We will analyze four tendencies of students’ representations towards Portuguese and German, as well as towards the skills they have developed in those languages. These representations illustrate four profiles of Portuguese Heritage Language (PHL) learners present in the classroom (in terms of motivations, skills, linguistic repertoires, etc.). As conclusions, we will point at: …