Internationalization in a Brazilian university: what about Portuguese as an Additional Language and language policy?

Although English's crucial role in the consolidation of an internationalization agenda in public higher education institutions in Brazil has been perceived in the past years (FINARDI; GUIMARÃES, 2017), most undergraduate courses at Brazilian universities have Portuguese as a medium of instruction. Thus, it is expected that international students learn Portuguese as an Additional Language (PAL) either before or during their sojourn in order to face less difficulties when living in Brazil. Part of an ongoing doctoral research, the aim of this paper is twofold: to present some overt and covert language policies taking shape as part of the internationalization project developed for international students in a Brazilian public university, and to discuss the impact these policies may have on the insertion of these students, whose mobility to Brazil would supposedly have been facilitated by their knowing of the language. To conduct this study, I listened to undergraduate students from China, Japan and South Korea and analysed narratives generated from the recorded semi-structured interviews (one-on-one or group interactions) ranging from three topics: Portuguese courses, other courses at universities and out-of-class experiences. Based on the first analysis, it can be said that the language policy described by the participants does not necessarily facilitate their insertion in academic and social practices. Initial findings suggest that PAL courses are insufficient to cover specificities of students' profiles. Moreover, narratives also index the need to institutionally promote language education policy beyond language acquisition and not limited to students.

References
Finardi, Kyria Rebeca, and Felipe Furtado Guimarães, "Internacionalização, rankings e publicações em inglês: a situação do Brasil na atualidade," Estudos em Avaliação Educacional 28, no. 68 (2017): 600-626. doi: 10.18222/eae.v28i68.4564.