Challenges to the teaching of writing and reading in Brazil: heterogeneity and linguistic contact

Abstract

This paper discusses some current challenges to the teaching of writing and reading in Brazil, considering that contemporary classrooms are typically heterogeneous and the schooling contexts in the country vary immensely. In that light, we compare two experiences in teacher education that, although different, exemplify peculiar challenges to education in Brazil, such as surpassing the obstacles that still limit access to literacy in urban environments and creating alternative pedagogical proposals fit to local demands, especially in bilingual contexts. In that first experience, a group of undergraduates has been working with teachers from elementary school in the School of Application of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) with the intent to detect different subjective positions assumed by children when faced with the written language and craft teaching approaches based on that. In the latter experience, carried out in an indigenous community in southeastern Pará, undergraduates in Language Arts from UFPA took part in a program meant to teach writing and reading in first-language (indigenous) for two years. Based on these two experiences we point out, in our data, some educational problems of general concern and outline some possible ways to face them.