Linguistics

In this chapter we step away from the language classroom to consider language use within migrant communities, in this specific case the Brazilian community in London and their involvement in the Kardecism movement. In her analysis of language planning in faith settings in London, Ana Souza is particularly interested
in language use in the religious practices of migrants and the impact that the language choices of the church have on the language development of migrant communities. We learn that ethnic churches have increasingly adopted the use of technology as part of their services and as a way of maintaining transnational
links. This chapter reminds us of the important role that language plays through this rich examination of the interface of language, religion and technology.

This article examines the use of focus groups (FGs) as a way of gathering pupils’ views on the implementation of new curricula. We provide illustrations of creative activities, which were especially designed for a case-study research project exploring the views of 11-year-old pupils in English schools adopting an innovative approach to the Year 7 curriculum. We argue that combining FGs with creative methods encourages pupils to take an active role in interviews, enriches the quality of the data being collected and enhances the place of FGs as important tools in eliciting pupils’ voices for both research and curriculum planning purposes.

Despite the belief that schools tend to be resistant to change, it is possible to find secondary schools in the UK which are investing in the design of an innovative curriculum for their Year 7 (11-year-old students). This article focuses on four of these schools and discusses some of the challenges they face in planning and implementing their competence-based curricula (CBC). Such curricula tend to be based on the rationale that they better prepare all students for the constant changes of human knowledge and understanding. They develop transferable skills rather than subject-specific content, which are considered necessary requirements for learners as future productive members of society in the twenty-first century. Advocates of CBC argue that such curricula are more inclusive and emancipatory than traditional curricula, although this view is contested. Employing Bernstein's concepts of framing and classification of the curriculum, this article describes the challenges and constraints encountered by four schools which have endeavoured to develop a competence-based curriculum.

The former British Labour Government acknowledged that religious practices play an important role in the development of children's identities [DCFS. (2009). Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century schools system. London: HMSO; DfES (2007). Curriculum review: Diversity and citizenship. London: HMSO]. However, little is known about the ways in which these identities develop in faith settings. This article aims to address language planning in faith lessons of ethnic churches and to reflect on how their language planning dynamics create (or not) opportunities for the children to develop their cultural, linguistic and religious identities. With this purpose, the article reports on part of two investigations of religious settings in the development of children's literacy and identity. The specific language ideologies of these migrant churches are explored mainly through an examination of the qualitative semi-structured interviews with their faith leaders, and comparisons are made to Pentecostal and Catholic leaders of Brazilian migrant groups; newcomers to the UK and with numbers on the rise. It is argued that, although a group's theological orientation is linked to the language ideologies of faith leaders, linguistic and cultural identities play an important role in the (unplanned) language planning of ethnic churches.

The political and economic situation in Brazil in the 1980s led many Brazilians to seek a better life abroad, and England has become one of the countries in Europe with a high concentration of Brazilian immigrants. Although there are several studies on minority communities in the UK, the Brazilian community has been understudied, especially in relation to issues of language. In this article, I examine the self-identity of three Brazilian mothers living in London and explore the views they hold on language and identity. The data, which are part of a larger study (see
Souza 2006), suggests that the mothers'identity is strongly affected by their cultural experiences in both their countries of origin and of immigration as well as by their linguistic experiences with their mother tongue (Brazilian Portuguese) and the local language (British English).

O GEB (Grupo de Estudo sobre Brasileiros no Reino Unido) foi fundado em 2008 por pesquisadores de diversas áreas (sociologia, geografia, linguística, entre outras) com o objetivo de pesquisar e debater questões relativas à população brasileira no Reino Unido. Ao longo desses cinco anos, um de seus principais objetivos tem sido promover o diálogo e o intercâmbio multidisciplinar para propiciar um melhor entendimento sobre as dinâmicas que afetam as comunidades brasileiras e suas diferentes experiências migratórias. Para atingir tal objetivo, o GEB tem conduzido um diálogo no âmbito acadêmico, assim como com organizações não-governamentais 1 , e também com orgãos do governo brasileiro, no Reino Unido, e em outros países.

The GEB (Grupo de Estudo Sobre Brasileiros no Reino Unido,/Brazilian Migration to the UK Research Group) was setup in 2008 by researchers interested in studying in debating issues related to the Brazilian diaspora in the UK. One of its main objectives is to foster the dialogue and multidisciplinary exchange about the processes that affect the lives of Brazilian migrants and their different migration experiences. The GEB understands that such dialogue must be conducted between academics and researchers working on issues relating to Brazilian migration, organizations that work with Brazilian migrants, and, of course, the community itself, both in the UK and in other countries. With this aim, the GEB promotes and participates in discussions with representatives from a range of interest groups, including the UK Brazilian Network (Rede UK de Brasileiros), the European Network of Brazilians (Rede de Brasileiros e Brasileiras na Europa), and the annual 'Brazilians in the World' Conference (conferência Brasileiros no Mundo).

There has been growing interest by British policy-makers in the importance of acknowledging the role of migrant children's background in their educational progress. Therefore, this article draws on studies of language–ethnicity and of language–religion to understand the linguistic and the religious heritage of four groups of Brazilian migrants in London. The discussions describe data collected for two studies. The first study was conducted in a Brazilian complementary school and the second in three Brazilian faith settings. A new three-dimensional framework, the Religion–Ethnicity–Language (REL) Triangle, is explained and applied to the two sets of data. It is argued that the REL Triangle framework, which examines religion, ethnicity and language as intersecting aspects of identity, can help in the understanding of children's linguistic and cultural experiences in out-of-school contexts, and thus, allow new links to be developed between mainstream schools and migrant communities.

Over 50% of the Brazilians abroad are women, a proportion which appears to be even higher if we consider the number of mothers whose children attend Brazilian Portuguese language lessons in complementary schools in London. There are schools in which the majority of the mothers are Brazilian migrants married to fathers of different nationalities, thus the relevance of the role these women play in the maintenance of their language. This article explores how their linguistic and cultural identities are affected upon migration and how their sense of identity impacts on their family language planning. I argue that language seems to be essential to the maintenance of group identity in the case of these Brazilian mothers and that their success in passing their language on to their children affects their sense of motherhood. I highlight however that both mothers and fathers should participate equally in family language planning.

Little is known about the profile of the Brazilian migrants who use the services offered by non-religious institutions in the UK. This report is the first one of the kind and focuses on the users of the services offerec by 'Casa do Brasil em Londres'  (http://www.casadobrasil.org.uk). As such, this report contributes to better understanding of the migrant experiences of Brazilians in the UK.

The increase in the number of Brazilian emigrants in the
last thirty or so years has led to the development of the
teaching of Brazilian Portuguese as a community language abroad. In other words, this type of teaching is new, and consequently, the teachers working in  community schools tend to have been trained only to work with monolingual pupils in Brazil. In this article, we reflect on the experience of one of these teachers who works with intermediate and upper-intermediate pupils aged 11 to 15 in London. The class that caters for this group of learners was initially created with the aim of preparing them to take mainstream examinations, i.e. GCSE and A-levels in Portuguese. In this article, we describe the contextual background for these
lessons and contrast it to the teacher’s expectations of
teaching in this context. We then consider the few teaching courses available for teachers of Portuguese as a community language in London. Anderson’s (2008) perceived 8-strand professional development needs of community language teachers are used as a framework for analysing the experience of this Brazilian teacher. We acknowledge the positive impact of these courses on teacher knowledge and practices and call for more of these initiatives.

O número de escolas que ensinam Português como Língua de Herança (POLH) no Reino Unido tem aumentado consideravelmente nas últimas décadas (SOUZA, 2016a). A ABRIR , Associação Brasileira de Iniciativas Educacionais no Reino Unido, tem contínua e arduamente trabalhado para conscientizar e enfatizar a necessidade da união dessas escolas e delas com escolas em outros países. Assim, este artigo tem o propósito de discutir a relevância de trabalhos em parceria, visando a cooperação e a união das escolas que promovem a língua portuguesa e disseminam a cultura brasileira. Com esse fim, apresentamos um breve resumo sobre a história do desenvolvimento da ABRIR. Em seguida, situamos a necessidade de sua existência com destaque ao número de brasileiros no Reino Unido e às escolas ligadas à associação. Ilustramos a cooperação praticada entre a ABRIR e suas escolas associadas com a experiência da EBeCC (Escolinha do Brasil e Centro Cultural). Então, compartilhamos algumas conquistas da associação em seus primeiros dez anos de funcionamento. Também refletimos sobre os desafios que precisam ser considerados para o futuro da ABRIR e concluímos que a ação de parceria e cooperação é essencial para maiores avanços na área do ensino de POLH.

O grande fluxo de brasileiros que deixam o Brasil, pelo menos temporariamente, tem chamado a atençao de órgãos internacionais e acadêmicos. A ONU, por exemplo, oficialmente reconheceu o Brasil como um país de emigração no início deste século (ONU, 2004). Seis anos depois, um grupo de acadêmicos atuando em universidades europeias criou um evento para discutir esse recente fenômeno na história do país: o Seminário de Estudos sobre a Imigração Brasileira na Europa. Esse seminário tem como um de seus objetivos principais possibilitar o intercâmbio de experiências e informações sobre as variadas áreas do conhecimento relacionadas com a situação e as experiências migratórias de brasileiros no continente europeu. Idealizado por Maria Badet (Universidade Autônoma de Barcelona), o I Seminário sobre Estudos sobre a Migração Brasileira na Europa 1 foi realizado em Barcelona, na Espanha, entre os dias 25 e 27 de novembro de 2010. Esse evento foi organizado pelo Coletivo Brasil-Catalunya e pela Associação de Pesquisadores e Estudantes Brasileiros na Catalunha (APEC). Ademais, contou com a colaboração de cinco outros grupos: a Rede de Brasileiras e Brasileiros na Espanha, o GEDIME (Grup d'Estudis d'Immigració i Minories Ètniques), o Grupo de Investigación Consolidado Multiculturalismo y Género, o Instituto Migrações e Direitos Humanos situado em Brasília e do GEB, o Grupo de Estudos sobre Brasileiros no Reino Unido.

Leadership in complementary schools is an under-researched area. This article aims to address this gap in the literature by reporting on a study which focused on Brazilian complementary schools in the UK. Distributed leadership was initially adopted as a theoretical framework to analyse the relationship between leadership style and professional development provision. The data were collected via an online questionnaire and individual semi-structured interviews with leaders as well as focus group interviews with teachers and teaching assistants. We report here on one of the schools and argue that the contextual constraints in which it operates led to high levels of collaboration between leaders, teachers and teaching assistants. Consequently, a Community of Practice (CoP) has developed. We discuss the benefits this CoP brings to the school and suggest that conscious efforts be made to cultivate this social unit of learning to ensure the professional development of teachers in complementary schools.

Os seis artigos que apresentamos neste número especial da revista Cadernos de Linguagem e Sociedade (v.21, n.1) - escritos por docentes e discentes do Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística da Universidade de Brasília – tratam da língua portuguesa e as outras quatro dimensões citadas acima (gênero, sexualidade, deficiência e classe social) sob a perspectiva da Análise de Discurso Critica (ADC).

This article explores the nature of leadership in Brazilian complementary schools in the UK. Such schools are typically parent-driven, voluntary and financially vulnerable. Using data from a questionnaire survey (n¼14; more than three-quarters of Brazilian complementary schools) and three in-depth case studies, leadership is examined in relation to five established approaches: directive, instructional, transformational, distributed and collaborative. The study found that the size of the school and the personality of the leader appeared to influence the type of leadership adopted. In terms of effectiveness, a combination of instructional leadership with an approach that motivated staff and volunteers (whether directive, collaborative or transformational, depending on the school's circumstances) seemed most appropriate to the context of complementary schools. The research illustrates the complexity of school leadership and the overlap between different models. Leadership flexibility was important in responding to the needs of staff, students and parents. The findings are transferable to mainstream schools with contexts similar to those of complementary schools, particularly small primary schools and free schools.