The Olympics of Portuguese as a Heritage Language: experiences and challenges

• Autor(a) principal: Moroni, Andreia Sanchez
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Vizentini, Miriam Müller, Tanaka, Luzia Miya, McCarthy, Regina Pierantoni
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Horizontes de Linguística Aplicada
• DOI: 10.26512/rhla.v22i2.46939
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/horizontesla/article/view/46939
• topic: Políticas linguísticas; Português Língua de Herança; avaliação em português como língua de herança; Olimpíadas do português como língua de herança; Language policies; Portuguese as a Heritage Language; Assessment in Portuguese as a Heritage Language; Olympics of Portuguese as a Heritage Language

The following article seeks to contextualize the first and second editions of the Olympics of Portuguese as a Heritage Language (Português como Língua de Herança, OPLH), a cultural contest promoted by the Brazilian government in 2021 and 2022 for children and adolescents of Brazilian origin, up to 15 years of age. The contest took place in several regions of the world as part of the public policies for Portuguese as a Heritage Language (PLH) recently promoted by Brazil. This article is an account of the experiences, and it addresses the following: (i) community engagement; (ii) the challenges of designing the assessment materials in the face of the heterogeneity that is characteristic of PLH; (iii) how communities respond to the idea of assessing the contestants’ performance in PLH; and (iv) the adjustments made between the contest’s first and second editions. The structure of this discussion is based on data from these experiences in four locations, as follows: the geographical coverage of the Consulates of Brazil in Barcelona (Spain), Zurich (Switzerland), Nagoia (Japan) and New York (USA). It is concluded that, despite their initial evaluative and qualifying nature, the OPLH serve not only as an instrument to measure knowledge, but also as a process that fosters new learning opportunities for the participants, validates their knowledge and has the potential to build a sense of belonging to the Brazilian diaspora universe.