4 pm to 5 pm - Class 1

Each Workshop lasts only 1 hour.

16h as 17h - Turma 1

Cada Workshop dura apenas 1h.

workshop `Proposer: Adriano de Alcântara Oliveira Sousa

The seek for a target and its association with something perfect is a characteristic of Western cultures in general, for example, the utopic native English speaker goal that learners around the globe try to become, homogenizing their traits into a standard that obeys accent, accuracy, prosody, and cultural aspects. It is this irrational attempt to flawlessness that elevates one ‘pure race’ and disqualifies the whole rest to subalternation and, sometimes even exoticism. This has been arguably discussed as a heritage of the colonial times (MENEZES DE SOUZA E MONTE MÓR, 2021; QUIJANO, 2000; GROSFOGUEL, 2007) whose problems are refracted in our society.

On the other hand, if one understands there is no better nor worse language, and the whole matter is about power relations that dictate what is to be followed, then he/she may be free to understand these ‘imperfect’ varieties as cultural richness that are truly possible to become proud of and consider it as share of a community’s identity.

Though this perception is a turning point, most schools are positivist oriented and still impose an impossible pattern to be chased, like the best student, with better grades, no absences, no small talk, no bad behavior, silent during classes, among others (FREIRE, 2001). This paradigm is, not surprisingly, the one that prescribes the language standards to be copied, an attitude that dates from the eighteenth century and the Received Pronunciation practices that forced colonies to speak the colonizer language the way the British Empire imposed.

This link between the supremacy of the hegemony and the disqualification of the non-hegemonic is manifested in teaching practices that invalidate the language of the other. In other words, there is a chest full of cultural and identity values that is delegitimatized by a small group of people who possess power and imposes it in various forms, for instance, the language.

REFERENCES

FREIRE, P. Conscientização: Teoria e prática da libertação. Uma introdução ao pensamento de Paulo Freire. São Paulo, Brazil: Centauro Editora, 2001.

GROSFOGUEL, R. Descolonizando los universalismos occidentales: el pluriversalismo transmoderno decolonial desde Aimé Césaire hasta los zapatistas. In:
CASTRO-GOMEZ, S.; GROSFOGUEL R. (ed.). El giro descolonial: Reflexiones para
una diversidad epistémica más allá del capitalismo global. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre
Editores; Universidad Central, Instituto de Estudios Sociales Contemporáneos y
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Instituto Pensar, 2007. p. 63-77

MENEZES DE SOUZA; L. M. T.; MONTE MÓR; W. M. Afterwords. Hope and Education in Dystopic Times: Thinking about the Present as if from the Future. In: Rev. Bras. Linguíst. Apl., v. 21, n. 2, p. 657-670, 2021

QUIJANO, A. Coloniality of Power, Nepantla: views from South. 2000