Negotiating literacies: between indigenous portuguese and academic portuguese

Abstract

The strengthening of the indigenous movement from the 1970s on generated intense debates about the right and role of indigenous education. One of the consequences of the discussion is the growing number of indigenous students in Higher Education Institutions, such as the Federal University of Latin American Integration (UNILA). In this paper, we will discuss the challenges of building a teaching process that is sensitive to the reality of two Ava Guarani students at UNILA. From a microethnographic perspective, we supported ourselves with the observation and analysis of interactions throughout classes of Portuguese as an Additional Language and tutoring meetings with Ava Guarani students, to reflect on the tensions between, on the one hand, academic Portuguese and reading and writing practices in the university and, on the other, the indigenous uses and varieties of the Portuguese language brought by these two students. We focus with special attention on processes that give support for the reading and oral production activities in Portuguese. We conclude that there was a literacy negotiation process that took into account aspects of the interactional culture of Ava Guarani students, especially with regard to the management of speaking turns, such as inter-turn silences, and the volume of voice used.