Summary This study focuses on the motivation of adults learning a minority language, based on a tripartite model: integrative and instrumental (Gardner & Lambert, 1959; 1972) and personal (see Benson, 1991) motivation. Adults learning a minority language are potential new speakers, a group that has been described as central to language revitalisation (see Pujolar & O’Rourke, 2018). Since the motivation to learn these languages does not seem to be linked to economic success or wider job opportunities, researchers have taken interest in knowing what drives people to learn a minority language (e.g., O’Rourke & DePalma, 2016). In this study, (potential) new speaker motivations were investigated by means of ten open-ended interviews with adult learners of West Frisian—a minority language spoken in the Netherlands—in two different settings: Afûk Frisian courses (a more traditional learning setting) and Bernlef Frisian courses (a student association that offers informal courses for their members). The results show a predominance of integrative and personal motivation (also found in O’Rourke & DePalma, 2016), but not exclusively (as suggested by Jaffe, 2015) since the language appears to be tightly linked to the province and it is deemed beneficial—to a certain extent—for socioeconomic success in the province.

West Frisian is a minoritized language spoken in the province of Fryslân, in the Netherlands. It has been said to be converging with Standard Dutch (see De Haan, 1997; Nerbonne, 2001), and it has been found to be largely intelligible for speakers of regional language varieties in the Netherlands, such as Low Saxon or Limburgish for example (see, for instance, De Vries, 2010). In this research, we tested how much Frisian native speakers of Dutch can actually understand, as well as the degree of difficulty of each type of task. An online test was designed (N = 225) to measure the intelligibility of both written and spoken Frisian. The results seem to indicate that West Frisian is highly intelligible for Dutch native speakers, which we argue should be used to enrich the school curriculum and foster receptive skills in the minoritized language (see Fonseca, 2012; Belmar, 2019b), which could in turn boost its use.

It has become commonplace to assert that we are living in a time of rapid economic transformation and social mobilisation, which leads to a massive flow of people and goods across borders. This phenomenon has been changing the way in which communities function and, besides economic and social implications, political and cultural conditions follow a parallel course. No longer, if ever, can we speak of "pure" cultures rooted in one particular geography, because cross-cultural interactions have been challenging one"s sense of identity. As a matter of fact, identities are hybrid, dynamic, often fractured and even imagined in nature. Yet, certain common experiences and phenotypical traits have contributed, most of the times, to the emergence of a national consciousness and to an ethnocentric/eurocentred vision of the world.Cliché as this may sound, since there is now a plethora of literature on multiculturalism and on interculturalism, the fact is that, in Portuguese schools, some students still seem to be shaped and limited by their cultural background and it is up to us, as teachers, to prepare children for this contemporary globalised world. But education is much linked to the ideology of the ruling elites and is political at every stage. The textbook publishing industry, following a selective curriculum, is proof of the perpetuation of the status quo, because school materials have sometimes ignored and marginalised peoples seen as the "Other".In this light, time has come for us to analyse the way that textbooks have adopted and adapted to the government"s recent policies, the so called Metas Curriculares, namely in the treatment of a literary corpus. We will direct our particular attention to textbooks that address Mia Couto"s O beijo da palavrinha and O gato e o escuro to check if activities relating to the texts of this Mozambican writer do promote tolerance and acceptance of differences or if they are marked by ignorance and prejudice.