Practicing Oral History to Connect University to Community

A história oral como estratégia didática no ensino de português língua de herança

“…Overcoming such situations would require, therefore, and very particularly, considering the heritage of each learner (much) beyond the development of the language itself, building a curriculum that would understand not only the language but also the history and culture. Now, it is precisely in this framework that it will be possible to understand (even better) the use of the so-called oral history, collected through interviews, as a didactic strategy in the context of language teaching, in general, and, in our case, and as already mentioned, of a heritage language (ALLEN;MONTOYA;ORTEGA, 2018;BARELA;CONDE;MIGUEZ, 2009;BURGO, 2016;FERNANDES, 2018;MOLL et al, 1992). Based on the traditions of the older members of each family, transmitting stories they have lived and/or heard, to transfer significant knowledge from one generation to another, in order to protect customs and knowledge, oral histories have, in effect, an interdisciplinary nature, as they have long been used in the most diverse scientific areas, such as human and social sciences and medicine (EHLMAN et al, 2011) and law, with, of course, their natural differences, more or less important, depending on the particular scientific field (BURGO, 2016).…”

“…If they were in fact used, the authors argue that this would challenge the well-known models of learning deficits and language use, which tend to perceive heritage learners as having a domain not yet, at least, good enough. Still, the truth is that much work in this regard has also already been done, in terms, therefore, of using oral history both in the language class in general and in the heritage language class more in particular, and as it can also be seen by the various and recent publications that have seen the light of day (ALLEN;MONTOYA;ORTEGA, 2018;BOON, POLINSKY, 2015;FOULIS, 2018;LIGON et al, 2009;MILLER;KOSTKA, 2015;NARAYANASAMY et al, 2019;STRACHAN;WINKEL, 2020). And this interest naturally demonstrates the indisputable relevance of recognizing and paying tribute to the (always) unique origins of each student.…”