Percepções de estrangeiros sobre a cultura brasileira durante o curso de Português para falantes de outras línguas da UTFPR

Abstract

The objective of this extended paper is to analyze how Brazilian culture is perceived by other countries, according to attitudes and discourses of foreign students in the Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages course at the Federal University of Technology - Paraná. These attitudes show aversion to other cultures, and the stereotyped cultural perception of Brazil. We intended to investigate whether the teaching of Portuguese as a Foreign Language adopted during the course corroborated to students’ construction of a new perception of Brazilians or if their perceptions continued being stereotyped. In other words, through action research, we verified the efficacy of the course because it provided a space for these foreigners, mostly with initial xenophobic attitudes, to accept, understand and respect the Brazilian culture. Therefore, this study examined whether the teaching of Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages, based on the critical literacy approach, transformed the xenophobic attitudes and discourses related to different cultures seen in the classroom into attitudes of affection, respect and empathy and how these exchange students were able to perceive themselves as individuals who interact and act within a particular socio-historical, cultural and ideological group.