Perspectivas de ensino bilíngue de inglês na educação básica brasileira

Abstract

The phenomenon of bilingual education is at a time of great expansion in Brazil, a movement followed by different ways of implementing the teaching of another foreign language, depending on the educational institution. This variation in the methods and formats of bilingual education generates for the interested parties, such as students, families and educators, doubts and multiple perceptions about what, is fact, is considered bilingual education. To clarify the concept of bilingual education and verify the understanding about it from the school community, we made an online survey, via Google Forms, questioning parents and teachers about their idea of bilingual education and the concept of linguistic fluency. The survey counted on the participation of fifty teachers of different school subjects, twentyfive English teachers, in addition to one hundred parents of students from different regions of Brazil. The distribution of the results was presented in a graph format and discussion was problematized throughout the paper. We found that using the generic term Bilingual Teaching to describe such a complex process is not enough to define the educational institutions. The nomenclature used to describe educational bilingual programs must be more specific in order to translate what is really happening in the schools.