Date of Graduation

Winter 12-15-2022

Document Access

Project/Capstone - Global access

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

College/School

School of Education

Department/Program

Teaching English as a Second Language

First Advisor

Luz Navarette Garcia, EdD

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Afro-Brazilians constitute the majority of Brazil’s total population. When compared to White Brazilians, Afro-Brazilians are more than twice as likely to live in abject poverty. These striking disparities have significant implications for this community and the socioeconomic well-being of the entire country. Securing access to quality secondary education is imperative for the Black communities of Brazil to ascend out of poverty and hardship.

Completing a foreign language program, typically English, followed by successfully passing a rigorous competency exam, is a prerequisite to obtaining a postsecondary degree in Brazil's university system. This assessment can present a dilemma for Black Brazilians that lack the benefits of private education and tutoring enjoyed by many of their White counterparts. The glaring absence of English language pedagogy that reflects the lives of the Afro-Brazilian community further complicates this predicament. By adopting a Content-Based Instruction framework, this project seeks to deliver a culturally sustaining pedagogy that centers the African descendants of Brazil and the United States. Further, the project aims to promote and accelerate English language acquisition by lowering the affective filter among Afro-Brazilian students.

This four-unit English language curriculum traverses the historical and cultural roots of the two largest African Diaspora populations by providing instruction in vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, reading, speaking, and writing. The project offers the Afro-Brazilian student an immersive and communicative learning experience that utilizes a multimedia approach-print, video, music, and poetry. By mirroring the lived realities of these learners in the TESOL curriculum, this project seeks to bring more Afro-Brazilian students, educators, and researchers into the study of language and linguistics.

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