Professor Silvia Melo-Pfeifer, from the University of Hamburg, Germany, will be welcomed at UFMG as a guest of the Cátedra FUNDEP/IEAT program in March.

At the university, she will give the Grand Conference Nativespeakerism and linguistic microaggressions in a host language class on March 21st, starting at 9 am. The activity will take place in auditorium A104 of the UFMG Activity Center 2.

The conference is open to the general public, upon registration via this form. Certificates will be issued to those who register and sign the attendance list on the day of the event.

The term Nativespeakerism is an ideology that supports the belief that “native” teachers of a given language would be carriers of a “culture” that would put them at an advantage in developing ideals and teaching methodologies for that language. The conference will feature a comparative study between the context of teaching Brazilian Portuguese and German as host languages. According to Silvia Melo-Pfeifer, the idea is to explore, during her presentation, several aspects related to the teaching of host languages ​​and the ideological dynamics involved in this context. More specifically, she intends to analyze how monolingual ideologies, related to the ideal of nativespeakerism, are or are not present and whether or not they are (re)produced in host language classes for migrant and refugee school populations in Brazil and Germany.

During the conference, the tensions surrounding the (re)production of dominant ideologies related to linguistic skills will also be discussed, such as the presence of linguistic correction and accent in the discourse of host language educators.

“We believe that this study will allow us to understand how the linguistic identity of a particularly vulnerable school population is (re)constructed in both contexts, in which many of the micro-aggressions analyzed are self-inflicted, due to the internalization and reproduction of dominant linguistic ideologies and linguistic prejudices”, highlights Silvia Melo-Pfeifer.

About the professor

Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She holds a degree in Portuguese and French teaching and a PhD in Language Didactics from the University of Aveiro, Portugal. Her research interests include the use of artistic approaches in language education and teacher training, the use of multilingual approaches in the classroom, and the teaching and learning of heritage and host languages. She has coordinated several European projects and publishes regularly on the topics listed. She is a member of the research groups Centro de Investigação Didactica e Tecnologia na Formação de Traineres (CIDTFF) at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and Literacy in Diversity Settings (LiDS) at the University of Hamburg, Germany.

At UFMG, Professor Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer will have the support of her host, Professor Luciane Corrêa Ferreira, from the Faculty of Letters (Fale) of UFMG, who is responsible for coordinating the activities of the chair during the visit. The FUNDEP/IEAT Chair Program is promoted by the Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies (IEAT) and financed by the Support Foundation (Fundep) of UFMG.