The start of a new school year is always an exciting time for students due to reunions with friends, upcoming challenges and anticipated discoveries. If this applies to most young people and children, imagine what will happen to Portuguese children living abroad and what joy they will find in learning the language of their parents and grandparents. In fact, it is much more than learning a language, it is maintaining an umbilical cord connection with the country. For this reason, the promotion of the Portuguese language outside of Portugal through its teaching is a fundamental strategy of the government to create value for the country and people. Teaching Portuguese is thus also a way of promoting Portugal, the Portuguese people, their history, their culture, as well as their presence in the modern world and the contribution they make to many areas of their activities both in Portugal and abroad.

The priority for the government in public policy in terms of promoting the language is the Portuguese community. This priority is being handled by Camões – the Institute for Cooperation and Language, IP. This public institution is responsible for coordinating and formulating the government’s foreign policy in the field of international cooperation and the promotion of the Portuguese language and culture.

The strategy used puts the learner at the center of the system and it is their profile that determines the approaches. For the Portuguese and the descendants of several generations of Portuguese living abroad, an approach to teaching Portuguese as a “native language”, generalizing without taking into account the sociolinguistic profile of our communities, would not be the most correct and desirable.

The concept of heritage language is today understood in the scientific community as one that best fits the heterogeneous language profile of children and young people in a situation similar to that of most of our communities. Not to be confused with native language. Rather, this concept refers to different contexts of language acquisition, such as family and social contexts (especially school), seeking to appreciate the heritage (minority language) language repertoire in the multiple, heterogeneous and dynamic repertoire of children and young people. in which they study the majority language (social and school) and other foreign languages ​​present in the school curriculum.

In order to promote the Portuguese language in line with this concept, the organization of the Portuguese language teaching offer in our communities is a big challenge. We value distance learning as it is developed with communities and includes not only children and young people learning Portuguese, but also an educational community built around the teaching of Portuguese. Families, associations, community organizations, school boards and teachers. The so-called parallel education fulfills this function by offering the Portuguese language and culture in a context of proximity and with the aim, with the support and participation of the educational community, of supporting the development of Portuguese citizenship by young people. people who have a connection you want to be active with Portugal.

In addition to offering parallel education, there is also investment in what is known as integrated education, in which the Portuguese language is seen as knowledge and knowledge valued in the curriculum. It is also a way to value our communities locally and give our young people the opportunity to learn Portuguese which can turn into an advantage in their school career.

In the context of the pandemic, it has become possible to explore other ways of learning using digital media. The digitization of Portuguese language teaching abroad, using digital platforms and content to enhance language acquisition in self-study or as a complement to face-to-face teaching, is a central project for the near future of the Portuguese language. education. Significant investment under the PDP, which, starting in 2022, should be fully developed in 2023.

The teaching of the Portuguese language seeks in all these ways to realize the right of the communities, at the same time valuing them, but also to strengthen the possibility of new generations of Portuguese descendants to enjoy Portuguese citizenship in this way.