Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Iaterpretation / 167

or materials but of teachers and methodology. Before laying the blame on
teachers or syllabuses, however, it would be useful to look at the primary
classroom as an L2-learning environment in the specific situation of
rural areas in Mozambique, and the resources available.

Most of the prerequisites for L2 learning Indicated by Phlllipson et al.
(see Annex 2.2) or Bills (1985:161) are not met. For example: teachers are
non-native L2 speakers, have limited training and experience,
opportunities to speak the L2 outside school with peers are scarce, there
is no perceived need to communicate in the L2, there is a high level of
anxiety in pupils towards school success which is considered as
dependent on L2 skills, there is no control over topic choice by the
learners, and material resources are scarce. In fact the combination of
teacher centredness, submersion strategies and Portuguese being in many
respects a foreign language is hardly a good mix for L2 learning
environment (1). On the other hand, there is a marked cultural and
linguistic (in LI) homogeneity in the learners, a general motivation in
the pupils to Ieam the L2, the cultural content of materials is
appropriate; there are opportunities to develop the Ll outside the school,
teachers are competent in the children's Ll or in a variety of it, and
children have already developed a linguistic competence in Ll on which to
build; the general attitude towards the L2 in the community is favourable,
as it is associated with positive changes, and situations where a lingua
franca is necessary are likely to become more frequent. The problem
Remains of how to use effectively the assets of the situation in order
to minimize the disadvantages.

A communicative methodology or an Interlanguage approach pose many
problems to teachers and the educational system as a whole: if the
learning of the Ll and of L2 have so much in common, and adults are

(1) Portuguese can be defined as a second language, by adopting a
criterion of origin (i.e. the language that is learned after the first),
but not of function (i.e. the language that is most used outside the
family or immediate environment), with the exception of the urban areas.
Throughout the study, L2 has been used adopting a criterion of origin.

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