Cross-cultural interactions in the context of teaching Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) as a second language in preschool

ABSTRACT In 2002, the Brazilian deaf communities’ struggles against academic failure and deaf student dropout won a linguistic policy: the LIBRAS Federal Law. This official law, regulated by Decree N.5626 in 2005, recognises LIBRAS as a national language and requires inclusive educational practices in a bilingual model in order to promote meaningful learning, interaction and participation of deaf students in all educational domains. Nearly two decades later, the Law N. 14.191/2021 has been published, establishing bilingual education for deaf people as a teaching modality on Guidelines and Bases of National Education. Despite these political movements towards an effective inclusive education, the daily reality in Brazilian schools shows there are still challenges to adopting an additive bilingual and cultural approach using LIBRAS. There are also challenges in developing fluid communication between deaf and hearing class members that would enable inclusion, collaboration and understanding of cultural differences in the educational domain. Combining ethnographic perspectives and theoretical discussion of inclusive-bilingual education in Brazil, this article describes interactions in an intercultural dialogue between deaf trainee teachers, hearing children and their hearing teacher in a second-language learning context (LIBRAS). Focussing on the ways in which relationships and communication processes are re-constructed by the participants, this study reveals different ways of representing deaf people and the learning of LIBRAS, highlighting a deterritorialised perspective from the children which moves freely between the ideological boundaries and linguistic and cultural limitations of the deaf and hearing adults.