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English Language Teaching in Brazil
A brief analysis on the history of English Language Teaching (ELT) in Brazil, from the Imperial period to the
21st century. Core ideas and orientations of the most recent guidelines from the Brazilian Education
Ministry – namely, Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCNs) and Base Nacional Comum Curricular
(BNCC).
Professor Erika de Freitas Coachman
1. Itens iniciais
Purpose
The purpose of this Unit is to analyze the history of ELT in Brazil and compare two of the most recent
guidelines issued by the Brazilian Education Ministry –Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais(PCNs) andBase
Nacional Comum Curricular(BNCC) so that future teachers become more aware of the challenges of ELT within
the Brazilian educational system.
Goals
To identify the core principles that govern the PCNs.
To compare the recommendations provided by the PCNs and the BNCC.
Warm up
Understanding the main strengths and challenges of English Language Teaching (ELT) within the Brazilian
educational system requires a thorough investigation of its history as well as a careful analysis of the legal
documents that supervise and regulate its operation. Therefore, as you go through this Unit, you shall become
acquainted with the history of ELT in Brazil. In the first section, the purpose is to examine the most notorious
landmarks of this history, covering the Imperial period and the first decades of the Brazilian Republic. Then we
will shed light on the guidelines for ELT established in the late 20th century by the Parâmetros Curriculares
Nacionais (PCNs).
The last section, focuses on the binding national standards enforced by the Base Nacional Comum Curricular
(BNCC) in 2018. This section also offers a brief comparison between PCNs and BNCC, covering some of their
key differences and similarities.
Are you ready to learn more about English Language Teaching in Brazil? So, let’s get started! 
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1. ELT in Brazil and the PCNs
The history of Foreign Language Teaching
In the 21st century, due to the intensification of world-shattering phenomena such as globalization, instant
messaging, increased mobility across national borders, and the internationalization of labour markets, the
importance of learning additional languages – especially English, because of its global status as lingua franca –
has become commonsensical. In the past, however, there was no such consensus.
In this section, you shall examine the teaching of additional languages from a historical vantage point. As you
proceed, it should become clear that choosing which languages should be taught, besides the mother tongue,
of course, is a decision largely determined by two main factors: 
These two factors have had a pivotal role in the craft of linguistic policies for education (DAY, 2012, p.1). 
Saiba mais
Brazilian public policies for the teaching of additional languages have either a local or a national reach. In
2005, for example, federal law 11.161 turned the teaching of Spanish mandatory in every single Brazilian
school. On the other hand, a binding law from the city of Pancas, in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo,
has had a more local impact, determining that Pomeranian must be taught by municipal schools
established in regions with significant numbers of immigrants of Polish descent (DAY, 2012, p.3). 
Since these factors are not immune to shifts in global power relations, we should expect political and
economic changes to reframe such policies from time to time. By the end of the 19th century, for example,
given the geopolitical scenario, French was the hegemonic foreign language taught in Brazilian schools in
ways that resemble the foremost role assigned to English by contemporary linguistic education in Brazil as
well as across the globe.
But neither French nor English are considered the first foreign language taught in Brazil. Indeed, Portuguese is
often held as the first foreign language spoken in a colony where varied indigenous languages were spoken.
However, with the consolidation of Portuguese dominance and the need to assert the colonizers’ social,
political and economic control over the territory, the first linguistic intervention was brought forward in 1758.
Labeled Diretório de Marquês de Pombal, the new regulation ruled out the use of indigenous
languages within the colony, dramatically affecting the country’s linguistic history.
Once regarded as foreign, the language of the colonizers, Portuguese took over as the only official and
legitimate language for social interactions. In the meantime, foreign languages were known at the time as
languages of culture, such as Greek and Latin (DAY, 2012, p. 4).
Moreover, according to Day (2012), the history of foreign language education in Brazil was also remarkably
influenced by the creation of Colégio Pedro II, a prestigious school named after the emperor himself, in 1837.
First 
The political and economic power
represented by the additional language.
Second 
The proximity to the culture or
geographical territory in which the
additional language is used.
Colégio Pedro II, 1856. Imperial lithograph by Edward
Rensburg.
Gustavo Capanema, 1942.
Founding the school was necessary to cope with the
demands imposed by the arrival of the Portuguese royal
family and nobility in 1808, fulfilling the elite’s aspirations for
a linguistic education rooted in humanist and classical
traditions, cultural assets that were highly estimated by
universities. During High School, students were supposed to
learn French, English, German, Latin and Greek.
After 1889, with the Proclamation of the Brazilian Republic,
the teaching of foreign languages was substantially
changed and the educational process started being
considered a means to supply human resources with skills
and knowledge needed for the work market. Since foreign
languages were not seen as useful tools, they were gradually elbowed aside by the new educational policies.
Consequently, the number of foreign language classes taught each week was drastically diminished;
moreover, depending on the constant alternation of laws and educational reforms, foreign language learning at
school was either mandatory or optional, but always reduced if compared to the Imperial period (DAY, 2012, p.
6).
The 20th century
The weakened status of foreign language
teaching was only changed in 1942 with the
Capanema Reform. The changes projected to
the educational system in 1942 during the
Vargas age, led by Gustavo Capanema,
established Latin, French, English and Spanish
as components of Secondary and High School
education and recommended the use of the
Direct Method.
Saiba mais
The Direct Method was based on the assumption that a second language is learnt the same way a first
language is acquired. As a direct response to the Grammar Translation Method, this method advised the
teaching of a foreign language in the foreign language itself, so that learners could be immersed in it.
There is a focus on listening and speaking and grammar is taught inductively in the target language. Oral
communication is the main goal of this method. 
After the Capanema Reform, several pedagogical choices were centralized and standardized by the Education
Ministry, which resulted in uniform decisions on curriculum and teaching methodologies across the nation
(DAY, 2012, p. 6).
The 1940s and the 1950s were particularly positive for the teaching of foreign languages within Brazilian
schools, but the heyday of plurilinguistic education came to an end with a new law on education – the Lei de
Diretrizes e Bases (LDB) published in 1961, which decentralized decisions on whether foreign languages
should be mandatory at public schools.
Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (LDB), 12th edition, 1963.
After the 1961 LDB, the Educational Council of each Brazilian state was granted the authority to determine if
foreign languages would be taught in its territory, considering the setbacks and opportunities of the contexts
in which its schools operated. 
ComentárioAs a result, many regions neglected the teaching of foreign languages, despite the growing political and
economic influence of the United States on the continent in the post-World War II scenario. No wonder
did private English schools proliferate during the period, expanding their profits thanks to the public
neglect of foreign language education. 
Meanwhile, interest in French and German decreased steadily with the acknowledgment of the leadership of
the United States as a global economic, political, and military superpower – whose prominent status leveraged
its social and cultural repertoire. The year of 1971 brought about a new blow to foreign language education
with the LDB 5692, which consolidated the decision that to teach or not to teach foreign languages should be
determined by the resources available at each school setting and should not surpass the limit of one hour per
week. 
News of Educational Reform. Jornal do Brasil, 1972.
While different countries worldwide aimed at strengthening
and expanding foreign language teaching, in Brazil, the LDB
5692 clearly undermined the offer of foreign language
education in public institutions, propelling the belief that
schools, especially the public ones, were not an adequate
context for the effective learning of foreign languages (DAY,
2012).
In the 1990s, mandatory foreign language teaching at
Brazilian schools was resumed and, due to the undoubted
hegemony of the United States, public educational policies
devoted special attention to English Language Teaching,
made compulsory from the fifth grade on. Although the
number of hours dedicated to foreign language education did not go back to the high levels of the Capanema
Reform, the 1996 LDB created more favorable conditions for language teaching in Brazil. Also, even though
English was the only mandatory foreign language in school curriculum, the teaching of Spanish started being
considered crucial within a political context in which South America became increasingly more integrated,
under the economic treaty named Mercosur, so as to strengthen the ties between Brazil and the Spanish-
speaking countries of South America (DAY, 2012).
Following the 1996 LDB, parameters for the Brazilian school curriculum (PCNs) were published: 
1998
For Elementary and Secondary Schools.
2000
For High Schools.
The main purpose was to fill in a gap, providing national education with basic guidelines while the Base
Nacional Curricular Comum (BNCC) hadn’t been issued yet (NUNES, SOUZA &; LIMA, 2019).
The next sub-section offers a brief panorama on some of the basic concepts and objectives set by the PCNs
for Brazilian education.
Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCNs)
A social interactionist view
To understand the core principles of the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCNs), you must be able to
detect two underlying premises that molded these parameters (PCNs, 1998, p. 25):
The first one has to do with a social-interactionist view on the nature of language. According to the PCNs,
language is not an abstract collection of meanings and structures. Instead, it should be seen and learned as 
situated social practices emerging from discursive engagements in which participants dialogically negotiate
the construction of meaning. In turn, the understanding of each discursive interaction should not dismiss
contextual clues, such as the culture, institution, history and social identities involved in any given specific
situation.
When examined from this social-interactionist perspective, language usage consists of discursive practices
inexorably enveloped in the social world:
First 
The social-interactionist nature of
language.
Second 
The social-interactionist nature of
language learning.
Therefore, social identities, accompanied by their racial, sexual, gender and class markers, should
never be taken for granted in the language classroom.
This assumption leads us to the second underlying premise of the PCNs: the social-interactionist
understanding of language learning itself – that is, the understanding that foreign language learning should not
take place within a “social void”, deprived of its contextual and societal ties.
The PCNs also recommend a more integrated approach to
mother tongue and foreign languages, claiming that
students could profit from linguistic knowledge accumulated
during the acquisition of their mother tongues if they resort
to this repertoire whenever learning new target languages.
Indeed, every second language (L2) learner knows a great
deal about language and language usage and knowing how
to benefit from these previous experiences plays a
fundamental role in foreign language learning as well. Based
on this assumption, it is accurate to infer that foreign
language learning is basically aimed at (PCNs, 1998, pp. 28-9):
Expanding knowledge
Expanding the linguistic knowledge built during
students’ first language (L1) acquisition by
means of comparisons between their mother
tongue and the foreign language.
Promoting engagement
Promoting students’ engagement with meaning-
making processes in the target language.
These two major goals should help promote a more meaningful and contextualized acquisition of foreign
languages at schools across the country. 
Yet, the PCNs do not fail to acknowledge that
Brazilian schools are not homogeneous at all,
with different challenges and opportunities
often emerging due to the disparities found in
educational settings. Thus, the metaphor of the
lenses of a camera is created to symbolize how
schools can tackle foreign language teaching in
a wide range of contexts. Every single camera
comes with at least one standard lens: a lens
that stands for the focus on reading skills –
abilities that can be more easily targeted even
in classrooms with a higher number of students.
However, in more favorable conditions, a more
complex lens could replace the standard option,
promoting the development of the four communicative abilities – speaking, listening, reading and writing. The
purpose of this metaphor is to make the point that effective foreign language learning can take place at
different schools, if the correct lens is chosen to account for the advantages and disadvantages of diverse
Brazilian schools.
Resumindo
In other words, at a school in which a teacher needs to cope with the demands of thirty students or
more, foreign language teaching should focus on the development of reading abilities, since it can be
rather difficult to tackle orality, writing or listening skills with so many students at a time. 
Three types of knowledge
In addition, to make foreign language teaching truly social interactionist, the PCNs recommend the activation
and development of three types of knowledge (PCNs, 1998, pp. 29-31):
Systemic knowledge World knowledge
Knowledge on textual organization
Let's check what they refer to!
Systemic knowledge
Knowledge on different levels of linguistic organization, such as knowledge on semantic, morphological,
syntactical, phonetic, and phonological elements of a language, helping learners make adequate grammatical
choices while engaging discursively.
Exemplo
A competent speaker or writer knows how to use the passive and the active voices accordingly,
positioning agent and subject correctly in addition to inflecting the verbs adequately. He or she should
also understand that such syntactic choice – between active or passive voice – entails specific
meanings, inviting the listener or reader to look at the situation described from a particular perspective,
which may either conceal, soften or highlight one’s agency. 
World knowledge
Knowledge constructed via previous experiences in the social world. It can be substantially different from one
person to another due to the diversity of the social environments in which they live.
Exemplo
Put yourself in the shoes of an EFL beginner. If you are asked to read a text in the English language,
which tools would you rely on? Which strategies would you develop? If thetheme of the text has
absolutely nothing to do with your previous social experiences, you may find it even harder to navigate.
Conversely, if the text focuses on a familiar topic, you may rely on cognates – words that look the same
and mean the same in different languages. Therefore, you would manage to grasp the central idea of the
text and at least build a few hypotheses on what you have read. So, when teaching beginners, it is wise
to pick texts discussing topics your students know and are interested in. Yet, as their systemic
knowledge is expanded, you may offer texts on a wider range of topics, introducing different worldviews
or presenting topics that may sound unfamiliar to them, inviting your students to expand their cultural
repertoire. 
Knowledge on textual organization
Knowledge on textual organization provides readers with clues and expectations on how texts are supposed
to be organized.
Exemplo
Either spoken or written texts can be classified as narrative, descriptive or argumentative – three main
types that should not be seen as clear-cut categories, since they often blend different characteristics,
blurring the conceptual lines that define them. These three basic types can be used across different
textual genres. They appear in letters, fairy tales, didactic books, scientific articles, or e-mails, for
example, depending on the writer’s communicative purposes. Each textual genre relies on a specific
textual organization, distributing information and images in particular ways. E-mails count on a layout
that differs dramatically from the visual organizations of a scientific paper or a fairy tale, for example. So,
identifying which sort of text you are dealing with is a meaningful and revealing way to approach a text in
a foreign language. Again, when teaching beginners, resorting to familiar textual genres spares students
from the overwhelming challenge of juggling novel systemic and textual organization knowledge
simultaneously. 
Transversal themes
When it comes to English teaching specifically, it is fundamental to acknowledge its hegemonic status, inviting
learners to critically analyze the social, economic and political asymmetries that have sustained this
domination over the course of the years. 
Furthermore, granting students’ access to the language of power is important not only for scrutiny of
mainstream thought, but also to give them the chance to build up their own counter-hegemonic
discourses.
For this purpose, foreign language teaching cannot be detached from the social world in which meaning can
be constantly created, contested or subverted. To keep foreign language teaching in tune with society, the
PCNs brought about the concept of transversal themes; that is, relevant issues that should contextualize the
linguistic knowledge constructed on the classroom floor. 
An English teacher could, for example, suggest parallels
between Brazil and a country where English is spoken as an
official language so as to compare how they differ in terms
of health care, human rights, environmental matters, and
gender or racial inequalities, for instance.
Comentário
Besides avoiding uninteresting abstractions or artificial texts designed for the sake of foreign language
learning, such transversal themes are meant not only to raise students’ interest and curiosity, but also to
stretch the cultural and geographical borders of their world knowledge. 
Linguistic variation
When talking about languages in the singular, some people get the feeling that there is only one adequate way
of speaking or writing. But that is not the case. There are many different types of English or Portuguese, for
instance, and the standardized variety prescribed in grammars is not better than varieties often labeled as
vulgar, inferior or strictly colloquial. During their linguistic education, students should be introduced to the
concept of linguistic variation, acknowledging that linguistic varieties are the practical means by which
societies have traditionally marked out certain language users, while privileging and legitimizing others. 
Exemplo
The English varieties spoken by African American citizens can be strategically compared to other non-
hegemonic varieties of Brazilian Portuguese just to underline how diverse discursive practices may differ
in terms of social prestige. 
The PCNs: application in the classroom
Methodology
Unlike the Capanema Reform, which established the Direct Method as the preferred methodology, the PCNs
avoided the prescription of a specific method for foreign language teaching. 
Instead, the PCNs only elected the social-
interactionist approach to language and
language teaching, which does not favor
prescribing a specific method, but invites
teachers to cope with the dynamic and
unsettling nature of language as situated social
practices.
Evaluation
How about evaluation? How should it work
within a social-interactionist framework? 
According to the PCNs, evaluations should not be set apart from the learning process as a whole: in
other words, they should be integrated into the teaching practice and become an indissociable part
of teachers’ and students’ everyday routine. 
The PCNs also highlight the relevance of evaluations as efficient means to provide students, teachers, parents
and society with the necessary feedback on the learning process. In Table 1, you can find guidelines on what
teachers should expect from students’ performances during evaluations focused on reading. In turn, Table 2
offers guidelines for evaluating students’ writing and oral skills.
Reading Skills 
Understanding of the different types of texts, based on icons, tables, pictures, drawings, and
cognate words.
Ability to search for specific information from the text.
Knowledge on textual organization, recognizing how information is presented within a given
text.
Understanding that reading is not a linear process and does not require the apprehension of
each word found in the text.
Critical awareness regarding the goals os the text and how it aims to position its readers and
writers in the social world.
Systemic knowledge compatible with the linguistic competence demanded by the text.
Table 1: What to expect from students’ reading skills. 
Adapted from PCNs (1998, pp. 83-4).
Oral and writing skills 
Adequate production in terms of syntax, morphology, semantics, and phonology.
Knowledge on interactional patterns as well as on the adequacy of varied types of oral and
written texts depending on the demands of each discursive context.
Understanding that writers and speakers must bear in mind specific target publics so as to
make adequate linguistic choices in a socially situated interaction.
Table 2: Guidelines for evaluations on oral and writing skills. 
Adapted from PCNs (1998, p. 84).
Didactic guidelines
At last, you should also become familiar with some didactic guidelines provided by the PCNs for the teaching
of reading abilities. Based on the parameters (PCNs, 1998, p. 91-92), reading activities should be divided in at
least three basic stages (PCNs, 1998, p. 91-92):
Pre-reading
Activate students' world knowledge, building hypotheses and expectations based on the title, subtitle,
pictures, graphs, drawings, author's name and source. Activate students' knowledge on textual
organization, drawing their attention to lexical choices (such as "once upon a time"), headings and
typical layouts (such as the typical layout of a recipe). Situate the text in the social world, identifying
who the author and his or her target public are as well as the place where it has been published and
its communicative purposes.
Reading
Activate students' knowlege on the linguistic system, textual organization and social world. Invite
students to use the reading strategies developed in their mother tongue and to identify lexical and
other grammatical similarities between his first and second languages. Have students guess the
meaning of unknown words based on contextual clues and dismiss lexicalitems whose meanings they
cannot grasp. Help them tell the difference between details and central information.
Post-reading
Think about the reactions produced by the text and submit the author's ideas to critical analysis. The
focus is on the dialogue between author's and students' worldviews.
As you can see, the PCNs do not aim at standardizing the school curriculum. Instead, the goal is to promote a
social-interactionist approach to Foreign Language Teaching based on the notion of language as situated and
contextualized social practices. Furthermore, they provide very basic and flexible guidelines to be applied
according to the needs of each school setting, in tune with specific students’ demands.
History of ELT in Brazil
Was English Language Teaching always important in Brazil? Watch this video to find out.
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The most important topics of this section are revised in the following videos.
Foreign Languages in Brazil
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The PCNs: application
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A social interactionist view
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Learning Check
Question 1
Under a social interactionist framework, the PCNs recommend the activation and the development of three
types of knowledge. Choose the option that best defines knowledge on textual organization:
A
Knowledge of different levels of linguistic organization.
B
Knowledge of semantic, morphological, syntactical, phonetic and phonological elements of a language.
C
Knowledge constructed via previous experiences in the social world.
D
Knowledge that provides readers with clues and expectations on how texts are supposed to be organized.
E
Knowledge compatible with the linguistic competence demanded by the text.
A alternativa D está correta.
Knowledge on textual organization refers to how texts are supposed to be organized. Narrative, descriptive
and argumentative texts may be used across different textual genres, be them e-mails, a scientific paper or
even a fairy tale. Each genre, however, relies on a specific textual organization. Textual knowledge,
therefore, provides readers with clues and expectations on how texts are supposed to be organized.
Question 2
The PCNs recommend the activation and development of three types of knowledge, namely systemic
knowledge, world knowledge and knowledge on textual organization. Concerning students’ world knowledge,
it is correct to affirm that:
A
when working with beginners, it is a good idea to expand their cultural repertoire with texts that shed light on
unfamiliar topics.
B
as students’ systemic knowledge expands, teachers should focus on texts exclusively based on their previous
experiences, filled with cognates and other linguistic structures that are similar to the ones found in their
mother tongues.
C
when working with beginners, teachers should focus on texts that draw upon students’ prior experiences and
contain a lot of cognates.
D
if you are a beginner, you will probably find it easier to analyze texts that do not relate to your previous
experiences.
E
advanced students need to rely on cognates and other contextual clues to grasp the central idea of the text.
A alternativa C está correta.
If you are a beginner, you may find it difficult to navigate texts that have nothing to do with your previously
acquired world knowledge. Yet, if the text focuses on a familiar topic, you are likely to find cognates and
other clues that may help you grasp the central idea of the text and at least build a few hypotheses on what
you have read. Then, whenever working with beginners, teachers should focus on texts that draw upon
students' prior experiences and contain a lot of cognates.
2. The BNCC
Ensino Fundamental (Elementary and Secondary Schools)
Approved in 2017, the BNCC was broadly advertised as a national basis meant to structure the pedagogical
work – not as an attempt to homogenize or impose a national curriculum. However, as you will learn in this
section, it provides a very detailed curricular framework for the schooling process. To cover the main aspects
of the document, this section is split into three main parts:
Ensino Fundamental I Ensino Fundamental II
Ensino Médio
According to the BNCC (2017), learning English at Elementary and Secondary Schools cannot be detached
from a more fluid and hybrid understanding of language, inserted in a globalized social world where the
limitations imposed by national borders have had their significance increasingly contested or bypassed.
In such contemporary context, ELT should focus on providing students with the skills they need to engage
critically and autonomously in different types of interactions – either local or global, multimodal, or paper-
based, verbal or written. But pursuing such goals brings about three major implications for ELT (BNCC, 2017, p.
241-242):
1
Promoting the deterritorialization of ELT
English has gone viral and, nowadays, we can find people from different parts of the world using
English to communicate with each other, regardless of their nationalities. Therefore, English use is far
from limited to those countries where it has been granted the status of official language. When
analyzed from a such critical perspective, English should no longer be labeled as a foreign language,
standing apart as the property of native citizens from Great Britain or from the United States of
America. Instead, it should be regarded as a “lingua franca” or a “global language”, largely used by
people from all over the world. Therefore, a multicultural approach to ELT should reinforce the
legitimacy of hybrid and translingual uses of English in a wide array of contexts.
2
Developing multiliteracies
Given the fast-paced technologization of communication across the globe, the notion of
multiliteracies emerged at the end of the 20th century to cope with the demands of multimodal
discourses, including paper-based interactions as well as exchanges mediated by digital
technologies. Put in a nutshell, ELT is depicted by the BNCC as a set of situated learning experiences,
in which learners interpret and create multimodal texts in multicultural and plurilingual environments.
3Approaching English as lingua franca
Reinforcing the global status of English as a lingua franca, the BNCC exhorts teachers to give equal
importance to different varieties, highlighting the usefulness of non-standardized linguistic practices,
such as “ain’t” as opposed to the conventional “isn’t” and “aren’t”. Such varieties should be no longer
treated as deviations from the “correct” norm, but as legitimate linguistic choices. Such counter-
hegemonic approach to ELT also aims at disempowering the concepts of “proficiency” and
“correctness”, notions that typically revolve around the ideal of a so-called “native speaker”.
The three implications for ELT described before play a fundamental role in the BNCC, setting the course for
the definition of five main pivots:
Orality
This pivot focuses on students’ development of speaking skills and listening comprehension in face-
to-face interactions, such as debates, conversations and interviews, as well as in mediated contexts
in which there is no in-person contact, like songs, ads, movies and videos available on the Internet,
among others. Learners should focus their attention on how specific language uses bear the marks of
speakers’ social identities, recognizing the importance of lexical and syntactic choices, in addition to
the contours of their pronunciation, intonation and rhythm. Besides, the orality pivot should make
room for the development of positive interactional attitudes regarding turn-taking and mutual respect,
as well as strategies to overcome misunderstandings and deal with insecurity.
Reading
The reading pivot aims at teaching different strategies for the constructionof meaning based on
written textual genres available in our society – from paper-oriented experiences to multimodal and
hybrid texts circulating in digital format – to tackle reading in the contemporary world, where our
interactions with texts are increasingly mediated by new technologies. Furthermore, teachers should
enable students to identify textual genres based on verbal and non-verbal clues, inquire about their
contexts of production and communicative purposes, and submit the content of these texts to critical
analysis. The development of reading strategies also plays a key role in this process, allowing learners
to approach the text in more purposeful manners: to find specific information, to grasp its central
theme or pick up the details. Recycling some of the central ideas of the PCNs, the BNCC capitalizes
on the three basic stages of reading activities described previously – namely pre-reading, reading and
post-reading –, endorsing the relevance of recycling students’ abilities in their mother tongues to help
them develop skills in English.
Writing
This pivot sheds light on writing as either an individual or a collaborative action in which the writer(s)
should make decisions based on the intended message, the communicative purposes, the target
public and the medium through which the text shall reach its addressees. Teaching writing skills could
be kicked off at beginner levels with genres relying on more succinct verbal content, such as comic
strips, e-mail messages or social media profiles; whereas, at advanced stages, it could resort to
genres including more complex verbal content, such as chats, reports, autobiographies and news
articles.
Linguistic knowledge
This pivot should focus on the development of linguistic knowledge in a contextualized manner, in
permanent articulation with orality, reading and writing practices. According to the BNCC, English
teachers should promote students’ systemic learning by inductive means, assisting the development
of grammatical knowledge. Besides, they should surpass dichotomies such as right and wrong to
privilege a profound debate on adequacy, intelligibility, hegemonic standardized norms and linguistic
variation.
Intercultural dimension
This pivot hinges on the understanding of languages and cultures as heterogeneous repertoires, built
through a never-ending process of conflict, dialogue and mutual (re)construction. It targets at the
development of intercultural knowledge, grounded upon a careful and critical analysis on the interests,
relationships and interactions established by varied populations across the world and the role of the
English language in such exchanges.
At Elementary School (Ensino Fundamental I), ELT should promote the development of different competencies.
Atenção
Put in a nutshell, the BNCC invites English teachers to prioritize the construction of students’ identities in
a plurilingual and multicultural world, in which the critical analysis of varied types of texts and the ability
to build up autonomous discursive actions are key assets. 
ELT at this level should also favor learners’ interactions with printed as well as digital texts, helping them
acknowledge how the development of linguistic skills in English could grant them access to different
worldviews, academic opportunities and a more effective insertion in the work market. Besides, their active
engagement with spoken and written texts in the target language can get students in touch with diverse
cultural and linguistic repertoires created in paper-based, digital or multimodal settings.
As for Secondary School (Ensino Fundamental II), ELT for each grade is divided into three main categories:
Abilities Thematic units
Objects of knowledge
The five pivots analyzed (orality, writing, reading, linguistic knowledge and intercultural dimension) play an
important role in the organization of Secondary School curriculum, with specific objects of knowledge and
thematic units assigned to each one of them. 
Exemplo
Consider the BNCC guidelines for the eighth grade: in the orality pivot, discursive interaction, oral
comprehension and oral production compose the three thematic units, while the objects of knowledge
encompass negotiating the meaning-making process (addressing conflicts and misunderstandings), the
use of linguistic and paralinguistic resources in oral exchanges, autonomous oral production and
understanding oral or multimodal discourses as well as journalistic and informative texts. 
The same pattern is repeated for the other pivots, with objects of knowledge and thematic units listed for
each one of them. Then, at last, the abilities that must be developed in that particular grade are listed.
For sixth graders, the BNCC recommends the development of several abilities, including the ability to list ideas
for textual production based on the theme previously chosen, the use of the Present Continuous to describe
actions in progress, the acknowledgment of the global reach of English as both official and second language,
among many others.
Ensino Médio (High School)
For the BNCC, ELT at the High School level is
mandatory and should offer learners
opportunities to improve the abilities developed
during the previous stages, enhancing their
understanding of English as a lingua franca, by
promoting the recognition of diversity and its
role in the construction of novel linguistic
usages and raise awareness on different
discursive practices available in an increasingly
digital world.
For these purposes, the BNCC repeatedly
draws upon the concept of multiliteracies, a notion developed in the mid-1990s by a group of scholars who
founded the so-called New London Group. Since then, the term “multiliteracies” has been used to designate a
new approach to language learning, whose main goal is to promote a meaningful, integrated and multimodal
experience with the language. The concept is grounded on the acknowledgment that words alone cannot
account for the way we respond to texts. After all, our reactions are also responsive to the function that space,
gestures, colors, backgrounds and music can play within a text.
Based on these two key concepts – multiliteracies and English as lingua franca – ELT at the High
School should supply students with critical awareness of the uses of English in the contemporary
world, inviting them to reflect on the power asymmetries that granted English its current global
status.
But ELT should not focus exclusively on students’ abilities to respond critically to texts: it should also be
responsible for providing them with the skills they need to become protagonists themselves, engaging
critically and autonomously in different discursive interactions – online or offline, face to face or remote. In
addition, ELT should also sensitize students to contemporary problems of global and instant communication,
such as the quick proliferation of cyberbullying, hate speech and fake news.
With these key concepts at heart, the BNCC prioritizes five fields for the teaching of languages at the High
School level (BNCC, 2017, p. 488-489):
Personal life
This field is chiefly concerned with bringing forward themes and debates closely connected to young
people’s hopes, fears and interests, to help them throughout the construction of their social identities.
Academic practice
The aim of this field is to provide learners with the abilities they need to appreciate, examine and
produce analytical, expositive and argumentative texts, so that they can become active members of
academic and research communities.
Media and journalism
The goal is to raise students’ critical awareness on social discourses available in advertisements,
television and in the informative media at large.
Public life
This field is mainly interested in the language of laws and other norms meant to set limits for social
action, as well as in the counter-discourses of petitions and manifestoes. The objective is to invite
students to become protagonists, stimulating their ethicalengagement in public life.
Arts
The purpose of this field is to sensitize students to aesthetic experiences while underlining the
inherent diversity of creative processes and works of art. This field should also highlight the role of art
in the externalization of feelings and emotions.
The fields described above are not confined to the realm of ELT, comprising varied skills and knowledge
developed through the study of diverse school subjects – a convergence that should not be seen as
accidental, but used as an opportunity to provide more complex, contextualized and interdisciplinary learning
experiences.
PCN vs. BNCC in ELT
In her analysis of curriculum reforms in developing nations in the 1990s and early 2000s, Hoadley (2018, qtd.in
GALIAN et al., 2021) points out that such shifts in public policies for education often respond to the needs and
desires of particular socioeconomic actors to produce standardized models for schools, methods, teachers,
students and curricula. According to her, the changes proposed in the period were triggered by continuous
bad results in educational assessments and chiefly aimed at improving the outcomes of the educational
process at better preparing learners as “human resources” for the job market and promoting student-centered
pedagogical approaches – in the place of knowledge-centered ones.
Laboratory of the professional course at the State
School in Curitiba, 1970s.
From this perspective, school curriculum must be molded by
the needs of potential employers and students – now seen
as future workers. As a result, knowledge construction
emerges as a commodity, a set of handy skills students
must acquire to become successful in a competitive world.
For Galian et al. (2021), this approach to education stands
out as an important convergence between the PCNs and
the BNCC.
Comentário
In face of such market-driven take on education, notions of “autonomy”, “multiliteracies”, “transversal
themes” and “critical reading” may seem illegitimate appropriations of concepts imported from critical
pedagogies. 
According to Gallian (2021), the PCNs also fail in the sense of focusing excessively on students’ background
knowledge with the loss of other curricular content. In the meantime, the author criticizes the BNCC for its
utilitarian prioritization of competences – named “capacidades” in the PCNs – and neglect of intellectual
knowledge.
Both documents, the BNCC and the PCNs, endorse the understanding that abilities are the ultimate
goal of the learning process.
In other words, for the PCNs and the BNCC, abilities should be at the very core of the educational process;
whereas the content of curricular components should not be treated as an end, but as the means to support
the development of useful and necessary skills (BRASIL, 1997, p. 33).
Analyzed from this viewpoint, the relevance of any artistic, scientific, linguistic or philosophical knowledge is
fundamentally at stake, unless it provides students with abilities to engage in practical activities. Such
commodification is not limited to curricular choices, since it has also impinged on the entire educational
process, including the adoption of competence-based methods and textbooks.
Despite the similarities described above, there are important differences that set the PCNs and the BNCC
apart.
Furthermore, the BNCC lists several abilities that must be tackled in the school year, severely limiting teachers’
freedom to design the curriculum. As a result, school curriculum has become significantly homogeneous under
the BNCC, leaving teachers’ role restricted to contextualizing prescribed contents, helping learners bond with
the learning process and developing strategies to motivate students. In addition, while the PCNs depart from
the concept of learning as a social-interactionist process, in which teachers and students build knowledge
together, the BNCC is merely based upon the understanding that school curriculum must be contextualized, in
ways that it becomes meaningful for students and their particular school settings.
PCNs 
The PCNs established just parameters for
pedagogical action, leaving the teacher free
to decide when and what to teach and
evaluate.
BNCC 
The BNCC emerged as a binding
nationwide reform law on education
that must not be evaded by schools
across the country.
Besides, according to Galian (2021), the BNCC does not highlight students’ agency in the learning
process, although it repeatedly insists on mentioning their autonomy and critical awareness. 
Contradictorily, the BNCC does not describe the function students must play, for teachers alone are expected
to make curricular components meaningful, motivate learners and contextualize the entire experience – as if
they were the only ones to be held responsible for students’ success or failure.
The BNCC
How does the BNCC impact Foreign Language Teaching? Watch this video to find out!
Conteúdo interativo
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Follow the thread!
The most important topics of this section are revised in the following videos.
BNCC (Elementary and Secondary Schools)
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BNCC (High School)
Conteúdo interativo
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PCN vs. BNCC in ELT
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Learning Check
Question 1
Approved in 2017, the BNCC was idealized as a national basis meant to structure pedagogical work. According
to the BNCC, teachers should:
A
make important decisions regarding the selection of curricular components.
B
acknowledge students’ protagonism and rely on their self-motivation.
C
contextualize the prescribed curricular components.
D
consider the components listed in the BNCC as optional guidelines.
E
put into practice knowledge-centered approaches to education.
A alternativa C está correta.
The BNCC standardizes the school curriculum, restricting the teachers' role to the contextualization of
prescribed contents. The BNCC is based upon the belief that school curriculum must be contextualized, in
ways that it becomes more meaningful for students and their particular school settings.
Question 2
Despite their similarities, there are important differences that set the PCNs and the BNCC apart. Mark the
option that best compares the PCNs and the BNCC.
A
The BNCC highlights a social-interactionist approach to education, whereas the PCNs merely focus on the
contextualization of curricular components.
B
The PCNs provide binding and standardized curricular components, whereas the BNCC only brings forward
general parameters for education.
C
The PCNs promote a utilitarian approach to education, whereas the BNCC abandons market-driven
perspectives.
D
The BNCC as well as the PCNs consider the development of abilities and competencies as the fundamental
objective of education.
E
The BNCC promotes a utilitarian approach to education, whereas the PCNs abandon market-driven
perspectives.
A alternativa D está correta.
The BNCC standardizes the school curriculum, while the PCNs only brings forward general parameters for
education. Both documents, the BNCC and the PCNs, endorse the understanding that abilities are the goal
of the learning process. For Galian et al. (2021), an important convergence between the PCNs and the
BNCC is that knowledge construction emerges as a commodity, a set of practical skills students must
acquire to become successful in a competitive world.
3. Conclusão
Considerações finais
In this Unit, you have learned quite a few remarkable facts on the history of English Language Teaching in
Brazil, covering from the Imperial Period and the early years of the Republic to the Capanema Reform, in the
1940s, and to the publication of the PCNs (1997) and the BNCC (2017). 
You have also analyzed the social interactionist perspective upon which the guidelines provided by the PCNs
are grounded and examined some of the most prominent orientationsthey offer, such as the three types of
knowledge (textual organization, systemic, and world knowledge), as well as the basic stages of reading
activities, described as pre-reading, reading, and post-reading.
Moreover, you have become familiar with the key concepts brought forward by the BNCC for the organization
of the school curriculum. You found out its five main pivots for ELT, namely, orality, reading, writing, linguistic
knowledge and intercultural dimension. You have also analyzed the three main implications for ELT in Brazilian
schools and learned the recommendations for Elementary, Secondary and High School education when it
comes to the teaching of foreign languages.
Podcast
Now, professor Erika Coachman will compare and contrast the implications of the PCNs and the BNCC
for English Language Teaching.
Conteúdo interativo
Acesse a versão digital para ouvir o áudio.
Go Further
If you wish to learn more about the PCNs and the BNCC, reading these documents is worthwhile.
 
You can find complete online versions of the following documents available for free at MEC website: PCNs
para terceiro e quarto ciclos do Ensino Fundamental, Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais, PCNs para o Ensino
Médio and BNCC.
 
If you are interested in more critical approaches to the BNCC you may find the article De língua estrangeira à
língua franca e os paradoxos in-between: (tensionando) o ensino de língua inglesa à luz da BNCC
References
BRASIL. Lei nº 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educação nacional.
Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, 23 de dezembro de 1996.
 
BRASIL. Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais para o Ensino Fundamental. Brasília: Ministério da Educação, 1997,
1998.
 
BRASIL. Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais para o Ensino Médio – linguagens, códigos e suas tecnologias.
Brasília: Secretaria de Educação Média e Tecnológica, 2000.
 
BRASIL. Base Nacional Comum Curricular. Brasília: Ministério da Educação, 2017.
 
DAY, K. Ensino de língua estrangeira no Brasil: entre a escolha obrigatória e a obrigatoriedade voluntária.
Revista Escrita, n. 15, PUC-Rio, 2012.
 
GALIAN, C.; PIETRI, E.; SASSERON, L. H. Modelos de professor e aluno sustentados em documentos oficiais:
dos PCNs à BNCC. Educação em Revista, v. 27, Belo Horizonte, 2021.
 
NUNES, M.; SOUZA, M.; LIMA, M. A BNCC sob a perspectiva do(s) letramento(s): uma análise do componente
de língua inglesa. Percursos Linguísticos, Vitória, v. 9, n. 22, 2019.
 
SAMPAIO, M.; FALSARELLA, A.; MENDES, M. A produção intelectual de crítica aos Parâmetros Curriculares
Nacionais para o Ensino Fundamental. In: II Colóquio luso-brasileiro sobre questões curriculares e VI Colóquio
sobre questões curriculares. Currículo: pensar, inventar, diferir, v. 1. Rio de Janeiro: UERJ, 2004. p. 1.
	English Language Teaching in Brazil
	1. Itens iniciais
	Purpose
	Goals
	Warm up
	1. ELT in Brazil and the PCNs
	The history of Foreign Language Teaching
	Saiba mais
	The 20th century
	Saiba mais
	Comentário
	1998
	2000
	Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCNs)
	A social interactionist view
	Expanding knowledge
	Promoting engagement
	Resumindo
	Three types of knowledge
	Systemic knowledge
	World knowledge
	Knowledge on textual organization
	Systemic knowledge
	Exemplo
	World knowledge
	Exemplo
	Knowledge on textual organization
	Exemplo
	Transversal themes
	Comentário
	Linguistic variation
	Exemplo
	The PCNs: application in the classroom
	Methodology
	Evaluation
	Didactic guidelines
	Pre-reading
	Reading
	Post-reading
	History of ELT in Brazil
	Conteúdo interativo
	Follow the thread!
	Foreign Languages in Brazil
	Conteúdo interativo
	The PCNs: application
	Conteúdo interativo
	A social interactionist view
	Conteúdo interativo
	Learning Check
	Question 1
	Question 2
	2. The BNCC
	Ensino Fundamental (Elementary and Secondary Schools)
	Ensino Fundamental I
	Ensino Fundamental II
	Ensino Médio
	Promoting the deterritorialization of ELT
	Developing multiliteracies
	Approaching English as lingua franca
	Orality
	Reading
	Writing
	Linguistic knowledge
	Intercultural dimension
	Atenção
	Abilities
	Thematic units
	Objects of knowledge
	Exemplo
	Ensino Médio (High School)
	Personal life
	Academic practice
	Media and journalism
	Public life
	Arts
	PCN vs. BNCC in ELT
	Comentário
	The BNCC
	Conteúdo interativo
	Follow the thread!
	BNCC (Elementary and Secondary Schools)
	Conteúdo interativo
	BNCC (High School)
	Conteúdo interativo
	PCN vs. BNCC in ELT
	Conteúdo interativo
	Learning Check
	Question 1
	Question 2
	3. Conclusão
	Considerações finais
	Podcast
	Conteúdo interativo
	Go Further
	References