Education | Growing interest in Portuguese learning across Southeast Asia

The Portuguese flag is hoisted over the Parliament, in Lisbon

Portuguese language professors teaching at universities across Southeast Asia gathered in Macau last week to exchange ideas and develop a common communication platform, as they acknowledge the growing interest in learning the Portuguese language within the region.
João Soares, who currently teaches at Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta, said that Portuguese language teaching has developed there, with a growing number of students enrolling in his courses.
Soares met with other Portuguese language teachers in town, attending a meeting between representatives of the Portuguese language teaching network in Asia – an event put on by the Portuguese Institute of the Orient (IPOR).
“Students see Portuguese as an exotic language, which for us is rather interesting because we are used to thinking the same of Asian languages,” he recalled.
Having taught Portuguese in Jakarta for the past two years, Mr Soares acknowledged that more and more students are now interested in learning the language, which has enabled the university to build up a dynamic Portuguese learning and teaching community.
“We are trying to train local teachers to provide them with tools to teach Portuguese at the university in the future. We are also looking to establish a Romance languages department, which would then allow students to major in Portuguese studies,” he added.
Soares said that students have shown a great interest in learning foreign languages; they’re specifically interested in Portuguese, mostly because they’re curious about it. “I think most of the time it’s curiosity; either they have already studied Spanish, Italian or French, and now have a curiosity toward Romance languages,” he explained.
Furthermore, João Soares said that students in Indonesia are particularly interested in the Brazilian culture; others are drawn to Portuguese because of football; and some seek to explore business opportunities within Portuguese-speaking countries.
Delivering a talk on Friday at the Portuguese Consulate’s auditorium, the teacher stressed the need to establish a communication platform, which would enable Portuguese language teachers in Asia to share ideas and teaching materials.
One of the challenges faced by his students, he acknowledged, is indeed to find ways to actually practice and speak Portuguese outside the classroom.
Also attending the meeting was Delfim Correia da Silva, who has been teaching Portuguese at the University of Goa, India, since 2008.
The Department of Portuguese and Lusophone Studies offers students the opportunity to enroll in pre-PhD and Master’s programs. Delfim Silva said that the department and other teaching communities across Asia are trying to turn Portuguese into a global language.
“This is also one of the goals of this meeting here in Macau. It’s quite useful to discuss ideas here so that we can also produce learning materials,” he explained.
He recalled that Portuguese teaching and learning in Goa has developed over recent years, with the government now providing further support.
“We have been working with people in Goa to improve the use of the Portuguese language. We don’t want to see it as just a product but also a tool able to unite people from different cultures, while helping to connect India and the Portuguese-speaking countries,” he explained.
However, they’re still facing challenges relating to a lack of human resources, and difficulties in providing high-quality teaching materials.
Mr Silva was sure that the meeting here would enable Portuguese language teachers to work on a joint strategic plan, designed to develop common Portuguese learning tools.
The professor said that students’ interest in Portuguese has also shifted in recent years: some years ago, students might have enrolled in Portuguese classes because they had a personal interest in the language; now they’re actually coming from other parts of India because they’ve discovered that Portuguese could be useful in the job market, and also for teaching.
Professor Luís Pires, who teaches Portuguese in Shanghai, also delivered a talk on Friday focusing on e-learning and how digital tools could help students engage with the language and culture.
He acknowledged that more and more Portuguese courses have been made available in recent years in mainland China. Having produced a thesis on the matter, Mr Pires concluded that e-learning by itself wouldn’t be enough to engage students, but he suggested that learning tools and content should be provided on a wide range of platforms, including digital tools, since many young students use mobile phones and other electronic devices daily.
The meeting was attended by professors of Portuguese as a foreign language who had come from places such as Beijing, Goa, Seoul, Bangkok, Hanoi, Shanghai, Jakarta and Macau. The meeting, organized by IPOR, took place between last Thursday and Saturday.