Portuguese as an additional language for academic purposes: contributions from the academic literacies model to course design

Abstract

We aim at presenting and discussing the proposal of an academic reading and writing course of Portuguese as an additional language for foreign graduate students at a public university in Brazil. The framework guiding the course design comes from the academic literacies model. It highlights social aspects of reading and writing practices, issues of power, authority, and knowledge, and students’ identities and meaning-making practices. Grounded on the possibility of using this model for designing writing courses (LILLIS, 2003), we examine how it can help instruction move beyond the text. By showing how its principles took shape in the planning and execution of the course, we discuss its benefits and limitations for this context.