World Englishes: uma unidade didática desenvolvida para jovens em situação vulnerabilidade

This article presents a proposal for a didactic unit designed for young mid-lower class and lower-class adults, who live in a vulnerable community located in Porto Alegre. The didactic unit is part of a dissertation project, that aims at developing a course addressed to the needs and interests of the community members. The proposal is framed on studies about collaborative learning, popular education, language variation, discourse genres, and task-based learning. The main objective of the proposal is to recognize the possible different variations among speakers of the same language. In language teaching, it is considered fundamental to raise awareness about language manifestations that are different from the standard, as well as to understand the cultural aspects involving linguistic phenomena. Grounded on the students’ realities, the discussion on the variations in the English language is proposed starting from the same phenomenon in the Portuguese language.