Language centers as a language policy in a federal institute

Abstract

This paper analyzes the contexts of influence and design of the reference text for implementing a Language Center as part of the language policy (LP) and internationalization process of a Federal Institute of Education (FI) in the Northeastern Region of Brazil. The critical analysis based on Critical Applied Linguistics (CAL) and the Policy Cycle Approach (PCA) made it possible to perceive that the reference text points to a favorable and strongly driving environment for the design of Language Centers in the FI. Thus, the FI can institutionalize the LP actions already carried out unsystematically and individually by teachers of the mother-tongue and additional ones. The document allows the teaching agency to develop and implement projects that meet the local realities of the FI campuses. However, the reference text is involved in a naturalized-top-down internationalization perspective and focuses mainly on the offer of English courses. Moreover, we perceived the lack of investments for the document to be constituted in concrete actions and to assume a transforming role in the educational community.