Can we speak English? Reflections on the unspoken EFL in Brazil

Resumen

This essay explores the issue of oral production in English as a foreign language in Brazil. It reports the difficulty some students find to speak the language to matters of authority and legitimacy constituted in a particular history of language policies. Interest in the theme emerged because many Brazilian students who know English state they cannot speak the language and avoid pronouncing it and engaging in conversations. A discursive methodological framework forms the basis for the analysis of postings collected from discussion forums on different websites. First, I can´t speak English works as the reference statement that makes it possible to verify a discursive regularity in operation in Brazil. Second, a postcolonial theoretical framework supports the discussion on the conditions of possibility to speak English as a foreign language in a former Portuguese colony. The author argues that the ghost of the native, idealized speaker prevents students from recognizing the English they know as legitimate, and to speak it, and points out that dignity is a possible discourse to help deconstruct the colonial, silenced positioning that exists regarding the oral production in this foreign language.