Open Access

Bernardo Kolling Limberger

• This article analyzes two oral narratives produced in a school in Santa Maria do Herval (RS). These narratives are peculiar because of the frequent code switching, sometimes from Portuguese to standard German, sometimes from standard Portuguese to the dialectal variety spoken in that particular community. The first narrative to be analyzed is produced in the story telling time, in which the librarian tells the children a story from a picture book, switching the code between Portuguese and German. The second narrative is a story told by the class teacher during talking in circle, also based on a picture book. The code switching in this narrative involves teacher/pupils interaction directly. The use of both languages is, as mentioned by Breunig (2005), a cultural responsive pedagogy, since the language spoken at home by most children is being positively valued at school. Furthermore, teachers’ practices are close to those carried out by the children at home.