#863: Partnering Across Voices: Stories of Language, Identity, and Learning

This pedagogical design explores how students reflect on language, identity, and learning through narrative writing in a multilingual border context. Implemented in the border region between Uruguay and Brazil, where Spanish, Portuguese, and the historically marginalized Portuñol coexist, the project integrates literary texts, personal storytelling, and intercultural dialogue within an English as a Foreign Language course (EFL). Grounded in a critical intercultural perspective, the intervention sought to understand the relationship between language, identity, and belonging in a historically contested linguistic zone through students’ own narratives and aimed at fostering critical reflection on linguistic ideologies, power relations, and local identity. Overall, the project illustrates how EFL classrooms can become spaces for validation, dialogue, and transformation through locally grounded pedagogical designs.