In March 2021, I was an assessor in European Portuguese listening and speaking tests for the Afalac association (see "How can I assess?"). These tests use an oral interview format based on illustrations, with precise guidelines related to the level of proficiency targeted.

For me, the most important thing in the first part of the test of oral production was to be able to access the language histories of these young plurilingual learners and, through their language biographies, to try to find out how their language repertoires had evolved, how their identities have been reshaped as a result of their families’ migration history.

While doing this  I found out that different types of experience had led the learners to acquire or learn Portuguese as a home language. It was most interesting to see, in the background of their communicative competences in the language, the pathways that these young people had taken to reach that point and speak to me in the language in one way or another. I remember three cases in particular:

1. learners who had been born in Cape Verde and had first migrated to Portugal, spent part of their childhood and attended primary school there, and have now been in France for several years; 
2. young second and third generation 'Portuguese'-French people who were born in France but never went to school in Portugal;
3. a boy who had recently arrived in France and had attended secondary school in Portugal.

Despite their differences, all these young people had an invaluable fund of knowledge, which was rich in experience of language and identity and linguistic and cultural repertoires. They spoke the home language differently in terms of pronunciation and lexicon (with ingenious mixes of French and Portuguese in the case of the Luso-French speakers). The proficiency level of the boy who had recently arrived in France and had previously only known the Portuguese of his native country, was assessed as C1. What's more, in France Portuguese is offered as a foreign language at school; it would be good if this heritage could be preserved and these competences in the home language recognised in the school curriculum.