This activity invites the students to explore the concept of ‘multiple identities’ and to consider how it is related to intercultural communication. This concept is considered fundamental in view of an experience abroad. In addition, terms such as ‘co-constructed’, ‘negotiated’, ‘ascribed’, ‘contested’ identities will be introduced at the beginning of the activity and then practised in the four tasks, in order to provide the students with the appropriate language to articulate the concepts introduced. It will be in the light of these concepts that other more common terms are reconsidered, namely those of ‘stereotype’, ‘prejudice’, ‘essentialism’, and ‘ethnocentrism’.

This podcast in Portuguese was created by James Letts, a student of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the School of Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, as a part of a research project entitled ‘The Role of Student Audio Casting and Production in the Language Learning Curriculum’. The podcast was created using Audacity recording software and enhanced with free images using Windows Movie Maker. The recording is based on the student’s own original research carried out in the year 2008. The recording presents commonly held stereotyped images and beliefs about Brazil, and the actual reality of Brazil as a modern industrial nation, with information about the nation’s technological innovations and social programmes. The podcast can be used as a learning resource in several different ways: as a focus for discussion, aural comprehension or as a base for further research by students in the field of Lusophone, Brazilian and Latin American studies. A transcript of the podcast is included as well as its English translation.