“Accept all pupils as they are. Diversity!” – Pre-service primary teachers' views, experiences, knowledge, and skills of multilingualism in education

Schools across Europe are experiencing a growing number of multilingual pupils; however, teachers claim to be generally underprepared for dealing with this ever-increasing linguistic and cultural diversity. Initial teacher education often pays insufficient attention to multilingualism, thus there is a call for research on what pre-service teachers learn about the topic during training. Against this background, this small-scale exploratory study sets out to explore pre-service primary teachers' (a) views of multilingualism in education in general, (b) experiences of multilingualism in education... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Robinson-Jones, Charlie
Duarte , Joana
Günther-van der Meij, Mirjam
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
Reihe/Periodikum: Robinson-Jones , C , Duarte , J & Günther-van der Meij , M 2022 , ' “Accept all pupils as they are. Diversity!” – Pre-service primary teachers' views, experiences, knowledge, and skills of multilingualism in education ' , Sustainable Multilingualism , vol. 20 , pp. 94-128 . < http://uki.vdu.lt/sm/index.php/sm/article/view/380 >
Schlagwörter: multilingualism / multilingualism in education / pre-service teachers’ views / primary teacher education / the Netherlands
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27589024
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : https://pure.knaw.nl/portal/en/publications/fc292c76-d6bf-4a89-8331-fde4f32086ec

Schools across Europe are experiencing a growing number of multilingual pupils; however, teachers claim to be generally underprepared for dealing with this ever-increasing linguistic and cultural diversity. Initial teacher education often pays insufficient attention to multilingualism, thus there is a call for research on what pre-service teachers learn about the topic during training. Against this background, this small-scale exploratory study sets out to explore pre-service primary teachers' (a) views of multilingualism in education in general, (b) experiences of multilingualism in education as trainee teachers, and (c) self-perceived knowledge and skills acquired and developed during training, in the context of the Netherlands. Based on 195 survey responses, descriptive statistical analyses indicate that the sampled pre-service primary teachers have slightly positive views of multilingualism in education, specifically regarding their opinions on the role of multilingualism in education, focusing on school and home languages, and their tolerance of multilingualism in the classroom and at school. A qualitative content analysis reveals that several pre-service primary teachers have had general experiences of teaching pupils with migrant backgrounds, such as in transition classes (Dutch: schakelklassen), and of teaching pupils who communicate with each other only in their home languages. Challenges in teaching multilingual pupils are also reported, such as the implications of being unable to understand pupils' home languages. Regarding their self-perceived knowledge and skills, the content analysis shows that some pre-service primary teachers in this study are aware of how to encourage collaboration between multilingual pupils to involve their languages in their learning, and have knowledge of language comparison and awareness approaches that can be implemented in multilingual classrooms. A concerning finding, however, is that according to pre-service primary teachers' self-reported communication skills for ...