“I feel like it’s giving me a lot as a language teacher to be a learner myself”: Factors affecting the implementation of a multilingual pedagogy as reported by teachers of diverse languages

To boost the foreign language learning process, language teachers need to know how to implement a multilingual pedagogy, that is, they should be able to draw on their and their students’ knowledge of other languages during lessons. This qualitative study explored the extent to which 21 foreign language teachers in Norwegian and Russian upper-secondary schools were willing and able to implement multilingual teaching practices and the factors that they thought affected this implementation. The findings revealed three main factors, namely, their language knowledge, their positioning as language learners, and the level of support they received, which the participants reported as strongly influencing the extent to which they were able and willing to draw on their and their students’ multilingualism as a pedagogical resource. The findings also indicated that participants did not implement multilingual teaching practices differently based on the languages they taught, although there were differences between the participants from Norway and Russia concerning the teaching of English. The study has important implications for research on language teaching and learning in multilingual environments, educational institutions, and teacher development programs

Teachers’ reported implementation of multilingual teaching practices in foreign language classrooms in Norway and Russia

This study investigated the extent to which 517 teachers of English, French, German, and Spanish in Norwegian and Russian schools reported drawing on their and their students' multilingualism as a resource and boosting their students' awareness of multilingualism through the implementation of multilingual teaching practices. The findings revealed statistically significant differences in the participants’ reported implementation of multilingual teaching practices based on whether they taught English, French, German, or Spanish. Statistically significant differences were also found based on how many languages the participants taught. Country-specific differences were mostly absent.publishedVersio

Fidelity to participants when researching multilingual language teachers: A systematic review

The research field of multilingualism in education has grown exponentially over the last two decades, with more and more studies published every year on the need for teachers to validate the whole linguistic repertoire of their students and help them draw on their multilingualism as a resource. What has, conversely, not been accorded sufficient attention by researchers is the multilingualism of the teachers tasked with realising this. This oversight, as it were, raises ethical issues for researchers that go beyond macro ethical considerations like the need to ensure participant anonymity, their protection from harm, and data confidentiality. Education is itself a complex, ethical enterprise, where engagement with teachers and students requires greater faithfulness, exactitude, and respect on the part of researchers. The need for such engagement, from an ethical standpoint, has been magnified as governments globally implement multilingual initiatives in schools and universities that encourage teachers to harness the growing linguistic and cultural diversity that surrounds them (and of which they are a part). Based on a systematic review of 59 published works between 2016 and 2021, this article discusses the importance of adopting a fidelity-to-participants approach when researching multilingual language teachers. Such an approach has been missing from most studies, yet it would benefit researchers and their participants, as well as policymakers and educators in several ways.publishedVersio

Heartbreak Aubade

New Wor

Language aptitude and its links with metalinguistic knowledge, self-efficacy, anxiety, and language maintenance in multilingual language teachers

Language teachers cannot help their students develop high levels of metalinguistic knowledge and language aptitude if they themselves are found lacking in these abilities. This article reports on a study that utilised a descriptive correlational mixed-methods research design to gather data from 89 multilingual teachers of English, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish from secondary schools regarding the relationship between their language aptitude, metalinguistic knowledge, language maintenance habits, self-efficacy, and anxiety. The findings revealed that participants’ metalinguistic knowledge, anxiety, and formally acquired multilingualism positively correlated with their language aptitude. Moreover, those possessing advanced language aptitude engaged in language maintenance habits that were both quantitatively and qualitatively different from those who exhibited weaker aptitude.publishedVersio

Literature in language education: Exploring teachers’ beliefs, practices, creativity, and literary competence

Given the growing movement in support of blurring the divisions between language and literature teaching, it has become increasingly vital to understand what language teachers think of literature as a language resource, the approaches they employ when teaching with it, the extent to which they can appreciate, understand, analyse, and interpret literary texts, that is, their literary competence, and whether certain traits predict such competence. Yet, research into the use of literature in language education has been primarily concerned with learners rather than teachers. This article reports on an online questionnaire-based study that explored the creativity, orientations towards literature, teaching approaches, and beliefs regarding literature of 170 language teachers in Central Asia and how these elements predicted their literary competence. Participants worked at universities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan and were teaching Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish as foreign languages. The findings revealed that their reading habits and creativity statistically significantly predicted their literary competence while their selection of texts was partly at odds with their professed orientations towards literature.publishedVersio

“I’m a salesman and my client is China”: Language learning motivation, multicultural attitudes, and multilingualism among university students in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

The Central Asian republics represent an interesting yet little-studied space for researching the interplay between language learning motivation (LLM), multiculturalism, and multilingualism given their cultural and linguistic diversity and official promotion of multilingualism and positive multicultural attitudes through language learning initiatives in schools and universities. This article reports on a questionnaire study that investigated the LLM of 235 university students in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, including their integrativeness and international posture. The students were learning Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, with a majority of them learning two or more languages concurrently. The study also explored their views regarding the benefits of being multilingual and the extent to which their level of multilingualism, both formally and natively acquired, affected their multicultural attitudes and levels of prejudice towards outgroups. The findings revealed statistically significant gender differences in how the participants viewed the benefits of being multilingual, as well as statistically significant relationships between their levels of natively acquired multilingualism and their multicultural attitudes and levels of prejudice towards outgroups. International posture and integrativeness, meanwhile, were found to be distinct concepts with little overlap.publishedVersio

Learning Arabic in Scandinavia: Motivation, metacognition, and autonomy

Rising levels of immigration, especially from the Middle East and North Africa, have led to significant socio-demographic changes and increasing levels of linguistic diversity in Scandinavian countries. In parallel with these developments, a growing number of students in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have started to learn Arabic at school and university. Learning Arabic presents both challenges and opportunities. For example, it furthers the goal of states to develop multilingual citizens, yet it also tasks educational institutions with designing Arabic courses that reflect the interests and aspirations of their students and provide them with the tools to make sustained progress. In order to accomplish this, it is important to first understand what motivates students to learn Arabic and the extent to which they use self-regulatory strategies to enhance their learning. This article reports on a study that explored the self-regulation and language learning motivation of university students (N = 96) learning Arabic in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The findings revealed that the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish participants differed statistically significantly in their motivation to learn Arabic. Statistically significant gender differences were also found with respect to the participants’ self-regulation. The study provides important insights into student metacognition, autonomy, and motivation to learn non-European languages in the Scandinavian context.publishedVersio

Chapter 11 Multilingual teacher identity in the Emirates

A growing number of countries are implementing school initiatives aimed at developing students’ knowledge of multiple languages to help them thrive in a globalized world. Research indicates that learning languages can be made more effective if teachers draw on their own and their students’ entire language repertoires during lessons, yet few studies have systematically investigated the extent to which language teachers are willing and able to do this. This chapter reports the findings from a mixed-methods study on secondary school teachers of Arabic, English, and French based in the UAE that explored their teaching practices using an ecological perspective. Drawing upon data collected via unstructured interviews, the study’s findings revealed common themes among the participants vis-à-vis their ability and willingness to draw on their and their students’ multilingualism as a pedagogical resource. The chapter concludes by offering recommendations for how schools and policymakers can implement specific measures to help teachers and students fully realize their multilingual potential