Every teacher should be a language teacher for multilingual learners

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study was to understand which variables influence the triad of Beliefs, Knowledge, and Teaching Methods about linguistically inclusive teaching of in-service content teachers teaching multilingual learners in German Secondary schools. The non-probability sampling method used a questionnaire in four parts with mainly Likert-scale and multiple-choice questions and generated a small sample of 26 participants through an internet-mediated survey. Using IBM® SPSS Spearman’s rho correlational analysis, six variables were identified, and the results showed that the majority of content participants believed that they had a role in language teaching. The importance of changing content teachers' beliefs in their role in developing the academic language of their multilingual learners was confirmed as well as the importance of improving their knowledge in this field by continuous training. 77% of teachers had not had training in the last three years, and 76% felt under-prepared, while more than half of participants had expressed their need for specialised training in teaching multilingual learners. As a next step, a larger-scale quantitative study is proposed to gain representative data, and to develop an in-service teacher training programme. Enabling all teachers to be language teachers would start to level up the educational, and societal opportunities of multilingual learners in German secondary schools.