Language teacher multilingualism in Norway and Russia: Identity and beliefs

Raees Calafato

doi:10.1111/ejed.12418

Abstract

AbstractMultilingualism has witnessed growing interest as a subject of academic study and as a state to aspire to for many of the world's citizenry. In tandem with this growing interest, countries around the world have started to implement foreign language curricula at schools that seek to prepare the coming generations to thrive in an increasingly multilingual global environment. In this respect, language teachers are likely to play a pivotal role in promoting the learning of multiple languages among students, with their beliefs about multilingualism informing their practices. This study reports on the beliefs of 460 secondary school teachers of English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese in Norway and Russia regarding the benefits of being or becoming multilingual, the affordances of multilingual teachers, and the promotion of multilingualism in their respective countries. The findings indicated statistically significant differences between the participants based on the number of languages they taught and, to some extent, their country of residence. The observed differences hold important implications for teacher education programs and initiatives promoting the use of multilingualism as a resource in language education.

Highlights

CALAFATOEfforts by states to implement multilingual approaches to language education in schools, in response to rising levels of super-diversity, can often collide with language teachers who continue to espouse monolingual beliefs about language education (e.g., Portolés & Martí, 2018)
The participants were able to indicate if they taught Norwegian or Russian at school, in addition to a foreign language. 75 participants from Norway reported teaching Norwegian alongside English, French, German, or Spanish, whereas 19 participants from Russia reported teaching Russian alongside English, French or Spanish. 58 participants were between 20–29 years old, 125 were between 30–39, 111 were between 40–49, 70 were between 50–59, and 23 were between 60–69 years old (73 participants chose not to reveal their age)
The findings indicated that the participants from Norway and Russia, on average, strongly believed that the learning of multiple languages was both beneficial and attainable for learners, and evinced little agreement with monolingual beliefs regarding language education

Summary

Introduction

Efforts by states to implement multilingual approaches to language education in schools, in response to rising levels of super-diversity, can often collide with language teachers who continue to espouse monolingual beliefs about language education (e.g., Portolés & Martí, 2018). Teachers who believe in the effectiveness of such an approach might not view their students' knowledge of other languages as an asset and could discourage them from drawing on this knowledge during lessons (Wang, 2019) They might believe that students will import rules and structures from other languages into the target language, leading to mistakes and confusion (Manan, Dumanig, & David, 2017). It is by making mistakes that students can better understand how languages differ from one another, learn effective strategies to identify linguistic patterns, and become more successful at learning languages (Ticheloven, Blom, Leseman, & McMonagle, 2019)

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion