Multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual Arabic teachers’ development of learner self‐regulation and language awareness in the Emirates

Fei Tang,Raees Calafato

doi:10.1111/flan.12515

Abstract

AbstractMultilingual learning and teaching have been receiving growing attention of late as many cities and states undergo significant demographic changes brought about by increasing levels of human migration. The onset of super‐diversity means that teachers often encounter students with very different language and cultural backgrounds in the classroom. This has created a new set of challenges and opportunities, especially concerning the teaching and learning of languages. As a result, research on language teaching and learning in super‐diverse contexts has acquired greater importance, yet the teaching of languages other than English (LOTE), specifically LOTE teacher beliefs and practices, has received comparatively little attention to date. To shed more light on teacher beliefs and practices as these concern the teaching of LOTEs to multilingual students, this study explored the extent to which 100 Arabic language teachers, working in UK‐curriculum secondary schools in the United Arab Emirates, used their students’ multilingualism as a resource during lessons and developed their self‐regulation and language awareness through specific activities. The findings regarding the participants’ efforts to develop their students’ self‐regulation and language awareness revealed an unexpected, negative correlation between their degree of multilingualism and their reported practices.

Highlights

Teachers, especially in Europe and the Gulf States, are finding that their classrooms are becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse due to a mix of transnational migration and an increasing emphasis by the state and parents on promoting proficiency in one or several foreign languages among school‐going students (Goossens, 2019; see Wright et al, 2015)
Such a situation is a common occurrence in super‐diverse cities like Dubai and Brussels and might create challenges for teachers as they try to think of compensatory strategies to bridge the language and culture divide. In many such super‐diverse environments, the use of English as a lingua franca adds another layer of complexity, with some perceiving it as reducing the importance and prestige of national languages and education in languages other than English (LOTEs)
The findings presented here relate to Arabic teachers in UK‐curriculum schools in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that are teaching expat students

Summary

Introduction

Especially in Europe and the Gulf States, are finding that their classrooms are becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse due to a mix of transnational migration and an increasing emphasis by the state and parents on promoting proficiency in one or several foreign languages among school‐going students (Goossens, 2019; see Wright et al, 2015). They might need to manage the cultural and linguistic diversity in their classrooms during lessons and promote successful learning outcomes among their students while taking into account the impact that English has on their students’ LOTE learning motivation and achievement (Busse, 2017) Using their students’ cultural diversity as an educational resource (see Dooly, 2007) and drawing on their multilingualism, which can positively affect metacognitive processing, metalinguistic awareness, and autonomy (see Hofer & Jessner, 2019; Peek, 2016), could help them manage the challenges they face. Such an approach could sustain their students’ motivation outside of lessons and ensure that they make continued progress (see Ushioda, 2014)

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Discussion

Conclusion