“Nobody Told Me They Didn’t Speak English!”: Teacher Language Views and Student Linguistic Repertoires in Hutterite Colony Schools in Canada

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative study of five monolingual teachers' understandings of the linguistic repertoires of their multilingual students. These teachers deliver the Saskatchewan provincial curricula in English to Hutterite colony students who are users of three languages: (a) spoken Hutterisch as a home and community language; (b) written High German as a language for religious worship and (c) spoken and written English for school and for communication outside the colony. Findings from this study demonstrate that the teachers report having had limited or inaccurate understandings of their students' linguistic repertoires prior to beginning their teaching positions. Secondly, the teacher participants' awareness of the students' language resources was, and is, an ongoing process. Finally, the willingness and ability to cultivate hybrid language use of Hutterisch and English varies from teacher to teacher. The paper concludes with discussion of considerations for teacher education and in-service teachers working in Hutterite communities.

Teachers' multilingual beliefs and practices in English classrooms: A scoping review

“…Evidence from interviews of English teachers in Sterzuk and Nelson's (2016) study reveal the teachers' lack of awareness about trilingual students' language resources and how to help them make use of the resources. Similar findings are reported in Bailey and Snowden (2021).…”

“…However, a closer analysis shows that instructional contexts vary significantly within national boundaries. For example, the contexts described in the seven studies from Canada illustrate this internal heterogeneity well, ranging from English teachers at University EAP courses for international students with other L1s than English (Galante, 2020; Galante et al, 2019; Galante et al, 2020); linguistically diverse pre‐service teachers from multiple national origins (Faez, 2012); English language teachers working with learners with diverse mother tongues in elementary and upper secondary schools (Kapoyannis, 2019; van Viegen, 2020); and English teachers working in Hutterite religious communities, in which students' language of everyday communication is Hutterish, a variety of German derived from Corinthia and Tyrol in Austria but influenced by several other languages including Russian and Rumanian, in addition to High German, used for religious worship (Sterzuk & Nelson, 2016). The Canadian example shows that national boundaries do not necessarily serve as a significant factor in any effort to decide which educational settings have more in common than others.…”

“…Although this review indicates that teachers often hold positive attitudes towards multilingualism, the review also shows that a lack of awareness about the benefits of multilingualism, not least about implications for language learning, is still widespread (Bailey & Snowden, 2021; Schmid & Schmidt, 2017; Sterzuk & Nelson, 2016). Persistent beliefs and norms about language teaching, such as the ‘monolingual myth’, continue to form a main obstacle to multilingual teaching practices (Escobar & Dillard‐Paltrineri, 2015; Flognfeldt et al, 2020; Inbar‐Lourie, 2010), in accordance with Canagarajah (2013) and Meier (2016).…”