Teacher Language Awareness in Initial Teacher Education Policy: A Comparative Analysis of ITE Documents in Norway and New Zealand

Abstract

Dramatically increased population flows since at least the 1980s, primarily through economic migration and refugee resettlement, have brought considerable ethnic and linguistic diversity to classrooms around the world. This diversity has been amplified by the rising recognition of in-country indigenous and minority languages. In such plurilingual learning environments, teachers require sophisticated language education skills. They need to be able to teach the dominant language/s across the curriculum, support plurilingual learners, and often teach foreign or additional languages. One conceptual lens through which to analyse the presence of these competencies in current teacher education policy is that of language awareness. While this term originally referred to the raising of student awareness of features and functions of language, it now incorporates knowledge about flexible languaging practices. Through a comparative analysis of the two key teacher education policy documents in Norway and New Zealand, we have investigated how the concept of teacher language awareness is incorporated in high-level policy documents pertaining to ITE in these two countries and how these converge and diverge in their treatment of language awareness. Our in-depth comparison of these important educational policies urges both jurisdictions, as well as others, to be aware of local particularities and broader patterns in meeting the needs of teachers to be plurilingually aware and equipped for 21st-century classrooms.

Pre-service teachers’ beliefs about linguistic and cultural diversity in schools: the role of opportunities to learn during university teacher training

“…Teacher programs are increasingly implementing formal OTL (e.g., seminars, professional development programs) aimed at developing teachers' beliefs about cultural and linguistic diversity in schools (Trent et al, 2008;Castro, 2010). Yet, as indicated above, lesson elements that are compulsory for all pre-service teachers, irrespective of subject and school track, are still an exception in many countries, including Germany (Paetsch and Heppt, 2021;Bonness et al, 2022). Pre-service teachers of different school subjects and with different study aims will, therefore, vary in their OTL and hands-on experiences of teaching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms.…”

“…While this has long been acknowledged in the US, accompanied by respective study elements in teacher education programs (Lucas and Grinberg, 2008;Trent et al, 2008;Lucas, 2010), comparable investments in teacher education in other countries, including Germany, Norway, and New Zealand, have only begun in recent years (cf. Hammer et al, 2018;Kalinowski et al, 2019;Paetsch and Heppt, 2021;Bonness et al, 2022). Overall, opportunities to learn (OTL) for teaching in culturally diverse classrooms are still not sufficiently implemented in most teacher education programs in these countries (e.g., Ehmke and Lemmrich, 2018;Bonness et al, 2022) and programs differ widely regarding the number of course offerings and their compulsory nature (Baumann, 2017;Paetsch and Heppt, 2021).…”

“…Hammer et al, 2018;Kalinowski et al, 2019;Paetsch and Heppt, 2021;Bonness et al, 2022). Overall, opportunities to learn (OTL) for teaching in culturally diverse classrooms are still not sufficiently implemented in most teacher education programs in these countries (e.g., Ehmke and Lemmrich, 2018;Bonness et al, 2022) and programs differ widely regarding the number of course offerings and their compulsory nature (Baumann, 2017;Paetsch and Heppt, 2021).…”

Learning and Teaching of English in the Multilingual Classroom: English Teachers’ Perspectives, Practices, and Purposes

“…This Special Issue compiles papers examining English teachers' perspectives, practices, and purposes on the current challenges in linguistically diverse classrooms. The ten contributions are grouped into four thematic (a) the first four articles study pre-and in-service teachers' perspectives on key aspects revolving around multilingual teaching and learning in the EAL classroom (Erling et al 2022;Hoppin et al 2023;Neokleous et al 2022;Tishakov and Tsagari 2022); (b) the next three focus on multilingual practices implemented in the classroom and their impact on promoting and enhancing students' English language skills (Ibrahim 2022;Kopečková and Poarch 2022;Schipor 2022); (c) the following two articles investigate pre-and in-service teachers' understanding of multilingualism and the factors that shape language teacher cognition (Christison 2023; Möller-Omrani and Sivertsen 2022); while (d) the last contribution focuses on teacher education policy documents and their coverage of linguistic diversity (Bonness et al 2022). The subsequent sections summarize the ten articles.…”