Eider Saragueta, Oihane Galdos & Leire Ituiño Aguirre

ABSTRACT

Due to multilingual environments in Europe, the number of multilingual students at schools has considerably increased (Vertovec, 2007). Traditionally, languages have been taught separately and that fact has restricted the use of students’ whole linguistic repertoire. However, new lines of research have demonstrated the usefulness of multilingualism, among others, the benefits that pedagogical translanguaging could entail (Leonet, Cenoz & Gorter 2017). In this context, Linguistically Sensitive Teaching (LST) gives teachers the opportunity to make multilingualism visible in their classrooms (Llompart & Birello, 2020). This qualitative research study was carried out in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC), where Basque and Spanish are official languages and English is taught as a Foreign Language. Most students' families choose Basque as the language of instruction (Basque Government, 2020) even though in many cases the minority language is not the students’ first language. The study analyses in-service primary teachers’ perspectives on multilingual education. Data was collected through observations, a focus group discussion and semi-structured interviews. 106 primary multilingual students and eight in-service language and content teachers were observed during a month by two researchers. Findings from the study show that in-service primary teachers are flexible when using languages in different lessons, believe in transferences across languages and highlight the value of language to learn content. Although these in-service primary teachers are aware of the usefulness of putting LST into practice and they are willing to teach and use languages in a flexible way, the analysis of the data showed that uncertainty is also present among the participants.

Keywords

Linguistically Sensitive Teaching; multilingual education; minority language; primary education; pedagogical translanguaging

References

1. Basque Government (2020). Department of education: Basque Autonomous Community. https://www.euskadi.eus/web01apeusadi/eu/eusadierazle/graficosV1.apl?idioma=e&indicador=80

2. Leonet, O., Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2017). Challenging Minority Language Isolation: Translanguaging in a Trilingual School in the Basque Country. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(4), 216–227. DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2017.1328281

3. Llompart, J., & Birello, M. (2020). Migrant and Non-Migrant Origin Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs about Multilingualism and Teaching in Multilingual Classrooms: Convergences and Divergences. Sustainable Multilingualism, 17(1), 102–123. doi: https://doi.org/10.2478/sm-2020-0015

4. Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6), 1024–1054. doi: 10.1080/01419870701599465

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by:

- The European project Linguistically Sensitive Teaching In All Classrooms (LISTiac), funded by Erasmus+ Key action 3 -Support for policy reform –Policy experimentations (call EACEA 28/2017, code 606695-EPP-1-2018-2-FI-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY).

- Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Spain [Grant Number PID2019-105818GB-100].

- Basque Government [Grant Number DREAM IT-1225-19].