The presentation will present insights from the implementation of a plurilingual lower secondary teacher education curriculum characterized by intensive use of various foreign languages by lecturers and students. The aim is to equip future language teachers with intensive learning opportunities including, but not limited to plurilingual classroom methodology.
While there is an increasing consensus on the need for teachers to develop competences related to multi- and plurilingualism, the implementation of such policies (e.g Beacco et al. 2015), curricula and instruments can be a slow and cumbersome process (Ziegler 2013). A preliminary analysis of how plurilingual competences are integrated into teacher education (TE) curricula in Switzerland, a country with a traditionally strong emphasis on plurilingual and intercultural language planning, indicated a reluctance, by educators, to emphasize plurilingualism elsewhere than in courses that focus on plurilingual methodology, taught in the majority language of schooling (LoS). As a result, notions of plurilingual methodology may remain vague and their integration into the teachers' professional practice uncertain. In our presentation, we present insights from a mixed-methods research project concerned with the implementation of a TE curriculum for secondary school teachers characterized by an intensive use of various target languages (including English, French, Italian, and German as LoS) in methodology as well as content studies. The aim of the curriculum is to enhance the student teachers' language, metalinguistic, and plurilingual competences, also with respect to languages they do not formally train for, and also to encourage future teachers to study more than one foreign language subject, including at least one national language. The presented results focus on the use of plurilingual methodology in university teaching, the lecturers' and students' joint negotiation of the ensuing challenges and opportunities, and the potential of the curriculum for professionalization, curricular coherence, and social justice. Beacco, J.C., et al. (2015). Guide pour l'élaboration des curriculums pour une éducation plurilingue et interculturelle. Strasbourg: Conseil de l'Europe. Ziegler, G. (2013). Multilingualism and the Language Education Landscape: Challenges for Teacher Training in Europe. Multilingual Education, 3(1).
