Teachers’ beliefs about the place of non-dominant languages in education impacts on whether children’s complete linguistic repertoires are welcomed or inhibited in school contexts. This talk will discuss the themes and contradictions which emerged from c.50 semi-structured teacher interviews in England and France about attitudes, knowledge and practices concerning multilingualism.
Research in the area of teacher cognition (Borg, 2003) and teacher language ideologies have drawn attention to the link between teachers’ beliefs and their practices in the classroom (Kroskrity, 2010). Teachers’ beliefs about languages, about the children or parents who speak languages other than the language of schooling and about how second languages are acquired will have an impact on the place attributed to children’s home languages in the classroom and whether these will be silenced or used as a resource for learning (Pulinx, Van Avermaet & Agirdag, 2015). In a bid to better understand underlying factors contributing to language ideologies which influence the inclusion/exclusion of children’s linguistic repertoires in the school context across contexts approximately 50 semi-structured interviews were conducted with in-service primary and pre-primary school teachers (September 2017 to May 2019) in France (N=25) and England (N=25). The interviews followed the same protocol established by the Social and Affective Factors in Home Language Maintenance and Development network and were recorded, transcribed and analysed. In this presentation we will compare and contrast the themes which emerged in both contexts (teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes about children’s home languages, their declared practiced language policies at school…) and discuss the contradictory nature of participant responses. Borg, S. (2003) Teacher Cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe and do. Language Teaching, 36, 81-109. Kroskrity, P.V. (2004). Language Ideologies. In Alessandro Duranti (ed.) A companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 496-517. Pulinx, R., Van Avermaet, P. & Agirdag, O. (2015). Silencing linguistic diversity: the extent, the determinants and consequences of the monolingual beliefs of Flemish teachers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1-15.
