Teaching English as a foreign language in multilingual milieus in Catalonia: perspectives and practices of educators in three state schools

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to explore how the teaching of English as a foreign language is planned in three plurilingual state schools in Catalonia. We carried out classroom observations (first and second grade of primary education) and interviewed the English teachers who teach these lessons and the headmasters of the three schools. The use of these qualitative methods to generate data allowed us to see what teachers say they do in the classroom, and what they really do. The results showed that although the three schools analysed work to make learners aware of their linguistic repertoires and foster their plurilingual competence, the English classroom is still seen as a monolingual space where students’ languages and the use of plurilingual strategies are not present. Similarly, we can state that the participating teachers do not prioritise plurilingual and intercultural education in the English classroom, as this is promoted in other school spaces. The findings have strong implications; namely, there is the need for foreign language teachers to encourage the use of students’ first languages in the classroom if we want to advance towards a plurilingual and intercultural education.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign language
• plurilingual competence
• linguistic repertoires
• interlinguistic transfer
• metalinguistic reflection

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support received by the heads of studies of the primary schools which participated in this study. Thank you, too, to the primary education teachers interviewed in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The consulted version is From Linguistic diversity to plurilingual education: Guide for the development of language education policies in Europe.

2 Intercomprehension is a term used to refer to the phenomenon that takes place when two people use different languages to communicate but are capable of doing it successfully.

3 Éveil aux Langues is an approach that implies the use of diverse languages at the same time without any kind of exclusion (Candelier et al. 2008b). It tries to awaken curiosity about the linguistic and cultural diversity that surrounds us.

4 Integrated didactic approaches to different languages studied is a methodological approach through which teachers from different language subjects, taught in a school, work collaboratively.

5 See appendix A. Categories for the analysis of the observations.

6 See appendix B. Transcription criteria (Casalmiglia & Tusón, 2007).

7 See appendix C. Criteria for the analysis of the interviews.

8 To maintain participants’ anonymity, we have changed all the names that appear in the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neus Frigolé

Neus Frigolé Graduated in English Philology. She studied the master's degree in Language and Literature Didactics at the University of Barcelona (UB). She is an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Education, in UB. She is also a member of the research group School Plurilingualism and Language Learning (Plurilingüismes Escolars i Aprenentatge de Llengües, PLURAL) at the UB. She takes part in different research projects, funded by the Spanish Government. Her studies are related to plurilingual and intercultural education as a response to linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom.

Eva Tresserras

Eva Tresserras Graduated in Hispanic Philology. She studied the master's degree in Language and Literature Didactics at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB). She holds a PhD in plurilingualism and language learning in a range of linguistic and cultural diversity from the same university. She is a member of the of the research group School Plurilingualism and Language Learning (Plurilingüismes Escolars i Aprenentatge de Llengües, PLURAL) at the UB. Since 2014, she also participates in the MIF programme (Improvement and Innovation Programme for Catalan Teacher Training). She takes part in different research projects, funded by the Spanish Government and the European Commission. She is currently a teacher of Education at the University of Barcelona, Ramon Llull University and University of Vic.