Norwegian L1 teachers’ beliefs about a multilingual approach in increasingly diverse classrooms

Figures & data

Table 1. Teacher profiles.

Name^a	Programme	Teaching qualification in Norwegian L1	Teaching qualification in other languages	Years teaching
Anne	General studies	90	German	19.0
Beate	General studies	60	English, French, Japanese	11.0
Cathrine	General studies	60	Norwegian as a second language	2.0
Dag	General studies	210	None	15.5
Elin	General studies	60	Norwegian as a second language	20.0
Frank	General studies	210	Latin, Spanish, Portuguese	28.0
Gina	Vocational + general studies	60	None	32.0
Heidi	Vocational + general studies	90	Norwegian as a second language	18.0
Ingrid	Vocational + general studies	210	French	5.0
Jorunn	Vocational + general studies	210	None	12.0

^a We used monikers to protect the teachers’ identities.

Table

Focus	Questions
Presentation	Could you tell me a little about what subjects you teach? Could you tell me about your educational background? Why did you choose to study the L1 Norwegian subject? Could you tell me about your teaching experience? How long have you worked as a L1 Norwegian teacher? Do you think the subject has changed during your years of teaching the subject?
L1 Norwegian subject	In your opinion, what is the most important focus of the L1 Norwegian subject?
Multilingualism and diversity in the L1 subject	The Education Act states that students with other first languages than Norwegian are supported with mother tongue tuition and second language acquisition until they are considered to be sufficiently proficient in Norwegian to follow ordinary classes, i.e. there are many students with Norwegian as a second language within the same classroom as students growing up with Norwegian as their first language. What experiences do you have with this? Does this seem to be a reasonable procedure? Does your school follow The Education Act at this point? It is often stated that ‘the more languages you know, the easier it is to learn new ones’. Is this your experience? Why/why not? To what extent do you think grammar knowledge plays a role for the students’ ability to utilise their knowledge of several languages in a positive way?
Language awareness/cross-linguistic awareness	What does the word grammar mean to you? To what extent and if relevant, how, should a L1 Norwegian teacher teach grammar? Should all the students know some grammar, or only the students with Norwegian as a second language? To what extent to you think grammar knowledge can make us more language aware? How? How do you interpret the competence aim stating that ‘that students should be able to explain grammatical characteristics of Norwegian in comparison with other languages’? Do you teach writing explicitly? To what extent do you use grammatical terms in written feedback to the students? Does the students’ language background have something to say for how you give them feedback?
Curriculum and teaching materials	What role does competence aims play for your teaching? Does the teaching material you use, include activities where the students must find support in former language knowledge, i. e. to look for similarities and differences between languages they know, or to reflect upon which language strategies they can rely on in all the language subjects?
Collaboration	To what extent do the language teachers in your school collaborate across the subjects Norwegian, English and German/French/Spanish?