Student teachers’ expressions of ‘fear’ in handling linguistically diverse classrooms

ABSTRACT

This study examined student teachers’ beliefs about teaching multilingual classrooms across three European contexts; Slovenia, Spain (Catalonia), and Finland. Research shows that teachers’ confidence in handling linguistically diverse classrooms is lacking. Linguistically sensitive teaching (LST) was used as a lens to explore different expressions of ‘fears’ in student teachers vis-à-vis handling plurilingual pedagogies. We collected reflections of 128 student teachers and carried out an inductive, thematic content analysis in multiple cycles. The findings showed that student teachers’ fears were related to the following five categories: 1) languages in society; 2) building relationships; 3) teaching skills and methods; 4) external evaluation and teacher’s autonomy, and 5) legislation and policies. Student teachers in all three contexts shared concerns over how to protect minority languages and how to obtain enough opportunities to train for LST. A major difference between the contexts emerged in the categories of building relationships and external evaluation. By examining student teachers’ expressions of fear in the Slovene, Catalan and Finnish contexts, the study gives clues to better design initial teacher education courses that support the inclusion of LST in teacher practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Initial teacher education
• multilingualism
• student teachers
• emotions
• beliefs
• Europe

Introduction

European (initial teacher education) policies for plurilingualism

In many European countries, linguistic and cultural diversity is prompting pedagogical questions for both teachers and teacher educators. The growing diversity of European societies represents societal, economic, political and educational opportunities, but it also poses specific challenges for the education systems. If valued and utilised effectively, diversity is a rich educational resource in classrooms; it enriches the competences and creativity of all pupils, promotes inter-group contact and offers opportunities for reflection and peer learning (European Commission 2017). The considerable and (largely) untapped potential of diversity has brought about an educational shift towards inclusive, equity-centred plurilingual pedagogies – an umbrella term that covers several concepts and linguistically sensitive teaching (LST) approaches (Bergroth et al. 2021b). Plurilingual pedagogies embody a global view of (language) education that focuses on helping learners develop plurilingual competence and become aware of and value their entire linguistic repertoire and its role in communication. These pedagogies further aim to make learners sensitive to the relationships between linguistic varieties of different origins and their cultural affiliations and to interact on the basis of linguistic acceptance, mutual respect and inclusion (Beacco and Byram 2007). Research (e.g. García 2015; Bialystok 2018; Cummins 2020; Le Pichon-Vorstman, Siavora, and Szönyi 2020) highlights the potential benefits of plurilingual pedagogies beyond the promotion of equity and social cohesion, such as increased language awareness, bilingual literacy development, better academic results and increased opportunities for employment in a global economy, for all students.

The onus of implementing plurilingual pedagogies falls largely on teachers, who are considered the ultimate decision makers when it comes to classroom practices (Beacco et al. 2016; Le Pichon-Vorstman, Siavora, and Szönyi 2020; Bergroth et al. 2021a). They are responsible for choosing and implementing learning experiences and activities that are meaningful to learners, enabling them to attain the objectives set for them (Beacco et al. 2016). Therefore, as teachers may be the key agents in transforming monolingual into plurilingual pedagogies in mainstream classrooms, strategic teacher preparation for LST is crucial. However, the fact that the value of diversity and importance of teacher training are recognised in research does not mean that they have been successfully translated into key policy goals and practices for initial teacher education (ITE).

ITE is the first and crucial stage in teachers’ career-long professional development. It represents the entry point into the continuum of teacher education, which aims to provide future teachers with competences supporting ‘their capacity to lead and facilitate successful student learning’ (European Commission 2017, 14). However, how ready are (future) teachers to take up the challenge of teaching multilingual students? Do they view the linguistic and cultural diversity in an increasing number of European schools as an asset or an obstacle? Evidence gathered from policy documents shows that the preparation of teachers for diversity represents a shared concern and policy priority across Europe as too many teachers feel insufficiently prepared to teach multilingual students (Peček and Skubic Ermenc 2016; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2019; Le Pichon-Vorstman, Siavora, and Szönyi 2020). The OECD (2019) identifies more training for teaching in a multilingual and multicultural setting as the third highest area of need for teachers’ professional development. In all three contexts explored in this study, the lack of preparedness of (future) teachers and the existence of negatively charged feelings related to imagining themselves in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms seem to be persistent issues (Llompart, Dražnik, and Bergroth forthcoming).

Previous research on teachers’ and student teachers’ beliefs about cultural and linguistic diversity has pointed to the need to analyse their voices (Young 2014) to identify ITE needs and better prepare future teachers for linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. While the reviewed literature contributes significantly to the understanding of student teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards plurilingualism and plurilingual pedagogies, very few studies account for the sources of student teachers’ negative beliefs. Furthermore, feelings of anxiety, low self-esteem and unpreparedness in handling linguistically diverse classrooms are frequently mentioned in the literature findings, but are rarely examined as the primary focus of study. In this article, we contribute to filling the gap in research that focuses on the fears and anxieties of student teachers related to their future task as linguistically sensitive teachers. We pose the following two research questions: 1) What kind of anxieties/fears can be identified in student teachers’ reflections about being linguistically sensitive?, 2) What are the similarities and differences between the reported ‘fears’ in student teachers’ reflections in different ITE institutions? Answering these questions will help ITE institutions identify where to focus to prepare better-qualified teachers.

Student teachers’ beliefs and expressions of ‘fear’

Studies on teachers’ beliefs have shown that understanding these beliefs is essential to identifying how to improve teaching practices and teacher education programmes. Teacher thinking is complex (Pajares 1992). To understand student teachers’ beliefs, it is important to focus on teacher cognition, which is constructed by what teachers think, believe and know in relation to different contexts of their lives (Borg 2003, 2019). Teachers’ mindsets and emotions are influenced by contextual factors, such as previous schooling, pre-service and in-service professional development and classroom teaching practice. Student teachers’ beliefs serve as filters for making sense of the knowledge and experiences they encounter. Beliefs may also function as barriers to change by limiting the ideas that student teachers are able and willing to entertain (Feiman-Nemser 2001). Moreover, student teachers’ beliefs towards multilingual learners or multilingual learning can influence their confidence in working in such settings (Wessels et al. 2017).

When student teachers reflect on the reality of teaching in multilingual classrooms, contradictions in their beliefs often rise to the surface. Several studies have remarked on the conflict between teachers’ and student teachers’ positive beliefs regarding plurilingualism/plurilingual pedagogies in theory and their negatively charged beliefs regarding how plurilingualism/plurilingual pedagogies are translated into the teaching practice (e.g. Bredthauer and Engfer 2016; Kimanen, Alisaari, and Kallioniemi 2019; Bacon 2020; Birello, Llompart-Esbert, and Moore 2021; Stunell 2021). Research on preparing teachers to work with multilingual learners has identified that student teachers harbour negative feelings that result from their conflicting beliefs, such as fear, worry, anxiety or stress about working with multilingual learners (De Courcy 2007; Tandon et al. 2017; Dražnik forthcoming).

Llompart, Dražnik, and Bergroth (forthcoming) indicate that when student teachers position themselves as teachers in their teaching practice, the generally accepted idea of the ‘goodness of plurilingualism’ transforms into negatively charged feelings about being under-trained in using plurilingual pedagogies. Thus, student teachers’ positive view of linguistic and cultural diversity in education shifts to a negative one because student teachers perceive themselves as young and inexperienced professionals. Student teachers might be afraid to use plurilingual pedagogies in class simply because the approaches are new for them (Dražnik forthcoming), indicating a fear of the unknown or of change. Other studies have identified a lack of practical training as the reason for student teachers’ negative feelings (Meineke and Devasto 2020; Cho and Johnson 2020; Llompart, Dražnik, and Bergroth forthcoming). Studies have also highlighted the insufficient and/or inadequate practical training that student teachers receive during ITE, few opportunities to observe quality teaching, or the absence of theoretically and normatively supported reflection (Peček and Skubic Ermenc 2016).

However, contextual factors also seem to be at play in stirring negative beliefs towards plurilingualism in student teachers. Student teachers cite reasons such as the number of pupils per class, (a lack of) time and/or space, and (a lack of) overall agency to realistically exercise plurilingual practices in a classroom setting as contributing to their perceived inability to support their multilingual pupils (Bredthauer and Engfer 2016; Bacon 2020; Dockrell et al. 2021). Another factor involved in evoking student teachers’ negative feelings is concern about how their knowledge of other languages, cultures and norms could influence classroom relations and communication with some pupils and their families (Llompart, Dražnik, and Bergroth forthcoming). Wasonga (2005) reports that a lack of sustained interaction with other cultures or multicultural knowledge of other cultures results in student teachers’ fear of stereotyping or/and over-generalising.

A commonly reported source of initial concern for student teachers in handling linguistically diverse learners is the issue of language. The idea of engaging pupils’ home languages when they are unable to speak that language is daunting and challenging for future teachers (Bergroth and Hansell 2020; Cho and Johnson 2020). Although these are legitimate concerns, they place the teacher at the centre of the argument and suggest a language-as-problem ideology (Stunell 2021). Teachers and student teachers may also feel unsure of how—or whether they are allowed—to use pupils’ home languages. This phenomenon may be related to the state’s policy of using the official language only, but more often teachers perceive it as vigilance by administrators, parents or other teachers who advocate/favour monolingual pedagogical ideologies (Bacon 2020; Dražnik forthcoming).

Research on positive psychology in the field of foreign language teaching has also focused on teachers’ negative emotions and anxieties and identified many threats to teachers’ emotional well-being, including teacher-internal variables (e.g. their personality), classroom-specific variables (e.g. student behaviour) and wide contextual variables (e.g. the institution or the national education system) (Dewaele et al. 2019). The fears, worries, anxieties and stress expressed by prospective teachers illustrate the gravity of the challenges teachers face and highlight the need for ongoing research on preparing student teachers to work with multilingual learners. Such negative feelings are worrisome as they position multilingual learners as a threat and an obstacle to be avoided and/or ignored. It is important for teacher educators to acknowledge and proactively take concrete steps to overcome student teachers’ fears and anxieties through the ITE curriculum, internships, mentoring and skill building (Tandon et al. 2017). Furthermore, as seen in the recent calls for lowering anxiety within the areas of language learning and teaching with the help of positive psychology (Dewaele et al. 2019; Jin, Dewaele, and MacIntyre 2021), we argue that this type of research focus is needed in mainstream ITE for preparing future teachers to meet linguistic diversity in their classrooms.

The understanding of plurilingual pedagogies in different educational contexts may vary, as different teaching approaches and concepts have been introduced in research, with a common focus on the role of language for social justice in education for all pupils. The present study uses the concept of LST as a lens through which to examine student teachers’ beliefs about plurilingual pedagogies. LST includes awareness of the role of languages in learning, identity growth and wellbeing at the levels of the classroom, the whole school and the wider society. It also includes ITE and educational policies that aim to raise student teachers’ awareness of the linguistic dimension in education (Bergroth et al. 2021a). Among the various perspectives of learning languages, learning through languages, and learning about languages, LST is explicitly related to ‘learning through language’, given that language runs through all components and processes of learning. LST has the advantage of covering both the purpose – that is, sensitivity to teaching languages – and the approach – that is, sensitivity to teaching through languages (for a more detailed description, see Bergroth et al. 2022).

The present study takes as its premise the two main challenges identified by previous research: 1) the discrepancy between student teachers’ positive beliefs regarding plurilingual pedagogies, in this study referred to as LST, and their negative beliefs regarding the implementation of plurilingual pedagogies in a multilingual setting; and 2) the negative feelings that arise when student teachers reflect on the use of plurilingual pedagogies in multilingual settings (De Courcy 2007; Tandon et al. 2017; Dražnik forthcoming). These two challenges indicate that teacher preparedness for and subsequent teacher confidence in teaching multilingual learners are sorely lacking. In the present study, we explore different types of expressions of negative feelings or ‘fears’, such as fear, anxiety, worry and stress and the perceived reasons/beliefs behind them.

The study

Data for this study were collected as part of a three-year action research project called Linguistically Sensitive Teaching in all classrooms (Listiac, listiac.org), which aimed at making (future) teachers linguistically more sensitive in their beliefs, attitudes and actions in mainstream classrooms. In this article, we analyse data from three of the contexts studied in the project, namely Slovenia, Spain (Catalonia) and Finland. These contexts present similarities and differences in their linguistic profiles, which provide a suitable background for addressing student teacher fears in a comparative and complementary manner. Before describing the data in detail, we provide a short overview of language policies, educational policies, ITE and the teacher profession in the three contexts.

Overview of contexts

The official language of Slovenia and the general language of instruction is Slovene, as stipulated by the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and by the Basic School Act (12/1996). Catalonia, as a region within the Spanish State, is governed by the Spanish Law of Education (Ley Orgánica 3/2020), in which the general dispositions for education are established and freedom for each region to create its own educational curriculum is given. In Catalonia, Catalan has been established as the vehicular language in education since the 1980s and is taught alongside Spanish (Generalitat de Catalunya 2017a). Finally, Finland is a constitutionally bilingual country with Finnish and Swedish as equal languages in a legal context (Constitution of Finland 731/1999), and the language of schooling is either Finnish or Swedish (Basic Education Act 628/1998). In these contexts, therefore, the official educational policy can be concluded to be based on monolingualism in Slovenia, bilingualism in Catalonia and parallel monolingualism in Finland.

In terms of the number of speakers, according to the last population census (as quoted in Eurydice 2021), Slovenian is the native language of 88% of Slovenia’s two million citizens, making it a clear majority language but a small one. Catalan is spoken by 31.5% of the total population (7.5 million) in Catalonia, making it a minority language but, at the same time, larger in number of speakers than the whole Slovenian population. Finally, the lesser-spoken official language of Finland, Swedish, is the registered language of 290 000 speakers of Finland’s total population of 5.5 million (Saarela 2021), making it a small minority in terms of numbers in a country with two small but equal majority languages.

However, none of the contexts tackles only one or two languages as all the countries have both historical and more recent linguistic and cultural diversity. For example, the territory inhabited by Slovenes has never been ethnically homogeneous but was in the past always part of a larger, multinational entity, such as the Habsburg Monarchy and Yugoslavia. In Finland, the constitution states that the Sami, as an indigenous people, as well as the Roma and other groups have the right to maintain and develop their own languages and cultures and that instruction in schools can be given in languages other than Finnish/Swedish if it does not endanger learning. Catalonia is now a multicultural and multilingual context, with a migrant-origin population of 16.2% (Generalitat de Catalunya 2020) and more than 300 languages spoken in the region (Grup d'Estudi de Llengües Amenaçades, 2016).

A common denominator for all three contexts is the need to better equip teachers to meet linguistic diversity and support the plurilingual identities of all pupils, including both minority and majority speakers (Heikkola et al. 2022; Resolution on the National Programme for Language Policy of the Republic of Slovenia, 2021; Generalitat de Catalunya, 2018). Increasingly, Slovenian education policies recognise multi-/plurilingualism as one of the principles of a modern society and the foundation of tolerance between nations and linguistic communities (Krek and Metljak 2011). One of the goals of the Resolution on the National Programme for Language Policy of the Republic of Slovenia (2021) is the development of multilingual and intercultural awareness. Hence, the Resolution (2021) proposes concrete measures, such as the promotion of plurilingualism in schools, the systematic training of teachers to establish a plurilingual educational environment and the training of other education staff in the basics of plurilingualism and plurilingual didactics, as well as language-sensitive teaching for immigrant-background learners. On a European-level comparison, Finnish education policies have one of the most tangible orientations towards both diversity and the whole-child approach (Eurydice 2019). A recent resolution regarding the strategy for the national languages of Finland (Finnish Government 2021) also sets out to promote the integration of immigrants in both national languages. In Catalonia, a decree on educational inclusion (Generalitat de Catalunya, 150/2017b) was passed that included an awareness of the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity for students. Furthermore, a new framework for linguistic diversity in schools was proposed in 2018 (Generalitat de Catalunya 2018), which advanced plurilingual and pluricultural education in line with the current diverse backgrounds, family languages and linguistic practices in educational institutions and the need for students to be prepared for a globalised world.

In Slovenia and Finland, the ITE programme is 300 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) credits and in Catalonia it is 240 ECTS credits (Bergroth et al. 2021a). Slovenian teachers can choose specific items of content, with the curriculum offering a general framework. While teachers can also choose their assessment criteria, they must follow the regulations published by the Ministry, which indicate the principles, methods and marking scale and highlight the need for transparency in the criteria and methods used (Eurydice 2009). In Finland, teachers have both professional freedoms and opportunities to shape their work and the development of their work community. Teachers can decide which teaching methods and learning materials they use. A typical feature of Finnish education is the widespread trust in teachers, which is reflected in the fact that there is no national evaluation or registration of teachers (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture 2016). In Catalonia, one of the competences that future teachers need to develop in ITE programmes involves reflecting on classroom practices in order to innovate and improve teaching (Llompart, Dražnik, and Bergroth forthcoming).

Data and methodology

The data analysed in this study were collected during 2020 using student reflection tasks about LST. The reflection toolkit includes three levels aimed at different stages of ITE programmes (see Listiac.org/toolkit). The data used in this study were collected as integrated part of normal ITE courses. Student participation in the reflection tasks was obligatory, but participation in the research project was voluntary. Each project partner provided 2–4 fully transcribed and translated group discussions. Random sample was used if more data were collected. No student background details were collected, but in general terms the groups represented typical student teachers in the contexts: predominantly young white females with varied language skills in local and foreign languages. The data in this article were drawn from a sample of 128 students (Table 1).

Table 1. Setting and sample

Context	Course (study year)	Number of participants
Slovenia: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education	English through the primary school curriculum (4^th year) Linguistic and intercultural awareness (5^th year)	26
Catalonia: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona	School language policy and plurilingual education (3rd year) Practicum (3rd / 4^th year)	61
Finland: Åbo Akademi University	Didactics II (3rd year) Intercultural education (3rd / 4th year)	41

In this study, the intermediate- and advanced-stage tasks were used. At the intermediate stage, student teachers watched an affective video (e.g. a documentary about racism in schools), read a normative policy document (e.g. parts of curriculum), and carried out a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis activity in groups and reflected on the kind of teachers they wanted to be. At the advanced stage, students reflected on their near-future teaching role as team players in a professional community working for LST. Students were guided by a dialogue mat, also based on SWOT. In the dialogue mat, they were asked to discuss six questions, for example, what kind of challenges do the current local and European policies impose us and why are we not doing everything we feel we should be doing, and to write down, for example, the most urgent changes needed in their community and the things they were afraid of and needed help to tackle.

As the reflection tasks were based on a SWOT analysis, an acronym that includes the words weaknesses and threats, discussions of these terms were prompted to counteract the so-called ‘observer effect’ and to encourage students to go beyond the ‘correct answers’ that they assume their teachers want to hear regarding policies supporting plurilingualism in education. This method was hoped to help in identifying the causes of LST-related anxieties and in designing an ITE curriculum that lowers student teachers’ anxieties and promotes their well-being.

The concept of ‘fear’ was approached as an umbrella term. In some cases, students explicitly mentioned the noun fear or verb to be afraid, but most often the concept was only implicitly expressed. In the first example (see Table 2) of an implicit expression, the student teachers discussed a personal experience that occurred in a school where multilingual pupils had good support measures. Students also expressed fear of the opposite scenario by stating ‘but what if … ?’ Students reflected on their own choices of words, stated that they had become very self-aware and hoped that they would not say something wrong themselves. In this case, the expression ‘hope not’ was treated as synonymous with fear.

Table 2. Explicit and implicit expressions of fear.

Explicit	… some are afraid that if we adopt too much, we lose our own culture
Implicit	… but what if there is no reception class?
	… you hope that you won’t say something wrong, even accidentally

In the analytic phase, we also tackled the question of agency. As seen in the examples in Table 2, it was common for the student teachers to distance their own actions from the expressed fear. They mentioned the agent in vague terms, using impersonal words such as ‘some’ or ‘you’. The actor was thus often expressed implicitly, and it was uncommon for the speaker to take an active stance and state, ‘I am afraid that … ’. In these cases, we could not establish with certainty whether the fear had been personally experienced or whether the students were echoing general societal discourses in a routine fashion for the sake of the task. For example, it remained unclear whether the student in the ‘explicit’ example in Table 2 included themselves in the group of ‘some are afraid’. Similarly, many of the fears expressed were intertwined, and the origin of the fear was not easy to ascertain. Due to both the implicit expressions for fear and the hidden agent experiencing the fear, we have not created any exclusive categories or quantified the findings beyond the main emerging categories discussed in the findings.

In Table 3, the various phases of the analytic work are described. The inductive, thematic content analysis of the data was carried out in multiple cycles, both individually and collaboratively between the authors (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2011). The emerging categories in the data were discussed and scrutinised by going back and forth between reading and categorisations. The data were open to interpretation, as discussed in the paragraphs above, which we tried to countereffect using a type of meticulous researcher triangulation. In other words, the data from each context were analysed and categorised for the second time by a non-local researcher. The researchers then compared the results from the second analysis with those from the first analysis and discussed potential differences in interpretation and possible bias. As a result, we identified the main category for each data excerpt but also pointed out other potential categories in which the excerpts could be included due to the interconnectedness of the expressed fears.

Table 3. Analytic phases of data analysis.

1.	Inductive reading of own local data and identifying emerging themes.
2.	Sharing discussion of emerging themes, preliminary categories and inclusion of implicit expressions and unclear agents in the analysis.
3.	Re-analysing local data by each author.
4.	Triangulation: All local data were analysed by a non-local co-author, and unclear local contextual understanding clarified.
5.	Short summaries of the categories in own local contexts.
6.	Co-authoring findings, choosing an illustrative and representative example from each context for each category.

Results

The findings section is divided into five subsections corresponding to the following categories identified in the data: 1) languages in society; 2) building relationships; 3) teaching skills and methods; 4) external evaluation and teacher’s autonomy; and 5) legislation and policies.

Languages in society

Two main themes for expressions of fear were detected within this category, which comprised the fear of supporting/promoting specific languages excessively and, conversely, the fear of not doing it enough. Student teachers in the Catalan and the Finnish contexts expressed fear related to the language in a minority position (Catalan and Swedish) in contrast to other languages. Similarly, student teachers in Slovenia expressed fear related to the preservation of their language, which, despite being a majority language in Slovenia, may be considered a small language in terms of the number of speakers (see section 2.1). The most commonly expressed fear is that the languages may disappear if not given sufficient instructional space. Catalan student teachers problematised, for example, the need to respect the pupils’ own languages while ‘want[ing] to keep Catalan’. This caused a dilemma: ‘Sometimes I do try to speak to them in Catalan, but there actually is a dilemma and you don’t know what to do. I think it is hard to manage’.

Student teachers contrasted the need to maintain the minority language with the need to give space to other languages, such as those brought by migrant-origin pupils, the regional majority language or even English. The Slovenian student teachers, for example, frequently expressed the fear of Slovene being overrun by English, questioning the use of English in the classroom: ‘Where is the Slovenian language? It’s like we’re killing it somehow’. However, participants also expressed fear of the consequences of making language learning obligatory. Forcing pupils to learn the minority language may result in negative attitudes towards that language, i.e. ‘hating the language because you have been forced’, which the student teachers wanted to avoid. This belief may concern making the language obligatory for all or including elements of various languages, such as with translanguaging and other plurilingual teaching methods. Student teachers often attributed this fear to others in society (e.g. parents) rather than to themselves. Furthermore, the Slovenian student teachers felt that they, as future teachers, were on the receiving end of such societal fears and negative attitudes, with one remarking, ‘ … and then there’s this pressure on the teachers’.

Student teachers also expressed a fear of teaching minority languages to other minorities with migrant backgrounds and creating dual linguistic minorities. The Swedish-speaking student teachers in Finland struggled between wanting to be inclusive but being doubtful about whether minority language schooling was the best solution for the child or the family as ‘you get by much better with Finnish in this country’. They also feared being misunderstood because ‘you don’t want to paint the picture that Swedish-medium schools don’t want pupils with immigrant backgrounds, but instead [you want to] argue … why it might be better to go to a Finnish-medium school’. The Swedish-speaking student teachers also feared that if migrant background pupils were guided towards Finnish-medium schools, they as teachers might simply forget to include multilingual aspects in their own teaching. They also acknowledged that their own minority experiences would be potentially helpful for migrant background pupils as they ‘know how it is to struggle’ with the school language. This empathetic attitude might be lost if only Finnish-medium schooling is recommended to students of migrant backgrounds.

Building relationships

Fears in this category related to building teacher–student, student–student and teacher–family relationships. The fear of lacking the ability to build relationships due to inadequate language knowledge or of not sharing a language with pupils (who do not speak any of the languages the teacher can understand) was present in all three contexts. For example, student teachers expressed the fear in statements such as ‘but if the kid speaks any other language you know nothing about’ or ‘if they don’t speak these languages, I don’t know how to … ’. English was constructed in all the contexts as a possible lingua franca, and there did not seem to be any fears or anxieties about using English with migrant-background pupils. Rather, it was often considered a benefit, as one Catalan student teacher stated, ‘if you are lucky and get … a kid who can speak English’.

Another commonly expressed fear connected to teacher–student relationships was placing a pupil in a position they had not opted for themselves. Student teachers feared accidentally expressing othering, tokenism and prejudices while trying to be well-meaning. As one Finnish student pointed out, ‘It can be uncomfortable for some if you bring up the fact that “you have a different home language” too often’.

Student teachers also raised concerns about classroom management that were closely related to building student–student relationships. They attributed this fear mostly to other teachers and not necessarily to themselves. They mentioned, for example, preventing pupils from speaking in their mother tongues out of fear of it being an opportunity to bully or free language choice being used to avoid participation. In the Slovenian context, one of the student teachers’ fears was of making some pupils feel uncomfortable, especially if other pupils showed negative attitudes towards linguistic and cultural diversity and the teachers were unsure of how to react to/act in the situation. One Slovenian student teacher concluded that ‘you have to be careful because children can become mean very quickly’.

The third set of fears, related to building good teacher–family relationships, included concerns similar to those regarding building relationships in the classroom. Student teachers perceived their lack of language skills as a barrier. They feared that they did not have the necessary tools and strategies to communicate with the families of linguistically and culturally diverse learners. The participants also expressed fear of meeting parents with negative attitudes towards multilingual pedagogies and diversity in general. However, not all fears in this category were directly connected to the inclusion or exclusion of specific languages and associated attitudes. For example, in the Finnish case, student teachers worried about not finding a good balance in the teacher–family partnership to support each child’s learning optimally. Student teachers also feared placing too much pressure on the parents’ skills in helping their children with homework. The participants concluded that ‘it also places the pupils in an unfair situation if the homework means that you need help from the parents. It’s really important to remember that the pupils [should be able to] do the homework on their own and independently’. However, according to the student teachers, this type of differentiation was difficult and caused anxieties.

Teaching skills and methods

The most commonly expressed fear related to teaching skills and methods was not being competent enough in using LST or being inclusive. Student teachers revealed various dimensions to this fear, including foreign languages (i.e. ‘how to even tackle the problem of not understanding their language’), knowledge of other cultures and practical skills (‘they [teachers] don’t have the practical knowledge, they have nothing to help them, they get scared – I don’t know if I’m doing this the right way, maybe I’ll just avoid this’). They also demonstrated fear around specific resource and management strategies to teach linguistically and culturally diverse learners, as illustrated by statements from two Catalan student teachers, ‘but if you don’t have the resources, you can’t do anything’ and ‘you welcome but segregate’.

The perceived lack of professional competence was closely connected to the fear of failing and not knowing what to do, which was, according to the student teachers’ descriptions, exacerbated by peer pressure, lack of autonomy and external evaluations. They also related the feeling of unpreparedness and lack of knowledge to insufficient training within the ITE trajectory (see also Llompart and Moore 2020) and few opportunities to train in linguistically diverse classrooms. Inadequate opportunities to practise resulted in student teachers lacking confidence in their own skills to be able to translanguage or to select teaching methods that take language aspects into consideration. Student teachers also feared that they did not know how to ensure there is not excessive linguistic variation in class so as not to make it ‘confusing’ for learners, especially those who ‘struggle with languages’. Moreover, in the Finnish context, a lack of experience was also expressed as the fear of not knowing how to be inclusive without tipping over into othering or making the inclusion feel artificial. As one Finnish participant stated, ‘I’m also thinking about somehow including it naturally, or that it’s not, like … Too big of a deal, that you, how do I explain this, that the pupils don’t find it strange but more that it’s a part of everyday life. So that it feels natural’.

External evaluation and teacher autonomy

Student teachers in the different contexts showed substantial differences in their fears related to evaluation and autonomy. In Finland, the only example that fits this category was related to the fear of placing excessive demands on oneself as a newly trained teacher. In the Finnish context, the participants expressed no fear of evaluation by others. In contrast, in the Slovene and Catalan contexts, several instances of fear related to external evaluation and a lack of true teacher autonomy appeared. In Catalonia, the student teachers’ fears focused on teachers’ autonomy. They were concerned about loneliness and not being accepted by their professional peers when teaching in a linguistically sensitive way in schools that might still be primarily engaged in monolingual practices. In this sense, a negative feeling towards the lack of teachers’ autonomy emerged, as one participant indicated, ‘You can sometimes find situations where you don’t … where you are alone, and so it is difficult to be inclusive or carry that through if you don’t have the school’s support’. This feeling of loneliness prompted another fear in student teachers related to doubting their LST practice and causing negative effects for their pupils. In this sense, working alone was seen as detrimental to LST.

Fears related to external evaluation and teacher autonomy emerged most often in the Slovene context. Student teachers often feared being criticised or complained to by parents due to societal fears, as expressed in the languages in society category. For example, participants stated, ‘I think here in our country, if someone came into class and kept translating for someone who speaks Bosnian, it would be, like, hold on, is this not a Slovenian school? Why is my child being taught Bosnian now?’ and ‘Everyone is too afraid of what the parents will say, and so because of bad experiences, they just say “I’ll stick to what’s safe”’. The student teachers felt the need to have to justify themselves professionally, which illustrates the perceived lack of trust in teachers in Slovene society. The participants also blamed the restrictiveness of the curriculum, which they believed undermined their authority and autonomy.

Interestingly, while some student teachers argued that they do not have enough autonomy as teachers, others believed that they are just afraid to use it: ‘Our problem is not not having autonomy but thinking we don’t have it or being afraid of having it’. Student teachers viewed professional insecurity and a lack of expertise as a reason for not exercising their autonomy, because ‘if you, as a teacher, had this stance, like, I have knowledge, I am professional’, then the parents ‘have nothing to complain about really’, as one Slovenian student teacher observed.

Legislation and policies

In Finland, student teachers feared forgetting to implement LST if the groups are homogenous, although LST is a requirement stated in the core curriculum. Even if they agreed that the core curriculum provides space for LST, they considered covert and structural racism, concluding that it is everywhere, even in the core curriculum. As one participant stated, ‘It [the curriculum] is not completely equally designed but more, of course,  created based on us – those of us who were born and have Swedish as our mother tongue, or Finnish – so that it unconsciously or imperceptibly can work against people from other cultures’.  This caused the fear of not being constantly alert to structural racism: ‘you have to scrutinise yourself all the time as well and be self-critical, perhaps you unconsciously, by mistake … Somehow are [being racist].’ The participants expressed no fears related to being able to follow the curriculum, but they pointed out that without reading the core curriculum from a critical multilingual theory perspective, the issue of covert and structural racism might remain superficial. Student teachers also feared that if someone else implemented LST only as an obligation, this might cause aversion towards the topic among pupils.

In Slovenia and Catalonia, the general tone towards legislation and curriculum was more critical than in Finland. As a student teacher in the Catalan context concluded, ‘I don’t know if it’s okay for me to say it [laughs], but I think we’re the system’s victims’. Catalan and Slovenian student teachers discussed how the flexibility of the school and the guidelines they follow affect what the student teachers can do in that school while waiting to be offered a permanent teacher position. For example, one participant stated, ‘What could happen is that next year they won’t want her back. It’s the fear of not being accepted and finding yourself alone and rejected and the pressure’.

In Slovenia, student teachers worried about how to start implementing LST without violating rules about the language of instruction, which, according to the Basic School Act, is Slovenian. One participant concluded that ‘you should teach in Slovenian. Only in English class can you use English this way, in CLIL [Content and Language Integrated Learning], for example. There is a problem’. Furthermore, the participants feared that the curriculum is overloaded with various aims, which restrict the uptake of LST. In addition to the requirements for teachers to use differentiation and adjustments for pupils with special needs, student teachers feared that they could not manage to do everything. As one Slovene student teacher said, ‘The curriculum is the poison of this whole system because we don’t have time to stop, everyone is afraid to stop a little bit in the class and ask a question or do something other than the curriculum’.

Discussion

In this study, we analysed 128 student teachers’ views on LST in Slovenia, Catalonia and Finland using reflections based on SWOT. The SWOT analysis prompted weaknesses and fears as part of the data collection and thus encouraged student teachers to go beyond the ‘correct answers’ regarding educational policies promoting multilingualism. The SWOT approach also allowed the student teachers to express anxieties and fears surrounding their future teaching practice in linguistically and culturally diverse environments. In this study, we examined both implicit and explicit expressions of fear and anxiety that emerged in the data. The qualitative inductive analysis resulted in the following five categories: 1) languages in society; 2) building relationships; 3) teaching skills and methods; 4) external evaluation and teacher’s autonomy; and 5) legislation and policies.

Although we opted not to quantify the categories (see section 2.2), in this section, we discuss some indications from the data regarding similarities and differences in student teachers’ fears related to LST in Slovenia, Catalonia and Finland. Student teachers in all three contexts shared fears related to teaching in what remained a minority language despite its de jure language status ensuring that it was recognised, supported and official. Student teachers felt responsible for upholding language domains and producing competent speakers of the minoritised language. This fear, with its multiple dimensions, was the most frequently expressed in our data in all contexts. Our finding suggests that more focus is needed on teacher education in minoritised languages where the dichotomy between majority and minority languages is more complex than those in more monolingual policy contexts (see also Bergroth and Hansell 2020).

Another shared fear for all contexts related to lacking confidence in applying one’s LST teaching skills in real classroom situations, especially with diverse pupils, due to insufficient training opportunities in ITE. While this fear can partly be attributed to the fact that student teachers are still within their ITE and may receive relevant training in upcoming courses/practicums, our results seem to confirm prior findings by Wessels et al. (2017), who found that ⁠many student teachers do not feel confident in their abilities to work with linguistically diverse learners. Similarly, lacking time and material resources are mentioned as fears in all three contexts. This fear is a common topic in teacher training, both in ITE and professional development – namely, how to find time for planning, looking for resources and creating the necessary materials?

A major difference in the data emerged when the categories of building relationships and external evaluation were compared. In the Catalan and Slovene contexts, fears related to teacher autonomy and external evaluations seem to be closely connected to a lack of teacher confidence, which is due to a perceived lack of expertise. In Slovenia, this fear is combined with pressures the student teachers feel from external actors (colleagues, parents, superiors and inspectors). In Catalonia, the precariousness of student teachers’ future employment is what makes them insecure and hesitant about their use of LST. In Slovenia, fears related to external evaluation are as prominent as those related to teacher skills and teaching methods. In stark contrast, the student teachers in Finland do not seem to worry about how their professionalism is seen by others; rather, they fear being unable to uphold their own high ideals about LST. In our study, almost no excerpts were coded to external evaluation, which may be due to the widespread trust in teachers and the fact that there is no national evaluation or registration of teachers in Finland (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture 2016).

As the student teachers in the Finnish context did not have fears about external evaluations, it seems that they focused more on the quality of teaching and especially on building and sustaining relationships based on educational partnerships. This included listening to the voice and wishes of the pupils in matters regarding them and differentiating teaching so that parents can participate with ease in supporting the learning of their child (despite the eventual language barriers). The building relationships category is the second most prominent in the Finnish context, while, again in stark contrast, very few excerpts were present in the Slovene context, where the parents were often presented as undermining teacher agency. The Catalan context can be placed between these two opposing contexts. Although there were plenty of excerpts relevant to building relationships in the Catalan context, especially about building relationships with parents, student teachers tended to highlight language barriers and the problems teachers may experience due to language barriers. The focus was particularly on teacher experiences in these relationships rather than on child–parent experiences, as was the case in the Finnish data.

Conclusion

We suggest that exploring the fears and anxieties identified in the Catalan, Finnish and Slovene contexts gives clues to better design ITE courses that support plurilingual pedagogies, in this study referred to as LST, by lowering anxieties related to the topic. We conclude that even if the fears differed somewhat in the three contexts of this study due to the contexts’ respective linguistic and cultural features, all the student groups in our sample expressed fears that, if disregarded, are likely to work against the inclusion of LST as a common teaching practice in their future profession.

Based on our findings, we draw the following conclusions:

1. Trust in teacher professionality and teacher autonomy, including evidence-based pedagogical freedom, are necessary to promote plurilingual, linguistically sensitive practices in a newly qualified teacher. While this is a wider societal concern and is not easily changed by ITE alone, ITE can build student teachers’ confidence in their skills in managing linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms.

2. The simplified dichotomy between majority–minority languages needs to be problematised more than has been done hitherto. Plurilingual pedagogical solutions supporting multiple languages in various minority and majority positions need to be discussed and practised.

3. Opportunities to train for the inclusion of LST both in diverse and in more homogenous classrooms are needed. This training must include basic survival skills in encountering and including non-elite languages in the classroom that the teacher has no prior knowledge of.

4. The possibilities and challenges presented by the legislation and curriculum need to be scrutinised within ITE, with a focus on evidence-based research findings.

Our study suggests that student teachers in Finland experience trust and freedom, which provide opportunities to try out new innovative ways of teaching. However, in light of results of previous studies in learning assessment, those features alone are not enough to generate a change towards LST and equal learning opportunities for immigrant background learners (Harju-Luukkainen and McElvany 2018; Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture 2019). Motivating a change in attitude and practice requires more than a knowledge of linguistic and cultural diversity. Rather, it requires direct and sustained interaction with issues and resources related to diversity in the hope that such interaction will help student teachers connect their newly acquired knowledge and attitudes to teaching and feel better prepared to work with multilingual learners. Direct personal experiences have been found to provide ‘teachable moments’ (Wasonga 2005). Teaching practice places student teachers in the ‘real world’ and allows them to put theory and beliefs into practice. While teaching practice may be anxiety-provoking due to doubt in one’s teaching skills, learning to plan and managing learners, often with limited resources, it can be an exciting experience for student teachers as it represents a critical milestone in developing teacher competencies (Matoti and Lekhu 2016). Until student teachers are fully immersed in a linguistically and culturally diverse learning environment, a positive application of LST and an examination of student teachers’ pedagogical ideologies cannot be fully realised (Meineke and Devasto 2020).

The diversity agenda should be given a clear place in the ITE curricula. However, more research is needed to ensure appropriately targeted student teacher support that can help allay the fears and anxiety of student teachers with regard to plurilingual pedagogies and lead to overall better qualified and more confident teaching professionals.

Ethics approval

The data collected in the Listiac project and analysed in this study follows the Finnish National Board on Research Principles (TENK¹). In case the regulations were stricter at the local project partner university, the regulations of that university were followed. This applies to the University of Barcelona: Comisión de Ética en la Experimentación Animal y Humana, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra.

Acknowledgments

The production of this article has been supported by the following project: Linguistically Sensitive Teaching in All Classrooms (LISTIAC), co-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).

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The European Education and Culture Executive Agency [Grant Number 606695-EPP-1-2018-2-FI-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY].

Notes

1 https://tenk.fi/sites/default/files/2021-01/Ethical_review_in_human_sciences_2020.pdf