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Abstract
This research is an interpretive study of individual and institutional language practices based on an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from a large higher education institute of teacher training in Britain. The study explores teacher professionalism in relation to language, examining the ‘invisible’ linguistic and cultural capital of multilingual student teachers. This capital is a potentially powerful contribution to student teacher pedagogy and professionalism, but in the two key domains of teacher education (university and school) where practitioner ‘funds of knowledge’ are manifested in events and activities, the study reveals how multilingual students struggle to create or access events and activities where they can demonstrate and develop their ‘knowledge in action’. The discussion frames multilingual student teachers and multilingual pupils as mirror participants in monolingual institutions and explores issues of subordination, investment and empowerment in relation to language use. The study presents multilingual student teachers as multi-competent language users who could positively influence wider pedagogic knowledge and practices but who are prevented from activating their linguistic, cultural and community expertise through institutional and professional lack of recognition.
Notes
1. In other English-speaking countries, community bilingualism is a highly regarded teacher competency; for example, in the USA bilingual Spanish-English teachers can attract higher rates of pay than monolingual teachers and are expected to apply their skills in the curriculum and across the school. In Britain, the recent policy making MFL a statutory entitlement in primary schools has largely resulted in secondary-school-trained specialist teachers leading discrete language (usually French or Spanish) sessions (CitationDCFS 2010).
2. Adapted from the University of California's Language Survey of Incoming Students (1995).
3. Classroom observations were optional, as student teachers often felt pressured by scrutiny and assessment of their performance; six of the nine students agreed to be observed and participated in a second interview.
4. All but a few of the students who returned the questionnaire reported studying a language in their period of compulsory education. We would however expect this to change in surveys of future student cohorts, as the requirement to study a language in compulsory education was removed in 2003.
5. ‘Expertise’ reflects language proficiency; ‘affiliation’ reflects languages adhered or aspired to for peer, academic, community, faith or family reasons; and ‘inheritance’ refers to languages attached to ethnicities; these often exist in combination, reflecting formal study and informal acquisition, and may be strong or weak. For example, a learner may have a language inheritance (Panjabi) but a weak affiliation to it whilst developing expertise in another language (French) and a strong affiliation for yet another (e.g. Arabic) through academic and peer networks.
6. Typically, in the institution on which this research is based, a bilingual student might be asked (by a monolingual tutor) to address a lecture briefly in a language other than English, in order to illustrate to monolingual trainees the difficulties that pupils who are new to English may experience in the mainstream primary classroom.