The relationship between teachers’ language experience and their inclusion of pupils’ home languages in school life

Abstract

In this article, we present a qualitative investigation which was conducted as part of a project on school development in the field of multilingualism in Germany. In order to gain insight into the relationship between primary school teachers’ language experience and their practice regarding the inclusion of pupils’ home languages at school, ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken in three professional development sessions. In the three individual case studies chosen for analysis in this paper, we found clear indications of links between the participants’ experiences with language, their language attitudes and their depictions of their pedagogical practice regarding migration-related multilingualism. The prevalence of different languages in the participants’ everyday lives seemed to be closely linked to their willingness to include their pupils’ home languages in their teaching. However, it would be overly simplistic to conclude that multilingual staff are better able than their monolingual peers to adapt their practice in this way. We observed that, above all, the participants’ emotional associations with language and the meaning they attached to their experiences appeared to influence their perceptions of their ability to incorporate different languages into school life.

Keywords:

• Language experience
• multilingual education
• home languages
• primary school education
• teacher development
• language attitudes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term migration-related multilingualism is used not only with reference to the languages spoken by people who have themselves migrated to Germany, but also their children, grandchildren etc. who grow up speaking these languages.

2. Ad hoc translation from German, in the following: t.f.G.

3. While some excerpts contain direct quotes from the participants, the nature of participant observation means that in many cases, what is said is described rather than directly transcribed.

4. All quotations and excerpts from accounts translated from German by the author.

5. All names of schools and persons are pseudonyms.