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Teacher Beliefs and Practices : Multilingualism in English Classrooms

Sundqvist, Pia ; Gyllstad, Henrik LU ; Källkvist, Marie LU orcid and Sandlund, Erica (2018) Exploring Language Education
Abstract
Recent statistics on language diversity among pupils in Swedish secondary school classrooms show that 24% have another L1 than Swedish. Thus, classrooms are multilingual spaces. In the English subject, an 'English Only' ideology dominates, where classrooms are exclusively English-medium, an ideology endorsed by educational policy, agencies like the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, and teacher educators (Källkvist, Gyllstad, Sandlund & Sundqvist, in press). However, there is no clear empirical evidence supporting such an ideology, and recently an 'English Mainly' alternative has been suggested (Corcoll López & González-Davies, 2016). Still, a best practice remains unexplored. The project presented here is aimed at researching ideology... (More)
Recent statistics on language diversity among pupils in Swedish secondary school classrooms show that 24% have another L1 than Swedish. Thus, classrooms are multilingual spaces. In the English subject, an 'English Only' ideology dominates, where classrooms are exclusively English-medium, an ideology endorsed by educational policy, agencies like the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, and teacher educators (Källkvist, Gyllstad, Sandlund & Sundqvist, in press). However, there is no clear empirical evidence supporting such an ideology, and recently an 'English Mainly' alternative has been suggested (Corcoll López & González-Davies, 2016). Still, a best practice remains unexplored. The project presented here is aimed at researching ideology and best practice in language-diverse English classrooms.

For the purpose of mapping teacher beliefs and practices relating to the use of English and other languages in English classrooms, a questionnaire aimed at targeting 6 relevant constructs was created and administered to a stratified, random sample of English teachers in years 6-9 across Sweden. Based on responses from 139 teachers (response rate: 43 %), results show that 66 % harbour beliefs that align with an 'English Only' ideology. Although 98 % report a general, positive outlook on multilingualism, 16-22 % state that multilingualism is a problem in either their school or teaching of English. Whereas 45 % reported that they often talk about how to teach in multilingual classrooms, only 15 % had received specific training by their employers. Implications of these and other results are discussed, together with the reliability and validity of the questionnaire itself as a measure of the targeted beliefs and practices. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
keywords
teacher beliefs, multilingualism, multilingual classrooms, ELT
conference name
Exploring Language Education
conference location
Stockholm, Sweden
conference dates
2018-06-18 - 2018-06-20
project
Multilingual Spaces? Language Practices in English Classrooms
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
724165df-b5d6-4f13-abba-84e2fc13cd57
date added to LUP
2018-06-21 08:23:48
date last changed
2019-03-08 03:20:43
@misc{724165df-b5d6-4f13-abba-84e2fc13cd57,
  abstract     = {{Recent statistics on language diversity among pupils in Swedish secondary school classrooms show that 24% have another L1 than Swedish. Thus, classrooms are multilingual spaces. In the English subject, an 'English Only' ideology dominates, where classrooms are exclusively English-medium, an ideology endorsed by educational policy, agencies like the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, and teacher educators (Källkvist, Gyllstad, Sandlund &amp; Sundqvist, in press). However, there is no clear empirical evidence supporting such an ideology, and recently an 'English Mainly' alternative has been suggested (Corcoll López &amp; González-Davies, 2016). Still, a best practice remains unexplored. The project presented here is aimed at  researching ideology and best practice in language-diverse English classrooms.<br>
<br>
For the purpose of mapping teacher beliefs and practices relating to the use of English and other languages in English classrooms, a questionnaire aimed at targeting 6 relevant constructs was created and administered to a stratified, random sample of English teachers in years 6-9 across Sweden. Based on responses from 139 teachers (response rate: 43 %), results show that 66 % harbour beliefs that align with an 'English Only' ideology. Although 98 % report a general, positive outlook on multilingualism, 16-22 % state that multilingualism is a problem in either their school or teaching of English. Whereas 45 % reported that they often talk about how to teach in multilingual classrooms, only 15 % had received specific training by their employers. Implications of these and other results are discussed, together with the reliability and validity of the questionnaire itself as a measure of the targeted beliefs and practices.}},
  author       = {{Sundqvist, Pia and Gyllstad, Henrik and Källkvist, Marie and Sandlund, Erica}},
  keywords     = {{teacher beliefs; multilingualism; multilingual classrooms; ELT}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  title        = {{Teacher Beliefs and Practices : Multilingualism in English Classrooms}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}