Towards an International Competency Model for Teaching Multilingual Learners in Content Classrooms

• In Event: 72.040 - International Perspectives on Teacher Preparation for Second Language Learners

Abstract

Objectives: Increasingly, teachers must be able to support second language (L2) learners’ academic language development in reference to subject-specific requirements (Schleppegrell, 2010). There is, ergo, a need for the development of teachers’ L2 teaching competencies to be already implemented in regular teacher education (Commins & Miramontes, 2006; de Jong & Harper, 2005) to improve the teaching and learning opportunities for both L2 students and their teachers. This has led to the development and design of learning opportunities for L2 teaching in general teacher education programs in Europe, the USA and Canada. However, there is a lack of uniformity in approach to the design and implementation of these learning opportunities and there is still a need for empirically based standards for pre-service teacher education to clearly formulate which competencies are needed for the adequate facilitation of second language learning in the mainstream classroom (Lucas & Grinberg, 2008). Therefore, this collaborative research between researchers in Germany and the U.S. seeks to learn from the approaches, successes and challenges across the two contexts in terms of mainstream teacher preparation for L2 learners in order to improve opportunity and equity for L2 learners and their teachers internationally.

Conceptual Framework: Grant and Graue (1997) argue that critical literature reviews provide useful insights into current and past educational research practices and provoke “new and different analyses, inspire new visions, [and] invigorate debate” (p. 1). Additionally, Lather (1999) describes the ways a literature review can be a useful critique that interprets and unpacks a problem as well as situates it historically and methodologically. Our critical literature review and subsequent analysis has been conceptualized around these perspectives and seeks to answer the following research questions: What does the research on preparing teachers to work with L2 learners in the US and Germany say? What are the legal provisions regarding teaching L2 learners in mainstream classrooms in Germany and the US? What differences and similarities can be seen?

Methods and Data Sources: We conducted a literature review of the research on the preparation of mainstream content teachers in both the US and Germany to work with L2 learners as well as analyzed university curricula and legal provisions regarding teacher preparation in universities in Germany and the US (focusing on the two largest states in each country, Nordrhein-Westfalen and California).

Results: Despite the differing sociocultural and political contexts of the two countries, our study reveals more similarities than differences in our field. Equity issues regarding whose multilingualism is seen from an additive perspective and whose multilingualism is viewed from a subtractive perspective exist in both contexts. Additionally, resistance to integrating language and content development into the mainstream classrooms exists in both contexts as well.

Scholarly Significance: Our study demonstrates the increasing efforts in both countries to focus on preparing teachers to work with L2 learners, but highlights the still insufficient empirical base to determine best practices or potential standards in either context. Further, our study suggests next steps in research and collaboration both nationally and internationally.

Authors

• Svenja Hammer, Leuphana Universitat Luneburg

• Kara Mitchell Viesca, University of Colorado - Denver