Using Functional Multilingualism to Close Attainment Gaps and Promote Intercultural Understanding Among British Preservice Teachers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: STEM Education in a Globalized World: International Perspectives on Critical Teacher Education for Diversity

Abstract

Objectives
Teachers in schools in England are expected to promote ‘the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject’ (Teachers’ Standards, 2013) for academic and communication purposes that is perceived as part of the strategy for promoting national cohesion. In 2011, central funding to support multilingual students was delegated to schools and regional government with no requirement that it should be allocated to support English and Another Language (EAL) students and since that time numbers of EAL learners have risen. This policy scenario has led to attainment gaps and surveys of pre-service teachers that regularly identify that they feel ill prepared for teaching EAL students.

Theoretical framework
This presentation draws on Heugh’s (2018) description of Functional Multilingualism to identify an assets-based approach to the language resources of multilingual pre-service teachers. Functional Multilingualism acknowledges English as the language of instruction considered as the vertical language component but not at the expense of the horizontal component of multilingualism that promotes opportunities to use and translate between the varied language resources of the pre-service teachers and their students.

Method & Data
The data was collected in a two-year longitudinal study with pre-service teachers in a London university. Many of the candidates were multilingual that meant that writing in English was a key part in closing the achievement gap in university assessments and part of developing everyday professional communicative repertoires (Rhymes, 2014) during school placements.
After an analysis of course assignments, a purposive sample of students and tutors were interviewed focussing on how their written assignments had contributed to closing the attainment gap in university and in helping candidates to develop professional coping strategies in relation to intercultural understanding during their placements.

Results & scholarly significance of the study
I will present examples of the way opportunities can be designed to create language awareness amongst pre-service teachers and how opportunities can be created in mathematics classes that allow students to use and translate between other languages and English. I will go onto discuss how, under the umbrella of inclusive assessment policies, written academic assignments including the use of photos (Cummins, 2007) and auto-ethnographic writing (Choi, 2016) can close the achievement gap for multilingual pre-service teachers, as well as provide models for multilingual education and the promotion of intercultural understanding in their placement schools and future careers.

Author

• Alan Benson, London Metropolitan University