Key teacher and classroom factors that predict students’ language and literacy skills in multilingual contexts - findings from a multi-country study

• In Event: Language of instruction transitions: factors that predict multilingual literacy acquisition and cross-linguistic skills transfer from four countries

Proposal

Teacher and classroom characteristics are critical to the effectiveness of teaching and learning foundational language and literacy skills in any language, and thus to language of instruction effectiveness. We identify three primary factors at the classroom/teacher level that the literature has connected as being important for language and literacy acquisition in one more language. These are (1) classroom and teacher factors tailored for multilingual literacy acquisition (specifically teachers’ language and instructional competency and attitudes), (2) classroom language environment and usage, and (3) availability and quality of teaching and learning materials.


Teacher competencies of interest include at least three components: 1) general pedagogical knowledge, 2) specific pedagogical knowledge of teaching bilingual/multilingual learners how to read, and 3) teachers’ reading and writing and language proficiency levels in each of the language(s) they are expected to teach. In addition to teacher competency and knowledge, specific teacher behaviors are also significantly related to learning outcomes (Roelofs & Sanders, 2007).


Among the classroom factors thought to be most important are the availability and use of quality print and teaching and learning materials (Alidou et al., 2006; Opoku-Amankwa et al., 2015), among other factors.


The issue of language time and exposure concerns, among others, quantity and quality of the language used in the classroom. Numerous scholars argue that the early introduction and exposure to L2 is less important than the development of the L1 and key foundational reading skills, which transfer across languages and aid students in L2 language and reading acquisition (Wolff, 2011; Heugh, 2011; Cummins, 2000; Malone, 2016).


In light of this research, our study seeks to answer the following research question:
How do the following key classroom/teacher factors predict multilingual literacy outcomes? What is the relative strength of the relationships?
Teacher knowledge (language proficiency)
Teacher attitudes
Teacher practices (pedagogical, linguistic)
Classroom language usage patterns
Availability, quality, and use of TLMs




We use a quantitative, multi-case research design and cross-sectional sample of 1,200 students per country in 60 schools in a random, stratified sample. We also conducted 120 teacher surveys and observations to collect data on the teacher and classroom characteristics. We will conduct a multi-level regression analysis to test how these factors, accounting for various student-level characteristics, predict students’ biliteracy and bilingual proficiency. Outcome variables of interest include students decoding, language proficiency, and reading comprehension across two tested languages.


Data was collected in May and June 2023, and data cleaning and analysis are currently ongoing. Analysis will be completed at the country level and then a cross-country comparative synthesis will be conducted. Findings will present the results for each of the country cases as well as the cross-country synthesis.

Author

• Leih Maruss Sinsay-Villanueva, Philippine Institute for Development Studies