Although Sweden has historically been a multilingual society, Swedish education and teacher education have generally reflected a monolingual mindset. Furthermore, Swedish as the main instructional language in primary, secondary, and tertiary education dominates classrooms, despite pupils and teachers often having knowledge of other languages. With a monolingual orientation to education, multilingual pupils are often learning English through their second language (Swedish) and may not be allowed access to all of their linguistic resources in their schooling. Thus, there is a need to increase awareness and knowledge among pre-service teachers about how to work with multilingual pupils. One way to address this is to incorporate translanguaging as a pedagogy in the English language classroom.
While translanguaging research has shown many potential benefits, little is known about how translanguaging as addressed in teacher education is enacted in the classroom. The case study presented in this session therefore explores how translanguaging theory and pedagogy informs teaching, addressing the following questions:
· What translanguaging practices do pre-service English teachers report implementing in the Swedish Years 4-6 classroom?
· What discourses are visible in pre-service English teachers’ perspectives on translanguaging in the Swedish Years 4-6 classroom?
Data were collected from an online survey and semi-structured interviews with participants recruited from among two cohorts of pre-service teachers enrolled in a Swedish university’s work-study program that trains teachers for Years 4-6 teacher qualification. The cohorts in question have completed an English course in which translanguaging has been addressed in readings, seminar discussions, and tasks.
In this roundtable session, we aim to facilitate a critical discussion of how translanguaging is understood and implemented in teacher education for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The presentation will conclude with a number of questions for further reflection, which will also serve as the basis for the discussion to follow.
2023.