Multilingual pedagogies in first versus foreign language contexts: a cross-country study of language teachers

Abstract

Abstract This article reports on a study that used the online MULTITEACH questionnaire to examine the relationship between the multilingual pedagogies 111 language teachers, employed in upper-secondary schools in Norway and Russia, reported implementing, their beliefs about how multilingualism benefitted students and teachers, and their self-assessed ability to teach language aspects and skills. The study also investigated whether sociobiographical variables and participants’ language habits outside of work affected their beliefs about multilingualism benefitting their students and implementation of multilingual pedagogies. The findings revealed that participants utilized multilingual pedagogies least frequently when teaching in first language contexts and that those who used foreign languages outside of work applied such pedagogies more frequently than participants who did not. Moreover, their beliefs about multilingualism benefitting their students were positively predicted by their beliefs about multilingualism benefitting teachers and negatively predicted by their support of the monolingual approach to language learning and teaching.