The Multilingual Classroom in Primary Education in the Basque Country and Friesland: Beliefs of Teachers and Their Language Practices. A Research Report
Author: Arocena, Eli
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Uncommonly Taught Languages,Interviews,Teacher Attitudes,Language Teachers,Elementary School Teachers,Geographic Regions,Teaching Methods,Foreign Countries,Multilingualism,Comparative Analysis,Language Usage,Language of Instruction,Institutional Characteristics,Research Methodology,Language Planning,Teacher Collaboration,Parent Influence,Second Language Instruction,Native Language Instruction,Teacher Characteristics,Spanish,Indo European Languages,Information Technology,Comparative Education,Bilingualism,English (Second Language)

The project &quot;The educational value of various aspects of multilingualism in the classroom of the Basque Country and of Friesland&quot; concerns a comparative study of the languages in the schools in the Basque Autonomous Community and in the Province of Friesland. It is part of the agreement between the general administration of the Basque Autonomous Community (Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture) and the Fryske Akademy (Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning). The current report is the outcome of a study about teachers in the multilingual classroom in primary education, which was carried out under a specific agreement covering the period January-December 2012. The report discusses the experiences and the needs of language teachers in 19 primary schools in the Basque Country and Friesland based on 56 interviews with teachers of the two highest grades and with some headmasters. For this study the following two main research questions were formulated: (1) Which language use practices and language teaching strategies for the different languages are applied by the primary school teachers? and (2) Which challenges and needs do teachers face in the multilingual classroom of primary education? The report is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 includes the objectives of the report and an outline of the other chapters. Chapter 2 provides a background description of education in the Basque Country and the province of Friesland. Chapter 3 describes the design of the study and the data collection process. Chapter 4 describes the characteristics of the participating schools and the teachers according to different relevant for this study. Chapters 5 and 6 are the core chapters for the discussion of the results. Chapter 5 presents the opinions of the teachers on the teaching of two or more languages, including subchapters on language policy, language aims and languages in the curriculum. It also comprises the importance of languages versus other subjects, the place of language in the curriculum and collaboration among teachers. Further topics dealt with are language in practice, and a discussion of methods, resources and strategies for language teaching, wishes to teach languages differently and language testing and reporting. Chapter 6 includes the results on the language related beliefs of the teachers with subchapters on language learning, advantages and disadvantages of multilingualism, needs of teachers, influences of parents, technology and society, the medium of instruction, different approaches to language teaching and successful language education. Chapter 7 covers some ideas on teaching languages differently and a &quot;Golden tip&quot; these experienced teachers would like to give to beginning teachers. Finally, chapter 8 contains a summary and discusses some conclusions. There the most interesting aspects of this report are reviewed and possible implications for future research are presented. The interview protocol is appended.