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Age as a factor in Russian EFL teacher attitudes towards literature in language education 1. INTRODUCTION As Maley (2001) points out, the role of literature in the classical, humanist tradition of teaching languages was carried over into the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context in the early 20 th century and overall has continued ever since. Gilroy and Parkinson (1996) write, for example, that literature has always occupied a prominent place in EFL for many learners, noting that English textbooks in South Asia are sometimes simply a collection of literary texts. Maley, likewise, observes that literature remains essential to the teaching of language in India. However, as Carter (2007, p. 6) notes, literature "disappeared from the language curriculum" from the 1940s to the 1960s due to, as Maley describes it, a shift in focus from educating a small scholarly élite to mass-producing functionally competent users of English, where literature's 'deviant' language (Gilroy & Parkinson, 1996, p. 213) was deemed unsuitable for language learning. In the last three decades, however, the use of literature in foreign language (FL) education has seen renewed interest, with the publication of several resource books for teachers both in the UK (e.g.

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Multilingualism has witnessed growing interest as a subject of academic study and as a state to aspire to for many of the world's citizenry. In tandem with this growing interest, countries around the world have started to implement foreign language curricula at schools that seek to prepare the coming generations to thrive in an increasingly multilingual global environment. In this respect, language teachers are likely to play a pivotal role in promoting the learning of multiple languages among students, with their beliefs about multilingualism informing their practices. This study reports on the beliefs of 460 secondary school teachers of English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese in Norway and Russia regarding the benefits of being or becoming multilingual, the affordances of multilingual teachers, and the promotion of multilingualism in their respective countries. The findings indicated statistically significant differences between the participants based on the number of languages they taught and, to some extent, their country of residence. The observed differences hold important implications for teacher education programs and initiatives promoting the use of multilingualism as a resource in language education.

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In response to the need for quantitative instruments that can provide insights into language teacher multilingualism on a large scale, this article discusses the development of the MULTITEACH questionnaire via a five-stage process that consisted of a critical review of research on teacher multilingualism, seminar and practitioner consultations, a pilot study, reliability tests, and principle component analysis (PCA), followed by a larger study involving 460 multilingual language teachers and factor analysis to confirm the PCA. The questionnaire thus validated provides a comprehensive quantitative measure of assessing language teacher multilingualism across multiple foreign languages and in diverse contexts. A discussion of the factors influencing teacher multilingualism has also been included based on the findings from the larger study of 460 multilingual teachers.

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In light of the growing importance placed by states on the use of authentic materials in foreign language education programs, this study explored the literary content found in the 18 English, French, and German ministry-approved language textbooks used in upper-secondary schools in Russia. The study identified 150 literary texts, following which it compared how English, French, and German textbooks differed in their approaches to incorporating literature. The findings indicate significant differences between textbooks across languages, as well as some similarities. The study discusses the implications of the findings for learner achievement and motivation, and offers recommendations regarding what can be done to incorporate literature in ways that can deepen learner interest and engagement.