Teacher Trainees’ Perspectives on Remote Instruction for Multilingual Learners of English

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift to virtual learning across many countries and school systems. It is worthwhile to examine the specific ways in which this shift is significant to teacher trainees preparing to work with multilingual learners (MLs). Considering the perspectives of teacher trainees preparing to teach MLs offers an opportunity to identify the questions and concerns that they are likely to have upon graduation. Examining these perspectives can also help to identify ways that teacher trainees can use virtual and remote teaching approaches more constructively. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of an educator preparation program focused on preparing trainees in content areas along with English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), with a focus on the perspectives of teacher trainees who worked with MLs through virtual and remote modalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper draws on data from an analysis of nine teacher trainees’ response journals and course assignments, and includes themes identified from the teacher trainees’ perceptions of virtual learning for MLs. The findings from the analysis revealed that teacher trainees emphasized the importance of establishing meaningful professional relationships in the virtual setting with their MLs, especially as a way to facilitate effective instruction and online classroom management. Participants also spoke about the importance of developing culturally responsive and sensitive instruction, and stressed the importance of engaging students and families in appropriate, linguistically accessible ways. Implications for future virtual instruction as well as teacher preparation are also discussed.

Learning and Teaching of English in the Multilingual Classroom: English Teachers’ Perspectives, Practices, and Purposes

“…This Special Issue compiles papers examining English teachers' perspectives, practices, and purposes on the current challenges in linguistically diverse classrooms. The ten contributions are grouped into four thematic (a) the first four articles study pre-and in-service teachers' perspectives on key aspects revolving around multilingual teaching and learning in the EAL classroom (Erling et al 2022;Hoppin et al 2023;Neokleous et al 2022;Tishakov and Tsagari 2022); (b) the next three focus on multilingual practices implemented in the classroom and their impact on promoting and enhancing students' English language skills (Ibrahim 2022;Kopečková and Poarch 2022;Schipor 2022); (c) the following two articles investigate pre-and in-service teachers' understanding of multilingualism and the factors that shape language teacher cognition (Christison 2023; Möller-Omrani and Sivertsen 2022); while (d) the last contribution focuses on teacher education policy documents and their coverage of linguistic diversity (Bonness et al 2022). The subsequent sections summarize the ten articles.…”