This paper describes teacher educators’ understanding of language for classroom communication in higher education. We argue that teacher educators who are aware of their personal practical knowledge of language have a better understanding of their students’ language use and provide better support for knowledge construction. Personal practical knowledge originates from teachers’ professional practice and is based on their past experience, current awareness and future expectation. Data from focus group interviews with teacher educators (N = 35) were used for content analysis. Findings demonstrate an emerging conceptualization resulting in two language modalities of personal practical knowledge, speci ed as: ‘language-sensitive and interpersonally oriented’ and ‘language-focused and pedagogically oriented.’The insights contribute to building a professional practical knowledge base of language and communication-oriented teaching.
Worldwide, pupils with migrant backgrounds do not participate in school STEM subjects as successfully as their peers. Migrant pupils’ subject-specific language proficiency lags behind, which hinders participation and learning. Primary teachers experience difficulty in teaching STEM as well as promoting required language development. This study investigates how a professional development program (PDP) focusing on inclusive STEM teaching can promote teacher learning of language-promoting strategies (promoting interaction, scaffolding language and using multilingual resources). Participants were five case study teachers in multilingual schools in the Netherlands (N = 2), Sweden (N = 1) and Norway (N = 2), who taught in primary classrooms with migrant pupils. The PDP focused on three STEM units (sound, maintenance, plant growth) and language-promoting strategies. To trace teachers’ learning, three interviews were conducted with each of the five teachers (one after each unit). The teachers also filled in digital logs (one after each unit). The interviews showed positive changes in teachers’ awareness, beliefs and attitudes towards language-supporting strategies. However, changes in practice and intentions for practice were reported to a lesser extent. This study shows that a PDP can be an effective starting point for teacher learning regarding inclusive STEM teaching. It also illuminates possible enablers (e.g., fostering language awareness) or hinderers (e.g., teachers’ limited STEM knowledge) to be considered in future PDP design.
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In this epilogue, I take a teaching practice and teacher education perspective on complexity in Instructed Second Language Acquisition. I take the stance that it is essential to understand if and how linguistic complexity relates to learning challenges, what the implications are for language pedagogy, and how this challenges the role of the teacher. Research shows that differences in task complexity may lead to differences in linguistic complexity in language learners’ speech or writing. Different tasks (e.g. descriptive vs narrative) and different modes (oral vs written) may lead to different types and levels of complexity in language use. On the one hand, this is a challenge for language assessment, as complexity in language performance may be affected by task characteristics. On the other hand, it is an opportunity for language teaching: using a diversity of tasks, modes and text types may evoke and stretch lexically and syntactically complex language use. I maintain that it is essential for teachers to understand that it is at least as important to aim for development in complexity as it is to aim for development in accuracy. Namely, that ‘errors’ in language learning are part of the deal: complex tasks lead to complex language use, including lexical and syntactical errors, but they are a necessary prerequisite for language development.
"My PD-trajectory aims to contribute to knowledge development in the domains of artacademic institutions, the queer/drag/HIV community, and advocacy as context for queer safety. Emphasis will be placed on how to write, document, design, and archive elements in order to shape language to actively comprehend each other’s affinities, aspirations, and propel visibility for emancipatory realities by creating empathy among differences. Incorporating the theorization of new terms such as “gift dragonomy” and “dragging as grafting” based on drag mothering knowledge will play an active role in preserving subcultural language while avoiding ‘representational fixity.”
