Schools across Europe are experiencing a growing number of multilingual pupils; however, teachers claim to be generally underprepared for dealing with this ever-increasing linguistic and cultural ...diversity. Initial teacher education often pays insufficient attention to multilingualism, thus there is a call for research on what pre-service teachers learn about the topic during training. Against this background, this small-scale exploratory study sets out to explore pre-service primary teachers’ (a) views of multilingualism in education in general, (b) experiences of multilingualism in education as trainee teachers, and (c) self-perceived knowledge and skills acquired and developed during training, in the context of the Netherlands. Based on 195 survey responses, descriptive statistical analyses indicate that the sampled pre-service primary teachers have slightly positive views of multilingualism in education, specifically regarding their opinions on the role of multilingualism in education, focusing on school and home languages, and their tolerance of multilingualism in the classroom and at school. A qualitative content analysis reveals that several pre-service primary teachers have had general experiences of teaching pupils with migrant backgrounds, such as in transition classes (Dutch:
), and of teaching pupils who communicate with each other only in their home languages. Challenges in teaching multilingual pupils are also reported, such as the implications of being unable to understand pupils’ home languages. Regarding their self-perceived knowledge and skills, the content analysis shows that some pre-service primary teachers in this study are aware of how to encourage collaboration between multilingual pupils to involve their languages in their learning, and have knowledge of language comparison and awareness approaches that can be implemented in multilingual classrooms. A concerning finding, however, is that according to pre-service primary teachers’ self-reported communication skills for multilingual pupils, there is a tendency to use simplified language, which may have a negative impact on pupils’ language development. These findings highlight the need for further research that employs a mixed-methods longitudinal approach to gain insights into the depth of knowledge and skills acquired during training and how views of multilingualism in education influence classroom practices. This study further reveals shortcomings of primary teacher education in the Netherlands regarding the topic of multilingualism, which are followed up by preliminary recommendations for improving training programmes; for instance, training institutions should aim to collaborate with more multilingual schools where pre-service teachers can gain first-hand practical experience.
In Bangladesh, school grounds are usually barren areas devoid of any designed features. This study explored children's, teachers' and parents' views of what would constitute an effective school ...ground for learning, socialising and playing at primary schools in rural Bangladesh. Working within the theory of behaviour settings to design school grounds, several methods were applied: focus groups with children, teachers and parents, a drawing session with children and a child-led/teacher supported model-making workshop. The results suggest that children want to connect with nature, to explore their environment, to challenge themselves, to be physically active and to socialise with friends. They also wanted their school ground to be more attractive. The parents highly valued gardening whereas teachers preferred an area with loose materials where the children could learn by themselves. None of these ideas were mutually exclusive and the subsequent design was able to incorporate elements from all groups.
Teachers' views about information and communication technology are a key affordance or barrier to classroom technology adoption and use. However, in determining factors that impact these views, much ...research has relied on variable-centered approaches that bifurcated teachers' views into mere positive or negative groups. Such approaches oversimplify key information that could serve educational authorities attempting to address low technology integration in schools. Therefore, this large-scale study employed a latent profile analysis with multilevel logistic regression analysis that aimed to (1) identify profiles of teachers' views of information and communication technologies for teaching and learning and (2) explore effects from teacher- and school-level variables on these profiles. Utilizing nationally generalizable data from 2079 full-time eighth-grade teachers from 150 different schools across South Korea from the International Computer and Information literacy study 2018, the analysis revealed five profiles of teachers' views: Indifferent, Skeptical, Ambivalent, Moderate, and Enthusiastic, with Moderate being the largest, and Highly Ambivalent and Indifferent the smallest. The findings from multilevel logistic regression analysis indicated numerous effects from teacher- and school-level antecedents and processes that matched each profile, highlighting school leaders’ ICT views. Notably, there were no effects from regional differences. Implications for leaders and policymakers are discussed in the context of professional development and reform policies.
•Profiles were: Enthusiastic, Skeptical, Moderate, Ambivalent, and Indifferent.•Positive views connected to ICT resources and collaboration.•Male and younger teachers were more likely to have positive views.•Professional development connected to lower negative views in the Skeptical profile.•Regional differences did not affect teachers' views, but principals' views did.
Musical activities foster children's social ability. However, the question remains whether professional music teachers consider musical training to have an influence on extra-musical abilities or ...only on the acquisition of musical skills. We conducted an online survey to collect open-ended responses regarding this question from over 2,000 music teachers in one of the biggest extracurricular fee-charging music school groups in Japan. Teachers' free descriptions were classified into non-cognitive skills, and frequently occurring words were extracted through text mining. The results showed that, although the primary goal of music teachers who provide fee-charging lessons may be to teach musical skills to their students, they were aware of the effects of music lessons on children's non-cognitive development. Our study's main findings include: (1) despite free-descriptions, 92% of teachers reported that children acquired extra-musical abilities, and 98% of these responses were categorized as non-cognitive skills, (2) the most common responses within non-cognitive skills were "collaboration," "task performance," and "engaging with others", and (3) there was a significant positive correlation between teaching experience and frequency of mentioning non-cognitive skills. Views on extra-musical abilities, which experienced music teachers especially had, may improve less-experienced teachers' perspectives on teaching as well as their social roles and occupational awareness.
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