Beliefs towards Multilingual Education: EFL Teachers vs Parents

Within the new multilingual situation found in educational settings, the investigation of attitudes towards multilingualism constitutes a key element (Safont, 2007). However, research on teachers’ beliefs towards multilingual education is scarce (Heyder & Schädlich, 2014; Arocena, Cenoz & Gorter, 2015), whereas the investigation of parents’ beliefs has even received less attention (Griva & Chouvarda, 2012; Safont, 2015). As far as we know, no previous research has compared the beliefs of parents and EFL teachers in the Valencian Community (Spain) in which two official languages (Spanish and Catalan) coexist in both society and education, as well as English as the main additional language offered in Valencian schools. Therefore, the main aim of the present paper is to analyse and compare EFL teachers’ and parents’ beliefs towards multilingualism in the Valencian region. 20 participants took part in the study who were divided into two groups: EFL teachers (n=10) and parents (n=10). Participants were required to complete a questionnaire on beliefs towards multilingual education. Results show that both groups of participants displayed positive beliefs towards multilingualism, even though teachers gave the most multilingual answers with the exception of several aspects in which parents’ expressed a more multilingual point of view. Nevertheless, monolingual thoughts and cultural stereotypes were also noticed in the study. Hence, more teachers’ training on multilingual education is required to foster a more multilingual Valencian educational system.

Authored by
Gema Gayete
Publication type
Journal article
Year
2022
Editorial/Journal
ForLingua
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