Workshop on pre-service teachers’ subjective perspectives on multilingualism and multilingual teaching practices

9 October 2024

Photo: Hanne Brandt

In late July 2024, Dr. Hanne Brandt (University of Hamburg), Prof. Xiuchuan Lu (Fudan University), and Dr. Sue Ollerhead (Macquarie University)— who are conducting a comparative study of (novice) teachers’ understandings and beliefs regarding the use of multilingual pedagogies – gathered for a three-day workshop at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hamburg. Supported by the MQ-FU-HAM trilateral strategic partnership, this workshop marked the first in-person meeting for the three researchers, all members of the Next Generation Literacies Network.

The aim of their project is to develop and pretest an instrument to measure different dimensions of (pre-service) teachers' understandings, beliefs, and practices in relation to linguistic and cultural diversity in K-12 settings across Hamburg, Sydney, and Shanghai. Following a virtual kick-off and several online meetings, this in-person gathering allowed the researchers to deepen their understanding of the education systems, teacher training programs and linguistic diversity in the three countries – an important basis for their collaboration moving forward. A highlight of the workshop was the in-depth exploration of Q-methodology – a particularly promising approach to systematically investigating teachers’ subjectivities regarding multilingualism and multilingual teaching practices. Q-methodology also holds potential as a pedagogical tool, fostering critical self-reflection processes among (pre-service) teachers about their approaches to dealing with multilingualism in subject teaching and contributing to their professional growth and development.  The project members look forward to reconvening for a second workshop that will be held at Macquarie University in November 2024, where the instrument will be finalized.