Abstract: Bilingual instruction/multilingual classroom; its effect on teacher identities

Educational research into bilingual, multilingual and plurilingual education has affirmed the benefits to students’ social and cognitive development in the creation of a learning environment valuing cultural difference and promoting language awareness (Blackledge and Creese, 2010; Cummins et al. 2005; García and Kleyn, 2016; Meier, 2014). However, relatively few research studies have focused on the complexities that impact a teacher’s professional identity as they adopt a bilingual / multilingual approach to teaching.

Many schools, particularly international schools, embrace a pedagogical approach which both explicitly and implicitly integrates bi/multilingual instruction, as well as language and cultural awareness into whole school classroom practice, curricula and policies. However, such a pedagogical approach rests on a set of assumptions concerning teacher’s values, beliefs and perceived competencies.

This unpublished paper, completed for a module in the pre-thesis stage of a Doctorate in Education at the University of Exeter, UK, documents a small-scale empirical study and its findings. Conducted in 2017, the study aimed to contribute to understanding the way in which a teacher’s identity is affected when adapting to bilingual instruction, as well as to raise awareness of the complexities of some of the challenges faced by a teacher in the multilingual classroom. It posed the following questions:

• How does teaching bilingually, and reflecting on this, affect a teacher’s perception of identity and self?
• How does teaching bilingually impact a teacher’s perception of student-teacher relationships within the classroom?

Findings showed that the experience of bilingual teaching altered the teacher’s perception of their professional identity, including a perceived diminished role as the expert, as well as doubts in their own language competence. However, it also resulted in an appreciation of the language learning experience for all involved and heightened social cohesion.

These findings, used to inform further research for the aforementioned EdD, invites discussion of professional identity negotiation within a multilingual classroom, the ways in which shifts in power positioning can benefit student agency and learning, and the role that initial teacher training programmes and in-service professional development opportunities plays in this identity negotiation.

Research Project file_Tanya Day Clarke