Pixel International Conferences

In Finland, the number of multicultural and multilingual vocational school students has increased in recent years, which has not been taken into consideration in teacher education enough. Multilingualism is a growing feature in our society; hence teacher students need to be provided with adequate skills to encounter students from diverse cultural and linguistical backgrounds. In response to this need, Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education decided to fund DivEd-project[1]. The partners in the nationwide project are 6 universities and 2 universities of applied sciences. The aim of the DivEd-project is to find ways to prepare all teachers to work in the linguistically and culturally diverse world they live in, to develop and increase culturally sustaining and linguistically responsive pedagogy in Finland, increase awareness among Teacher Educators working with preservice teachers and to increase awareness and provide specific strategies to in-service teachers. As a framework, this study uses the linguistically and culturally sustainable teaching practices developed within the DivEd-project. The aim of this study is to presents vocational teacher educators’ and vocational teachers’ perceptions of multilingualism and multilingual educational practices. The participants of this study are vocational teacher educators and vocational teachers. The data were collected by digital surveys and focus group interviews. The data analysis was conducted through content analysis [2].  The preliminary findings indicate that teacher educators feel that they lack knowledge on linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy.  Moreover, they regard themselves in some extent incompetent in teaching multilingual and multicultural pedagogy for their vocational teacher students. On the other hand, both vocational teachers and teacher educators have positive attitude towards multilingualism and multiculturalism in general. Therefore, teachers experience they need more training regarding multicultural and multilingual knowledge, competences and suitable pedagogical methods for teaching students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds [3,4].  

Keywords: mulicultural, multilingual, teacher education.

References:

1. https://dived.fi/en/">https://dived.fi/en/
2. Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
3. Lucas, T. & Villegas, A.M. (2013) Preparing Linguistically Responsive Teachers: Laying the Foundation in Preservice Teacher Education, Theory Into Practice, 52:2, 98-109.
4. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.