Resumen de Teachers’ perspectives towards German language learning for multilingual pupils in pull-out classes

Sepideh Hassani, Kathrin Zupan, Margaret Vaughn, Susanne Schwab

• Gaining proficiency in the language of instruction takes time for pupils whose first language is a different one. School systems and teachers address this task by using a variety of methods across different educational settings. In Austria, a pull-out language support system was installed in 2018/19. In the current paper, 19 in-service teachers who work in language support classrooms within Viennese primary and secondary schools were interviewed about their attitudes about the language support programme. Results of the qualitative content analysis suggest that many of the teachers held strong attitudes that prioritised the use of German over other languages. Although some teachers recognised the value of their pupils’ diverse language abilities, findings suggest that many of the participants struggled to implement practices inclusive of pupils’ varied languages.