Acceso usuarios
Myrto Michala, Peggy Manoli
The migrant and refugee influx worldwide and in Greece, particularly, in the last decade, has marked a shift towards culturally responsive pedagogies. Simultaneously, the 2021 national education reform has paved the way for inclusive practices in Greek formal education. Since teachers play a mediating role in the implementation of language education policy in schools, it is important to explore their language ideologies. In this context, the study used semi-structured interviews to examine eighteen secondary school teachers’ views regarding student L1 (first language) inclusion in formal education and their perceived practices, challenges, and recommendations for plurilingual education. Thematic analysis showed that teachers, although holding positive views towards students’ plurilingualism, were reluctant to fully exploit students’ linguistic repertoires, emphasising the dominant language learning to accelerate social inclusion. Moreover, the research findings revealed that language barriers were perceived as the greatest challenge in multilingual classrooms, while teachers reported using mostly translation practices to overcome them. Finally, teachers highlighted the need for professional development programmes to support instruction in multilingual educational contexts. The findings imply the need to update training programmes in the light of current research on plurilingualism to help educators apply more inclusive practices to cater for all students’ needs.
