The development of initial teacher education focusing on multilingualisms: the innovative approach of Luxembourg

in ForumSprache (2011), 5(Ausgabe 05 / 2011), 59-78

This paper provides an overview of the innovative initial teacher education program ‘Bachelor en Sciences de l’Education’, which was launched in 2005 at the University of Luxembourg. Facing the challenges ... [more ▼]

This paper provides an overview of the innovative initial teacher education program ‘Bachelor en Sciences de l’Education’, which was launched in 2005 at the University of Luxembourg. Facing the challenges of a traditional multilingual curriculum, Luxembourg’s teaching professionals are facing multiple multilingualisms on a daily basis, stemming from diversified media-input, migration, commuting of parents and/or children and the divergent values attributed to languages within the national context. Therefore, teachers (in focus here: pre-primary, primary, lower secondary level) need to develop concepts, skills and tools for dealing with the realities of language and the learning of languages from a language integrated perspective. The paper presents the transdisciplinary architecture of the supportive and challenging initial teacher education (ITE) learning culture, i.e. the cultural-historical and sociocultural frameworks of the collaborative study approach and the innovative spaces for dialogue, meaning making and learning across boundaries. First hand experiences from the implementation of the program will elucidate horizontal forms of learning in a specific multilingual and multimodal ‘learning-for-teaching’ activity. [less ▲]