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

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.