Speakers
ABSTRACT
Japan is diversifying. While minority language speakers represent many geopolitically important languages in the classroom (MEXT, 2022), English remains prioritized as the (sole) language of international communication, and teacher training continues to emphasize surface-level English ability (Pearce, 2025). This can potentially deprive pre-service teachers of opportunities to develop the plurilingual literacy (Coste et al., 2009) necessary to engage with diverse learners.
Within this context, the present study explores how multimodal polyethnography (Olt & Teman, 2019) was adopted both as a research method and as a (self-)training tool for two pre-service teachers. Analyses of longitudinal discussions on plurilingualism, grounded in visual linguistic autobiographies (Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2024), and centered on shared experiences as learners and as pre- and in-service teachers, serve as a lens to explore the developing plurilingual stances (Marshall & Moore, 2018) of the researcher-participants.
The discussion centers on how polyethnography can enhance pre-service teachers’ ability to identify teachable aspects of their own and others’ plurilingual competence (Coste et al., 2009) in a way that can give recognition to other-language minorities through inclusive practice, while also contributing to their primary role as English teachers in diversifying classrooms, particularly in a world in which most English speakers are second-language users.
KEYWORDS
Plurilingualism, polyethnography, linguistic diversity, teacher (self-)training
| TITLE | Exploring Pre-Service Teachers' Plurilingualism through Polyethnography |
|---|---|
| RELEVANT SIG | Teacher Development |
| FORMAT | Research-oriented Oral Face-to-face presentation (25 minutes, including Q&A) |
