Collective teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism in Maltese primary education

Abstract

Traditionally bilingual Maltese school populations are increasingly linguistically diverse, due to intensified migration flows. To shed light on central issues to be addressed by policy makers, school administrators, researchers and teacher trainers, collective beliefs of Maltese primary school teachers regarding their conceptual understanding and pedagogical actions concerning multilingualism are investigated. Through the application of Q methodology and focus group interviews, data from twenty-one in-service teachers from six different colleges were collected. Using inverted factor analysis, three factors were extracted for each of the components (understanding and pedagogy). Detailed narratives for each group of collective teachers’ beliefs were described and supplemented with teachers’ validating comments. Findings indicate that having a positive understanding of multilingualism does not necessarily imply positive pedagogical beliefs and vice versa. In Malta’s inherently bilingual education system, teachers tend to accept and welcome children’s languages in their classrooms and encourage the learning of additional languages. However, possibly due to a lack of adequate training on the subject, there is scepticism regarding whether and how to effectively draw on multilingualism in the classroom. Additionally, the need arises for more teacher autonomy and agency to make decisions regarding classroom language practices, and for a more comprehensive Maltese national language education policy.