Researching Educational Practices, Teacher Education and Professional Development for Early Language Learning

Recognising the urgent need for further progress in teacher education and preparation for the success of early language learning, this volume presents research on the education and professional development of teachers, exploring how they can foster multilingual spaces in the early years of formal education. Investigating a range of European contexts, the book examines the effectiveness of teacher education for early language learning, covering contexts of multilingualism and English as a foreign language (EFL) with children under the age of 12. Split into three parts examining research into teacher practices, education, and curricula, chapters cover emerging topics such as teacher education and local linguistic encounters; global citizenship and transcultural education; linguistic landscapes and visual narratives; mixed-age classrooms and literacy skills; pre-service and in-service teacher education; and teacher and teacher educator competencies and beliefs. Offering a unique combination of foci on teachers, teacher education and classroom practice, this book will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of early language education, multilingualism, EFL and teacher education more broadly. Student teachers and teachers working in early language learning contexts may also find the volume of interest. Introduction, Chapters 7, 11, 12 and 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Sandie Mourão is a research fellow at Nova University Lisbon, Portugal. Carolyn Leslie is an Assistant Professor at Nova University Lisbon, Portugal.

Author biographies Acknowledgements Introduction Sandie Mourão and Carolyn Leslie Part 1: Researching Teacher Practices Chapter 1. The transformative power of local language encounters: Implications for teacher education Malika Pedley, David Roxburgh, Lorna Anderson and Joanna McPake Chapter 2. An investigation into linguistically and culturally responsive practices in early childhood education in Iceland Hanna Ragnarsdóttir Chapter 3. Teachers' perceptions, classroom practices and needs in developing students' FL literacy skill: A transnational study Mateja Dagarin Fojkar, Katarzyna Brzosko-Barratt and Raquel Fernández-Fernández Chapter 4. Mixed-age primary classroom foreign language teaching: Implications for teacher education TomáS Kos Chapter 5. Early English language learning: Exploring pedagogical practices in a pre-primary EFL class in Catalonia through systematic observation Alexandra Vraciu and Elisabet Pladevall-Ballester Part 2: Researching Teacher Education Chapter 6. Exploring multi and translingual perspectives through dominant language constellation artefacts in teacher education: Shifting perspectives Nayr Correia Ibrahim Chapter 7. Preparing teachers for multilingualism in Norwegian early childhood education and care provision through student active learning methods Elena Tkachenko, Nina Gram Garmann and Anna Sara H. Romøren Chapter 8. Climbing the ladder of global citizenship: The discourses and practices of pre-service primary English teachers in Portugal Mónica Lourenço Chapter 9. Linguistic landscapes as a resource in language teacher education Jana Roos and Howard Nicholas Chapter 10. Teaching-based master dissertations to support reflective practices when using story in early English language learning Annett Kaminski Chapter 11. In-service teacher education in English: Theorizing and critical reflection as tools for transforming teaching practices Ingebjørg Mellegård Part 3: Researching Teacher Education Curricula Chapter 12. Professional learning competences and tasks in primary English teacher education curricula in Portugal Flávia Vieira, Sandie Mourão, Ana Isabel Andrade and Ana Raquel Simões Chapter 13. Language ideologies at play in early childhood teacher education: A study of syllabi and textbooks Gunhild Tomter Alstad Chapter 14. Looking at different formats of professional development in the context of EFL teacher education in CLIL programmes: An exercise in reflective practice Ana Halbach Afterword Index