Promoting multilingualism
Becoming aware of pupils’ linguistic diversity and gaining pedagogical expertise to encourage multilingualism and language acquisition of German as a foreign and second language (DaF/DaZ) are key requirements for prospective teachers1. DThe demanding high-grade transfer of the theoretical approach within academic teacher training into tangible teaching environments is frequently however left to the student teachers themselves2.
Collaborative research projects
‘What is translanguaging?’
Over a number of years, our Teacher Translanguaging Camps in 2021–2024 created a community of practice5, which is intended to enable student teachers to engage in multi-perspective, research-based confrontation with multilingualism and actively put translanguaging to the test6, 7 in line with Internationalisation at Home. The Camp in 2021 involving Professor Ofelia García focused on ‘What is Translanguaging?’.
Workshops dealt with topics including ‘Action areas of the multilingual school’ and ‘Linguistic diversity in the classroom’. For the Camp in 2022 we were able to attract Professor Li Wei who gave a lecture and led a discussion on the topic of ‘Translanguaging, Language and Education’. Accompanying workshops dealt with the furtherance of multilingual skills and intercultural learning environments.
The Camp in 2023 involved prestigious experts such as Professor Gogolin and Professor Rösch speaking about current developments in the debate surrounding multilingualism8 and literary multilingualism in teaching. Workshops dealt with facets of multilingualism that can promote linguistic diversity in an educational context.
Albeit firstly the semester-straddling class on research-based learning in topics involving language awareness and translanguaging, and secondly the Teacher Translanguaging Camps as a community of practice are to be understood as distinctly independent activities in promoting Internationalisation at Home, their realisation revealed clear potential synergies between these two formats.