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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 899

Part of Session 197: Urban multilingualism in a context of international mobility (Other abstracts in this session)

Becoming a cosmopolitan, language teacher in an era of international mobility: Voices of multilingual student teachers negotiating identities, linguistic practices, and representations in complex, urban spaces

Authors: Byrd Clark, Julie Sue; Vanthyune, Adrienne
Submitted by: Byrd Clark, Julie Sue (The University of Western Ontario, Canada)

Canada is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse countries in the world with immigration accounting for two thirds of the population growth. Despite immigration, hyper-diversity, increased mobility, and the emergence of trans-global identities, official educational policies and curriculum have not expanded to include the explicit development of multilingual repertoires or societal multilingualism in classrooms. In Canada (as elsewhere), federal initiatives are often directed at language teachers to contribute to producing effective human capital (Byram, 2009); in other words, well developed, citizens of the world in this new knowledge economy. Nevertheless, official language policies in Canada continue to reproduce solutions based on the language-nation-state ideology (Hobsbawm, 1990) reminiscent of the 1960s and 70s (e.g. one language, one people). As such, many French as a Second Language (FSL) university and teacher education programs struggle with the tensions between finding ways to promote diversity and having to operate under an ideological competence-skills based model of language (Chomsky, 1966). This model views language learning as the mastery of “unitary, determinate practices that people can be trained in” (Fairclough, 1992:44), rather than viewing linguistic repertoires as plural and multidimensional, shifting in different social contexts.  Thus, this presentation draws upon the findings of an on-going longitudinal multi-site ethnography, examining the practices of multilingual youth in Canada and France, who are in the process of becoming French language teachers and their conceptions of multilingualism and language teaching in complex urban spaces, particularly in relation to the notion of cosmopolitanism (Sassen, 2009).  Our research questions sought to address the following: What place does French hold in the student teachers’ lives (in both Canada and France)? How do they envision teaching and learning as well as representations of French? And, what do they deem to be ideologically appropriate linguistic capital and multilingual and multicultural competence? Drawing upon a sociocultural, reflexive ethnographic approach (Byrd Clark, 2009), we explore the experiences of multilingual student teachers of FSL as they participate in a complex, virtual space (e.g. using Google Groups, and Adobe Connect) connecting a group of FSL student teachers in Ontario and a group of FLE (Français langue étrangère) student teachers in France. Through the use of new technologies, we can observe how their notions of multilingualism and cosmopolitanism are negotiated and constructed through language use. Findings further reveal that the use of new technologies have the potential to create spaces for the inclusion of complex linguistic practices and new identity performances where at the same time, student teachers discuss their understandings of what constitutes a professional language teacher and potentially challenge their own everyday practices and investments in certain representations of multilingualism. This study is significant in that it will provide a better understanding of what it means to be and become a multilingual French language teacher in a context of international mobility.