Using language learning biographies of newly immigrated students in teacher training

Design and evaluation of a learning opportunity for student teachers

Abstract

This article presents the design and evaluation of a learning opportunity from a seminar for student teachers at the University of Kassel. The seminar was designed to provide student teachers with possibilities to learn something about the diversity of newly immigrated students. In this case, diversity includes language and culture. For this purpose, the student teachers dealt with language learning biographies of newly immigrated students, who talked about their experiences with learning of languages and other aspects of their personal lives. After the seminar, the student teachers wrote a short text, in which they described one of the language learning biographies previously discussed. Seven of these texts, which described the biography of a newly immigrated student from Syria, were analyzed. The evaluation of the learning opportunity is based on these seven analyses. The evaluation provides insights into the perspectives of student teachers on language acquisition and multilingualism and the consequences for teaching. The results are meant to improve the design of teacher education around language and culture, especially using language learning biographies of newly immigrated students.