ABSTRACT
The present chapter investigates real life teaching practices used by teachers who reported to be open to multilingualism. The study focuses on one specific multilingual teaching strategy: language comparisons. The use of language comparisons has been promoted in the context of translanguaging, language awareness, and, more generally, holistic multilingual pedagogies. Since linguistic diversity in European and German classrooms is a constant, both national and European policy-makers emphasise the importance of comparing languages. To contribute to this field of research, we investigate how teachers in German classrooms use language comparisons in their lessons. To this end, we analysed quantitative questionnaire data and qualitative observation data from the research project ‘Mehrsprachigkeit als Handlungsfeld Interkultureller Schulentwicklung’, MIKS (Multilingualism as a Field of Action in Intercultural School Development). In the MIKS project, teachers from 17 German primary schools participated in a training programme for professionalisation and school development. These programmes are designed to develop constructive approaches to incorporate students’ home languages into the classroom. Before and after the training programme, teachers completed a questionnaire. During the training programme, ethnographic observations were conducted in four focus schools. The pre-questionnaire results demonstrate that two-thirds of the teachers reported using language comparisons as a teaching strategy. The qualitative data show a recurring pattern with three different levels of teacher initiatives: teachers reacting to students’ language comparisons; improvised spontaneous language comparisons; or undertaking planned language comparisons.
