ABSTRACT
When teachers have explicit knowledge about how their taught languages work (i.e., metalinguistic knowledge), they are better equipped to help students learn in ways that deepen understanding and feel relevant to real-life situations. Beyond their level of knowledge, their ability to leverage it when completing tasks during lessons also hinges on psychological and affective factors, such as their self-efficacy and emotional connections to their taught languages. This chapter presents a study of two multilingual teachers of English and French working in Norwegian upper-secondary schools. The study examined the dynamics between their emotional connections to the languages they taught, their beliefs in their ability to leverage their metalinguistic knowledge to complete tasks during lessons (metalinguistic self-efficacy), and their observed metalinguistic teaching practices. Data from interviews and classroom observations revealed an unexpected pattern: teachers who felt less emotionally connected to their taught languages demonstrated higher metalinguistic self-efficacy and incorporated more metalinguistic strategies. This study contributes to understanding the impact of psychological variables on multilingual language teachers and their metalinguistic teaching practices.
