Preparing Linguistically Responsive Teachers in Multilingual Contexts

Growing numbers of people around the world are learning English as a second (or third or fourth) or foreign language (Jenkins 2006; Seidlhofer 2004). Many of these learners are enrolled in schools where English is the language of instruction. To be successful, students learning English and other languages in multilingual contexts need teachers who can provide specific instructional assistance and who bring particular orientations to their teaching. One way to conceptualize such preparation is by developing linguistically responsive teacher education (Lucas, Villegas & Freedson-Gonzalez 2008; Lucas & Villegas 2010, 2011). This framework, developed for mainstream content area teachers in pre-college/university schools in the United States, can be extended for application in multilingual contexts and for preparing teachers of adult language learners. This chapter describes, extends, and illustrates the framework of orientations, knowledge, and skills of linguistically responsive teachers identified by Lucas and Villegas (2011), and discusses how the framework can be incorporated into teacher education programs in multilingual contexts.