An Exploration of Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices for Modern Foreign Language Teaching in a Scottish Primary School

In 2012, Scotland adopted a language policy, the “1 + 2 Language Approach” (Scottish Government. Language learning in Scotland: a 1+2 approach. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2012/05/3670/downloads). This language policy has created opportunities and also imbalances (see Kanaki A. Multilingualism and politics: revisiting multilingual citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2020; Kanaki A. Soc Incl 9(1). https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v9i1.3488, 2021). This chapter aims to explore the complexities of teacher practices in a Scottish primary school operating under the auspices of the “1 + 2 Language Approach”. Using Nexus Analysis as scalar ethnographic tool for educational linguistics (Hult F. Researching multilingualism critical and ethnographic perspectives. Routledge, London, 2017), teachers’ opinions and perceptions of their own competences and skills, pedagogic knowledge, practices, and professional development were analysed and explored. The aim of the study was to answer the following research question: How do professional respondents approach modern foreign language teaching in the primary school under the auspices of the Scottish language policy? Although teachers appear to acknowledge their diverse, multilingual, and multicultural classes, they also appear to hesitate to take on modern foreign languages (MFL) inputs as they rehearse their own conceptualisations of language teaching and often conflicting policy mantras. Monolingual practices and ideologies in language teaching, in language teacher training, in language curricula, and in language teaching methodologies are strengthened, and thereby thoroughly permeate educational practice, despite the fact that teachers are aware of their culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Interviews with teachers demonstrate that languages are still conceived as separate, labelled, and territorialised entities and not as open, dynamic systems where new meanings and grammars emerge. The chapter starts with the theoretical framework and then continues with a short presentation of the Scottish language policy, information on the research study and its findings. It concludes that there is a need for primary school teacher training and education to be reconsidered in the light of multilingual and multicultural approaches in order to encompass multilingual and multicultural complexities of contemporary classes.