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‘Teachers as Co-learners’ of languages: Recurricularising language and literacy learning from a multilingual stance
The challenge
In 2024, the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) in collaboration with Deakin University undertook a pilot study, ‘Teachers as Co-learners’ of languages: Recurricularising language and literacy learning from a multilingual stance.
The Teachers as Co-learners (TCL) program, developed by MACS, is a highly innovative approach to Languages education within the Australian primary education context that engages all teachers and students as learners and users of the school’s additional language. The TCL program is centred on close collaboration between classroom teachers and the school’s language assistant as co-teachers of the school’s language program. The program is supported by a comprehensive suite of specific curriculum and assessment materials developed by MACS in consultation with TCL teachers. A key focus of the TCL approach is the daily allocation of 15 minutes in each classroom as a proactive means of enabling frequent and consistent additional language learning opportunities leveraging on the classroom teachers’ pedagogical expertise and the language assistant’s linguistic expertise.
Since its inception in 2016, the TCL program has grown to include 50 schools in the MACS network, delivering programs in a range of languages, including Italian, French, Indonesian, and Auslan. The program is also offered by select schools governed by the three other Victorian dioceses — Ballarat, Sale and Sandhurst.
The research aimed to:
- Explore the experiences and perspectives of classroom teachers, language assistants, curriculum and school leaders with the TCL approach to language teaching and learning.
- Examine how working within TCL may have shifted participants’ understanding of multilingualism, and their practice of language(s) and literacy education.
- Generate insights regarding participants’ views on their own and their students’ (additional) language learning, their developing identity as multilingual speakers, their collaborative cross-curricular practice, and their needs and aspirations for a sustainable whole-school approach to Languages education in primary contexts.
Project overview
To date, focus group conversations have been conducted with three MACS primary schools located in metropolitan Melbourne (1), outer Melbourne (1), and Geelong (1). Coincidentally, all three schools offer Italian as the target language.
Further research will be undertaken with a fourth school in Term 2, 2025.
The four participating schools introduced the TCL approach in either 2019 or 2020 and have several years of experience with the adoption of TCL.
Outcomes
All three participant schools found the TCL program to be valuable and beneficial, with two participant schools reporting that TCL has been highly positive and the third participant school emphasising the innovation of TCL, which provides both opportunities and challenges.
Participants’ overall experience with TCL highlighted the following aspects:
- learning together encourages linguistic ‘risk-taking’ by both students and teachers
- students are quick to develop confidence and fluency in the language
- students and teachers develop improved language awareness by making connections between languages
- cross-curricular collaboration between classroom teachers, language assistants, and specialist teachers of Languages.
The data indicates that TCL:
- contributes to developing and supporting confident (language) learners
- contributes to engaging students in an authentic language learning environment, setting them up for academic success
- levels the playing field as all students commence as beginner learners of the target language
- facilitates and supports equitable encounters with and of linguistic and cultural diversity as curriculum-as-lived, within the school and the broader community
- supports teachers’ spontaneity and improvisation in the classroom as a crucial part of contemporary teaching practice.
Key considerations for effective TCL adoption include:
- whole-school ‘buy-in’
- teacher confidence
- consistent scheduling and integration in the school day
- access to program-specific curriculum and assessment resources
- collaboration between classroom teachers and language assistants
- student-led elements, e.g. students model the target language, run language sessions, and lead language learning activities.
Project team
Associate Professor Michiko Weinmann
Associate Professor Andrew Skourdoumbis
Jack K. Bennett (graduate researcher)
Thu Ha Bui (graduate researcher)
Funding
Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS)
$10,000.00
Timeline
2024-2025
More information
Michelle Polifiore, Co-Learning a with your students – a classroom teacher’s perspective. MLTAV Vol. 25, No.2, November 2021.
Chloe Briand, How EPI has enhanced modern language teaching in hundreds of primary and secondary Catholic Schools across Victoria (Australia). The Language Gym, 30 May 2024.
Publications
Michiko Weinmann, Sarah Ohi, Thu Ha Bui, Jack K. Bennett, Andrew Skourdoumbis (in press). ‘Teachers as Co-learners’ of Languages: Recurricularising Language and Literacy Learning as a Multilingual and Collaborative Endeavour. In: Turner, M. & Green, B. (Eds.) (forthcoming 2025). Integrating Multilingualism into English and Languages Education: Applications in Teaching and Learning Practice in Australia (Chapter 10). Routledge.