The Plurilingual TESOL Teacher: The Hidden Languaged Lives of TESOL Teachers and Why They Matter

Abstract

The purpose of this book is to introduce a new issue into the literature on English language teaching and English language teacher education: the language background of English language teachers - whether they are monolingual, bilingual or plurilingual; whether they have grown up speaking more than one language or learned other languages later in life; and the relevance of this additional language experience for the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL)l. The book reports research undertaken with teachers in Australia and several other countries that queries the accepted view that, as long as the teacher has English proficiency, their other languages, or lack of them, are irrelevant. It proposes that language learning experience and the experience of L2 use are valuable assets for all TESOL teachers. They may have gained that experience as 'circumstantial bilinguals' (Valdes and Figueroa 1994), caused by factors such as migration or growing up in a multilingual family, and be native or nonnative speakers of any variety of English. They may have learned L2 as 'elective bilinguals' (Valdes and Figueroa 1994) who have learned by choice (and again be native or non-native speakers of any variety of English). Or they may be monolinguals. Even teachers who consider themselves monolingual usually have some experience of L2 learning, but by definition the experience resulted only in a low level of proficiency and was largely unsuccessful. How does the experience of successful or unsuccessful language learning and language use affect one's identity, beliefs and practice as an English language teacher? What kinds of experience are most beneficial?