Editorial: EAL/D and Initial Teacher Education

Abstract

A number of issues and pressures are currently converging in the area of teacher education for EAL/D specialists. These include a time of increased challenges in recruiting teachers to schools across Australian schools and systems; and concurrently, increased government and public attention to the nature of teacher education programs in Australian universities. With the suggestion of a 'multilingual turn' in applied linguistics being raised a decade ago, it is valuable to consider how this is reflected in contemporary teacher education, in relation to developing a multilingual stance and preparing pre-service teachers for multilingual pedagogies in EAL/D teaching. This multilingual turn, which recognises the pedagogical value of students’ full linguistic repertoires, provides a crucial lens through which to examine the papers in this collection, each of which grapples with how teacher education can move beyond monolingual assumptions.

This special issue brings together papers that examine EAL/D education in Australia, from a wide-angle view at the provision of courses across Australian universities, to discussion of the content of pre-service teacher learning and the approaches used to deliver it, and diverse considerations for pre-service teachers and teacher educators in developing a multilingual stance in classroom practice.