Conference Agenda

Switzerland, a multilingual country, both by its history and by being a country of immigrants could be thought to be in the foreground as far as teacher education is concerned.

However, multilingualism has traditionally been understood as encompassing the four national languages, not acknowledging that many migrant languages are daily used all over the country.

The actual geopolitical events, the historical and current characteristics of Switzerland as a migrant society, as well as the announced progressive intensification of a global movement require transformations in the way teacher education institutions deal with (Language) Education and prepare teachers to work in a multilingual and multicultural school context. This also includes recognizing multilingualism as a potential resource and acting accordingly.

This workshop refers to the project Learning in migrant languages - the role of teacher education institutions, financed by the Swiss Federal Department of Culture.

In this workshop we will present some results of the first axis of the project: Migration-related multilingualism in teaching programmes at teacher education institutions. The results discussion will be oriented by the following topics:

• What do the various teacher education institutions do with regard to migration-related multilingualism?
• Under which disciplinary label or in which subject areas are courses on migration-related multilingualism offered?
• What objectives are associated with them?
• Where are any gaps seen in learning migration-related languages?
• How can the focus on migrant languages be integrated more systematically into initial and continuing education programmes at teacher education institutions?
• How are heritage language lessons approached?

The view of migratory diversity has changed in recent years. Migration languages, that is to say, heritage languages are now considered an important part of inclusive, diversity and language sensitive initial and continuing teacher education. This workshop discusses the little space given to this topic at teacher education institutions.