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Speaker:
Prof Dr Flavia Adani (Freie Universität Berlin)

This event is part of an event series „Lecture series 'The Multilingual Mind’“.

Teachers’ good practices and perceived impact of inclusion dealing with multilingual children

Italy is one of the European countries that has experienced increased migratory flows in the last decades, thus determining a gradual but steadily raising number of students with Italian as Second Language (ISL). As a result, multicultural and multilingual classrooms are currently very common in Italy and students attending them speak a variety of first languages, which may raise new challenges for in-service teachers. The present study aimed to evaluate concurrent predictors of teachers’ practices and the perceived impact of inclusion when working with ISL students. An online questionnaire was conducted and completed by 384 teachers from 14 regions across the national territory. Results from an explorative analysis showed that teachers’ practices and perceived impact of inclusion were influenced by their work experience and preparedness. The results of a structural equation model revealed that teachers with higher preparedness in dealing with multilingual students develop better self-efficacy, which, in turn, leads teachers to be more prone to adapt their teaching according to students' needs, resulting in a more consistent application of good practices. The results also showed indirect effects of positive beliefs on Heritage Language use on attitudes towards inclusion and for the implementation of good practices, which negatively predicted the perceived burden related to Impact of inclusion. These findings enhance the understanding of predictors for teachers’ practices and perceived impact of inclusion.