Teacher Language Awareness in Initial Teacher Education Policy: A Comparative Analysis of ITE Documents in Norway and New Zealand

Abstract

Dramatically increased population flows since at least the 1980s, primarily through economic migration and refugee resettlement, have brought considerable ethnic and linguistic diversity to classrooms around the world. This diversity has been amplified by the rising recognition of in-country indigenous and minority languages. In such plurilingual learning environments, teachers require sophisticated language education skills. They need to be able to teach the dominant language/s across the curriculum, support plurilingual learners, and often teach foreign or additional languages. One conceptual lens through which to analyse the presence of these competencies in current teacher education policy is that of language awareness. While this term originally referred to the raising of student awareness of features and functions of language, it now incorporates knowledge about flexible languaging practices. Through a comparative analysis of the two key teacher education policy documents in Norway and New Zealand, we have investigated how the concept of teacher language awareness is incorporated in high-level policy documents pertaining to ITE in these two countries and how these converge and diverge in their treatment of language awareness. Our in-depth comparison of these important educational policies urges both jurisdictions, as well as others, to be aware of local particularities and broader patterns in meeting the needs of teachers to be plurilingually aware and equipped for 21st-century classrooms.

1. Introduction

Dramatically increased regional and global flows of people since at least the 1980s, primarily through economic migration and refugee resettlement, have brought exponentially increased ethnic diversity and resulted in multilingualism1 in classrooms around the world. Some classroom diversity has always existed, often due to the presence of students from indigenous or minority languages. A societal ideological settlement on the myth of monolingualism, both as a perceived necessary requirement for the stability of the nation-state and as a reality of everyday life, papered over these differences. In the face of much greater societal diversity, this settlement is no longer possible or desirable. The language education requirements of teachers with respect to understanding and working productively with today’s multilingualism and plurilingualism should therefore be a priority for governments.

One conceptual lens through which to analyse the relevance of current teacher education policy for 21st-century classrooms is that of language awareness. This term originated in a movement started in the early 1980s, which called for the raising of student awareness of the features and functions of language (Carter 2003). This broad definition now also includes knowledge about flexible languaging practices, multilingualism, and plurilingualism (Otwinowska 2017; Young 2018). The new Norwegian subject curriculum for English, which was introduced in August 2020, states that learning languages involves ‘developing language awareness and knowledge of English as a system, and the ability to use language learning strategies’ (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training 2020, p. 2). This is the only explicit mention of language awareness in the curriculum, and the term is not defined. Angelsen and Hauge (2020) see it reflected in several of the competence aims, which require a certain degree of metalinguistic knowledge. In the Aotearoa/New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education 2007), cognates such as students’ languages and language use are threaded through the document. For teachers to be able to fulfil the task of integrating a focus on language awareness into their teaching, they should have a thorough understanding of what language awareness is. Language awareness may be seen as a prerequisite for teacher awareness, and Gage (2020) noted that ‘the challenge in preparation is to engage teachers to explore concepts of language awareness, which they do not yet know that they need to know’ (p. 4). The expectation is, therefore, that initial teacher education (ITE) explicitly addresses these themes. However, Otwinowska (2017) claimed that multilingual and plurilingual pedagogies are rarely covered in European teacher training or in English-speaking countries like New Zealand. Recent research in Thailand and Turkey (Karakaş and Boonsuk 2020) examining student awareness of the impact of English on the linguistic ecology of these countries also pointed to the lack of pre-service training in language awareness.

In this study, we sought to investigate the presence of the concept of language awareness, or more specifically teacher language awareness, in high-level policy documents pertaining to ITE in Norway and New Zealand. The focus was on ITE for compulsory education, and the two documents analysed were the National guidelines for the primary and lower secondary teacher education programme for years 1–7 (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a) and 5–10 (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b) in Norway, and in New Zealand the Initial Teacher Education Programme Approval, Monitoring and Review Requirements (Teaching Council 2019).

One might ask about the merits of comparing language in education policy between two very different countries from opposite sides of the planet: one in the north of Europe (Norway) and one in the South Pacific (New Zealand). Ball (1998) noted ‘(o)ne of the tensions which runs through all varieties of policy analysis is that between the need to attend to the local particularities of policy making and policy enactment and the need to be aware of general patterns and apparent commonalities or convergence across localities’ (p. 1). Norway and New Zealand have several commonalities but also some differences. Firstly, the two countries have relatively small populations, with New Zealand currently just exceeding 5 million and Norway edging towards 5.5 million. Despite these small populations, Norway and New Zealand have experienced strong inbound migration over the last 20–30 years due to ‘pull’ (Mohamed and Abdul-Talib 2020) factors such as having relatively wealthy economies and open political and social systems. Both countries also accept United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugees as well as asylum seekers. As a result of recent immigration, New Zealand can now be classified as ‘superdiverse’ (Royal Society of New Zealand 2013), with more than 160 languages spoken, while Norway has more than 200 languages represented (Språkrådet 2018). In terms of majority societal languages, English dominates in New Zealand, with 95.4% of the population claiming to speak English in the 2018 census (Stats NZ 2020). In Norway, Norwegian is the majority language and the first language for more than 90% of the population (St.meld. nr. 35. 2007–2008). Even though English has no official status in Norway, all students learn this language from the age of six, and it holds a special position in the Norwegian curriculum (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training 2020). English is considered a subject separate from Foreign Languages, which are taught from age 13.

Both New Zealand and Norway also have indigenous populations with languages currently in the process of revitalisation. In New Zealand, 4% of the population report speaking te reo Māori (Stats NZ 2020), whereas the number of speakers of Sami languages in Norway is uncertain. However, all Sami languages in Norway are considered endangered (Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation 2018). In addition, Norway has several recognised national minority languages (Språkrådet 2018). In New Zealand, Pacific languages are often identified as a group of languages for special consideration (De Bres 2015) because of New Zealand’s location in the South Pacific and the relatively high proportions of Pacific people living in the country. Thus, both New Zealand and Norway can be said to have complex linguistic landscapes.

Such linguistic complexity would seem to demand a sophisticated and appropriately nuanced educational response, particularly in the pre-service education of teachers. One part of this response might therefore be located in ITE guidelines as a key policy site for specifying the expectations for educating new teachers. In terms of more conventional language and education policy analysis, these guidelines fall somewhat below the radar. In this analysis, we hope to consider commonalities and differences across our respective localities and bring forth insights beneficial for ITE in other jurisdictions as well. Our intention then is to contribute to the academic conversation about what the composition of teacher language awareness currently is, as well as what it should and could be in policy documents guiding ITE.

Teacher Language Awareness

The concept language awareness (LA) arose in the UK in the 1980s to raise literacy rates, improve foreign language learning, and increase tolerance in an ever more multilingual and multicultural context (Andrews 2007b; Cots and Garrett 2018). From the language learning perspective, it was also a reaction both to strictly prescriptive approaches to foreign language learning as well as communicative approaches with little focus on language accuracy (Carter 2003). Through this, LA developed to involve a range of different areas concerning language. The Association for Language Awareness defined LA as ‘explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use’ (Association for Language Awareness n.d.). Similarly, Carter (2003) described LA as ‘the development in learners of an enhanced consciousness of and sensitivity to the forms and functions of language’ (p. 64). The definitions thus address explicit knowledge about language (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, or spelling), knowledge about the communicative aspect of languages, i.e., how we use it, and language learning and teaching aspects.2

While LA was originally mostly concerned with the learner, teachers’ LA also came into focus early on. Wright and Bolitho (1993) claimed that ‘the more aware the teacher is of language and how it works, the better’ (p. 292) and argued for its inclusion in teacher education. A specific focus on teacher language awareness (TLA) emphasised slightly different elements than learner LA. Andrews and Svalberg (2017) suggested that there is no one definition of what TLA is but explained it as ‘a label applied to research and teacher development activity that focuses on the interface between what teachers know, or need to know, about language and their pedagogical practice’ (p. 220). Edge (1988) has been influential in the understanding of TLA, claiming that the teacher takes on three roles with interrelated competences: that of the language user, related to language proficiency, the language analyst, with meta-knowledge of language systems, and the language teacher, with the ability to enact the curriculum. Andrews (2007b) claimed that knowledge of subject matter, and especially explicit knowledge of language systems, that is being a language analyst, is central to TLA, but also that TLA is more complex than this. He outlined some characteristics of TLA, a close relationship between knowledge about language and knowledge of language (i.e., language proficiency), and suggested that this proficiency is connected to effective communication with the learners and the ability to provide useful language input. It also involves ‘an awareness of language from the learner’s perspective’ (Andrews 2007b, pp. 28–29). This makes TLA metacognitive in nature (Andrews 2007b). The three roles Edge listed interact with each other, and ‘the harmony of their interaction is dependent upon the extent to which the teacher is ‘language aware’ (Andrews 2007a, p. 947). Andrews (2007b) also claimed that awareness is ‘knowledge-in-action’ (p. 31).

Svalberg (2007) pointed out that in continental Europe, LA has been concerned with sociolinguistic issues such as citizenship and multilingualism just as much as with literacy. Cots and Garrett (2018), referring to Coupland (2010), also drew attention to globalisation in the form of increasing demographic mobility and a resulting ethnic pluralism, which leads to a rise in multi- and plurilingualism in the classroom. How should teachers respond to these changes? Young (2018), for example, related a child’s right to use their own language, as stated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN General Assembly 1989), to the school context and noted that this can contribute to an increased feeling of ‘belonging and well-being’, but also encountering and tolerating otherness. As stated by Young (2018), being aware of the plurality of cultural and linguistic backgrounds in classrooms constitutes a first step in raising both language awareness and cultural awareness.

Despite the originally multicultural and multilingual contexts in which (T)LA first arose, Otwinowska (2017) argued that the focus of traditional TLA is strongly focused on monolingual policies, which is incompatible with a plurilingual approach. Testing the impact of multi- and plurilingualism on TLA and plurilingual teaching approaches with Polish teachers, Otwinowska (2017) found that the more languages the teachers themselves speak and the more fluent they were in their L3-Ln, the higher their plurilingual teacher language awareness. In her study, she extended the traditional approach of TLA, including language user, language analyst, and language teacher (Edge 1988), with the categories crosslinguistic, metalinguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic awareness (Otwinowska 2017). In Otwinowska’s model, Edge’s (1988) three traditional categories were part of a teacher’s crosslinguistic awareness and referred to a teacher’s awareness, or meta-knowledge, of similarities and differences between the languages they speak, that is, their L1, L2, L3, Ln, whereas metalinguistic awareness referred to the ability to reflect on these similarities and differences in language systems (Otwinowska 2017). Psycholinguistic awareness involved an understanding of key factors in the learner’s individual language acquisition, for example, cognitive differences (Otwinowska 2017). Additionally, knowledge about the effect of the learner’s (multilingual) language background on their language acquisition was part of a teacher’s psycholinguistic awareness (Otwinowska 2014). Furthermore, the sociolinguistically aware teacher was expected to be conscious of the learner’s cultural background, understand the role of a language’s place in society (e.g., English as a Lingua Franca) and be aware of the social aspects of language acquisition and use (Otwinowska 2017). Note that Edge’s terms referred to a (language) teacher’s roles, whereas the latter four kinds of awareness are necessary for the teacher to be able to fill these roles.

Both LA and TLA have traditionally been closely tied to language learning. We see, however, that attention has shifted from a focus on the speaker’s learned language to that of education more generally, and from a strictly literacy or language learning perspective to that of (language) education for agency and citizenship. LA is, therefore, relevant also in non-language subjects3 as well as in first, second and foreign language education (Fischer and Lahmann 2020). Summing up, we thus echo earlier claims (e.g., Carter 2003; Otwinowska 2017; Svalberg 2007; Wright and Bolitho 1993) that in order for teachers to develop TLA, whether plurilingual awareness or more traditional TLA, and subsequently students’ language awareness, TLA needs to have a recognised place in teacher education. Consequently, the following research question guided our investigation: How is the concept of teacher language awareness incorporated in high-level policy documents pertaining to ITE in Norway and New Zealand?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Materials

The material analysed for this study consisted of two policy documents regulating initial teacher education in Norway and New Zealand. The documents have different functions—the Norwegian National Guidelines for Teacher Education (abbreviation: National Guidelines) (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, 2016b) consists of relatively detailed instructions for the content in teacher education, whereas the New Zealand ITE Programme Approval, Monitoring and Review Requirements (abbreviation: ITE monitoring document) (Teaching Council 2019) focuses on how programme quality will be assured without specific reference to content. After the relevant educational legislation, these policies are the highest-level policy documents pertaining to ITE in each country. They constitute the framework for initial teacher education in the two countries. In addition to these documents, teacher education in Norway and New Zealand is also guided by other policy documents such as educational legislation and ethical platforms (e.g., Our Code, Our Standards in New Zealand or Professional ethics for the teaching profession in Norway). Even though these documents are without doubt relevant for the teaching profession, they do not address initial teacher education specifically. The national curricula are also relevant for teacher education, but these are aimed at the compulsory education of students and not teacher education itself. Therefore, we have not analysed the national curricula but refer to them where necessary.

Overall, the National Guidelines in Norway comprise 74 pages for years 1–7 and 81 pages for years 5–10. The ITE monitoring document in New Zealand consists of 95 pages. In the following two sections, we present these materials in detail.

2.1.1. National Guidelines for Teacher Education

In Norway, ITE is offered in various kinds of institutional programmes. The most common is a five-year integrated master’s programme in universities and university colleges, aimed at pre-service teachers for primary, lower secondary, or upper secondary education. Some pre-service teachers also add a year of pedagogy to earlier academic or vocational studies, which makes them eligible for teaching in secondary schools. Admission to the different programmes is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research (Forskrift om opptak til høgare utdanning 2017, § 4.7) and includes at the time of writing grade requirements for Mathematics and Norwegian. The content in teacher education programmes is guided by national guidelines. In this study, we are concerned with initial teacher education for compulsory education (years 1–10), and it is, therefore, the national guidelines for teacher education in years 1–7 and 5–10 that are the focal point.

The National Guidelines are developed by teacher educators, the profession, and pre-service teachers under the jurisdiction of Universities Norway, while the National Council for Teacher Education, with representatives from all institutions offering teacher education in Norway, is responsible for keeping the National Guidelines up to date and relevant for teacher education and the teaching profession (Universities Norway 2021). The guidelines are mandated in the regulations for teacher education (Ministry of Education and Research 2020). The National Guidelines in use at the time of writing have been effective since 2017. The National Guidelines, together with laws, regulations, and the curriculum, form the basis for an institution’s development of its own programme and course descriptions. This makes the National Guidelines an important place to start when looking at how TLA is represented in ITE in Norway. A large part of the guidelines outlines learning outcomes for each subject in teacher education. In addition to pedagogy, pre-service teachers choose three to four subjects. In the programme for 1–7, Mathematics and Norwegian are compulsory subjects, while in 5–10, all subject choices are up to the teacher education institutions and the pre-service teacher. It is thus possible for a pre-service teacher in years 5–10 to not have a language as one of their subjects.

In contrast to New Zealand, where Māori and English medium teaching are covered in the same ITE monitoring document, teacher education for Sami medium teaching in Norway has a separate set of guidelines. The latter was not included in this study, even though individual references to the Sami language may occur in the National Guidelines.

2.1.2. ITE Programme Approval, Monitoring and Review Requirements

In New Zealand, the key policy document that provides guidance to organisations and institutions offering ITE is called ITE Programme Approval, Monitoring and Review Requirements (Teaching Council 2019). The purpose, as the name suggests, is to clarify for teacher educators the ways in which their programmes will be approved, assessed, and monitored by the Teachers Council of New Zealand, Aotearoa. There is no corresponding document in Norway, where the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education controls and accredits all higher education (NOKUT n.d.).

The ITE monitoring document was first published in 2019, announcing in the preamble that the requirements represented a shift in the Council’s expectations for ITE (Teaching Council 2019, p. 3). The requirements were to ‘come into force’ (Teaching Council 2019, p. 4) by 1 June 2019 and had been in place for two years at the time we undertook the analysis. New Zealand has ITE programmes for both Māori and English medium education, and, as noted above, these ITE programme requirements apply to both.

Part one of the document sets out 27 requirements for ITE programme approval, organised into seven categories. Firstly, the outcomes required for the programme are presented. Chief among these is the requirement that by the time pre-service teachers leave their course, they need to have met (in a supported environment) the codes and standards for teacher professional responsibility as explained in a tandem document produced by the Teaching Council: Our Code, Our Standards: Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession (Education Council 2017). The second category of requirements provides information and guidance on programme development, design, and structure. The third category describes desired ‘delivery’ methods, which specify how the courses are to be taught, while the fourth category states the requirements for the assessment of pre-service teachers. Section 5 stipulates extra language requirements for Māori medium courses. In the sixth category, academic, language and character conditions are explained. Programme moderation and review requirements comprise the seventh category. Part two of the document provides detailed instructions for programme approval of existing or new ITE programmes, as well as guidelines for monitoring and review of the programme.

As noted above, one of the key messages for ITE programmes is that they robustly interpret the Our Code, Our Standards document (Education Council 2017) as a mechanism for designing a programme of study for pre-service teachers. By the end of their training, graduating pre-service teachers are supposed to be able to meet the standards in a supported environment (e.g., in a classroom with an experienced teacher or through supervision by a mentor) in a variety of contexts (Teaching Council 2019). The first appendix of the ITE monitoring document provides interpretations of the standards through different cultural lenses. One is that of Māori, and the other is a Pacific interpretation. The second appendix provides the assessment framework for assessing the standards (Education Council 2017) in a supported environment.

2.2. Method

In the analysis, we employed qualitative content analysis with a deductive category application (Mayring 2000) to determine the presence of certain concepts related to TLA in the ITE policy documents. For this purpose, we broadly applied the categories from Otwinowska’s (2017) model for teachers’ plurilingual awareness. Although this model was primarily directed towards (English) language teachers, and more specifically plurilingual language teachers, we argue that it is also suitable to study TLA within national level policy documents that regulate the shape and content of ITE across the national curriculum. For example, Fischer and Lahmann (2020) stated that to diminish discrepancies in school performances, ‘all teachers, including those who are teaching subjects such as math or geography, (need) to be equipped with various skills. These include linguistic knowledge as well as knowledge about language learning and multilingualism’ (p. 116). Likewise, Vollmer (2009) argued that ‘(l)anguage competence, therefore, is an integral part of subject competence—it is not an additional external element nor is it a luxury which can be ignored’ (p. 4, emphasis in original). We, therefore, reason that all teachers are language teachers to some degree and examined the extent to which Otwinowska’s categories are evident in the policy documents. A strength of these categories is that they incorporate research that has been carried out since the 1980s, for instance, the influence of positive and negative transfer from the learner’s L1 (cf. Otwinowska 2014).

Table 1. Categories for TLA (adapted from Otwinowska 2017).

Category	Definition	Example
Teacher as a language user	The teacher has a good command of the language and can serve as a language model (Otwinowska 2017).	‘Prior to entry, candidates for English medium programmes must demonstrate English language competency by providing one of the Council’s approved evidence of English language competency…’ (Teaching Council 2019, p. 42).
Teacher as a language analyst	The teacher has meta-knowledge of the respective language system(s) and can recognise and understand specific processes, structures and patterns (Otwinowska 2017).	‘The candidate has knowledge of how to acquire vocabulary and of the structures in English from sound to text level’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 24).
Teacher as a language teacher	The teacher is able to adapt for language learning and can ‘handle the process of teaching language through language’ (Otwinowska 2017).	‘Tātai Reo seeks to be an enhancement tool for the teaching and learning of te reo Māori in ITE programmes’ (Teaching Council 2019, p. 38).
Crosslinguistic awareness	The teacher has an understanding of similarities and differences across two or more languages (Otwinowska 2017).	‘The foreign language teacher shall have an awareness of his/her own, and children and young people’s language learning, insight into the differences and similarities between the target language, Norwegian and other languages’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 27).
Metalinguistic awareness	The teacher is able to reflect on language systems and similarities and differences between different languages (Otwinowska 2017).	(No examples of metalingusitic awareness in the material.)
Psycholinguistic awareness	The teacher has knowledge about the learner’s language acquisition, including learner motivation (Otwinowska 2017).	‘English teachers must have sound knowledge of how children and young people pick up language and how the subject can be adapted to the age group’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 24).
Sociolinguistic awareness	The teacher has knowledge about the learners’ cultural backgrounds and an understanding of the language’s position in society (Otwinowska 2017).	‘Ka Hikitia also stresses the importance of identity, language and culture—teachers knowing where their students come from, and building on what students bring with them; and on productive partnerships among teachers, Māori learners, whanau’ (Teaching Council 2019, Appendix 1, p. 2).
Miscellaneous	Instances that cannot be clearly assigned to any of the seven categories.	The candidate is capable of using knowledge of literature and language in academic work on oral, written and multimodal texts (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 65).

provides the categories we employed to carry out a qualitative content analysis of the national ITE policy documents in question. A closer explanation of our understanding of the categories is given below.

Otwinowska (2017) based her model on the traditional understanding of TLA (Edge 1988), related to all the languages the teacher knows. L1, L2, and L3/Ln hereby influence each other and lead to ‘crosslinguistic awareness of a multilingual language user’ (Otwinowska 2017, p. 309). Our understanding of Crosslinguistic awareness includes an understanding of similarities and differences across two or more languages. Where our documents only refer to individual languages and not to comparisons of several languages, we have categorised these instances as Teacher as language analyst. In addition, Otwinowska defined metalinguistic awareness as being able to reflect on at least two language systems. For that reason, knowledge about specific language systems and how language(s) work more generally was not considered sufficient to be classified as Metalinguistic awareness in our data analysis. These examples were also counted as Teacher as language analyst (see Table 1 above). The emphasis here is specifically on knowledge about language systems. The example for Teacher as language teacher in Table 1 focuses on using a specific framework to facilitate the learning of te reo Māori. As the example for Psycholinguistic awareness illustrates, the focus is on the learner’s language acquisition. Sociolinguistic awareness refers to an understanding of the language user’s linguistic and cultural background as well as to a good cooperation between the teacher, the student, and the students’ families.

Examples (1) and (2) from the subject Norwegian both include the phrase ‘is capable of using knowledge of [...] language’, which can be interpreted differently depending on the context. In example (1), it is unclear whether the pre-service teacher is supposed to produce, analyse, or teach such texts, and it could therefore be assigned to any of the seven categories. For cases like this, we have included an additional category (Miscellaneous). In example (2), the pre-service teacher is expected to analyse a variety of texts, and therefore (2) was classified as Teacher as language analyst.

(1)

The candidate is capable of using knowledge of literature and language in academic work on oral, written and multimodal texts (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 65).

(2)

The candidate is capable of using knowledge of grammar and language, texts and literature in analyses of oral, written and multimodal texts (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 67).

Furthermore, a challenge arose in instances such as (3). It is arguable whether ‘recognising’ refers to a teacher’s awareness or a teacher’s role. We have coded these instances as Teacher as language teacher but acknowledge that understanding individual factors in language acquisition (Psycholinguistic awareness) is a prerequisite for the teacher’s role as a language teacher. Example (4), in contrast, illustrates a case of Psycholinguistic awareness as the focus is on ‘knowledge’ rather than classroom practice.

(3)

The candidate is capable of recognising reading, writing and language difficulties (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 28).

(4)

The candidate has knowledge of multilingualism as a resource in the classroom (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 31).

In the National Guidelines, aspects related to TLA are primarily present in the language subjects. In non-language subjects like Arts and Crafts or Pedagogy, TLA is mainly reflected in work with basic skills. We have included basic skills in our analysis because it refers to reading, writing, and oral skills (in addition to numeracy and digital skills) (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training 2017), although the National Guidelines do not specify which basic skills are being referred to in the respective subject. In the ITE monitoring document, we have likewise included references to literacy.

In the coding process, we sometimes found several categories in one sentence. In these cases, each was coded separately. Example (5) illustrates such an instance, which refers to both Teacher as language user and Teacher as language teacher.

(5)

The main tasks of the English teacher are, therefore, to develop both their own (Teacher as language user) and the pupils’ (Teacher as language teacher) linguistic, communicative and intercultural competence (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 24).

The authors from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) coded the National Guidelines, while the ITE monitoring document was coded by the author from Auckland University of Technology (AUT). This contributed to optimising a contextual and linguistic understanding of the documents (Grønmo 2004). In the Norwegian context, for example, we used the English version of the National Guidelines but compared these to the Norwegian original when there were concerns regarding the interpretation of the translation. This process would have been more challenging for someone unable to understand Norwegian. Regarding the ITE monitoring document, the use of Māori terms (such as Ka Hikitia or Tātai Reo) required a certain degree of familiarity with the language that the researchers from Norway do not possess. However, in order to increase coding reliability, parts of the National Guidelines were coded separately by the two authors from HVL and subsequently compared.4 There was a high level of agreement between the two authors. The categories from the ITE monitoring document were coded by the author from AUT and subsequently discussed in plenum. In all but a few instances where the original coder had marked insecurity, the authors agreed on the analysis.

3. Results

This section presents the findings from the content analysis of the National Guidelines for Teacher Education (years 1–7 and 5–10) in Norway and Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Programme Approval, Monitoring, and Review Requirements in New Zealand, exploring how the concept of teacher language awareness is incorporated in these documents.

3.1. Results from Norway

The National Guidelines for teacher education (both 1–7 and 5–10) include a general introduction to ITE and learning outcomes in the respective subjects. Before we start reporting our results, it should be pointed out that because the term (teacher) language awareness is never used in the documents, we identified aspects related to this concept represented in a combination of different competencies or categories. Our analyses find that the policy documents for years 1–7 and 5–10 generally show the same tendencies when it comes to the distribution of these categories. Without a doubt, Teacher as language teacher is the most prominent category. In the language subjects, the focus is on aspects such as teaching methods and learning strategies, the capability of facilitating students’ development of basic language skills, adapted teaching, or developing the students’ communicative and intercultural skills, whereas this category almost exclusively refers to basic skills in the non-language subjects or the general introduction. One of the few exceptions can be found in Natural Science, where pre-service teachers are expected to be ‘able to develop pupil’s senses, joy of discovery, sense of wonder, joy in nature and natural science language’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 57).

The second most common category is Teacher as language user, which mainly refers to the development of the pre-service teacher’s own language skills. In the non-language subjects, the few instances identified refer to using specialist language. Differences become clearer when looking at the language subjects. The subject Norwegian emphasises developing one’s own language skills on a more general basis, whereas English specifically mentions the pre-service teacher’s own oral and written skills and emphasises a teacher’s task of being a language model. This is specified even further in Foreign Languages, which explicitly points to the pre-service teacher’s capability of ‘communication with good pronunciation and intonation, and of freely using key language structures in oral and written communication’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 28). In addition, the foreign language teacher is expected to be ‘a reflective language user and language disseminator’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 27). It seems that the requirements for the Teacher as language user become more detailed from the L1 subject Norwegian (language skills) to L2 English (oral and written language skills), and eventually Foreign Languages (e.g., pronunciation and intonation) and Norwegian Sign Language (e.g., applying language structures and basic vocabulary). The latter does not demand any previous knowledge of the language and must thus be considered a foreign language for the pre-service teacher.

Both Psycholinguistic awareness and Sociolinguistic awareness appear to have relatively prominent places in the guidelines, though both are almost exclusively found in the language subjects. Psycholinguistic awareness is largely concerned with language acquisition, including learner motivation and individual multilingualism, as exemplified in the following statement: ‘(t)he candidate has knowledge of multilingualism that includes Norwegian sign language, where the goal of functional bilingualism in education is key’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 63). In the English subject, multilingualism generally refers to knowledge of multilingualism as a resource in the classroom. Outside the language subjects, references to Sociolinguistic awareness can be found in the general introduction and in the subject of Mathematics (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b). In these contexts, pre-service teachers are expected to demonstrate knowledge of students’ cultural, linguistic, and social diversity and how this can be used as a resource in teaching. The same is expressed in the language subjects, but, in addition to this, here, there is also a focus on aspects such as the language user’s identity, linguistic variation, or ‘an understanding of (…) sign language users as a linguistic and cultural minority, and the language’s place in Norwegian society’ (subject Norwegian Sign Language, National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 61). Sociolinguistic awareness is present to a higher degree in the subjects Norwegian Sign Language, Norwegian, and Foreign Languages than in English. In the latter subject, the only instances of Sociolinguistic awareness refer to English as a world language and developing linguistic, communicative and intercultural competence (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, pp. 31, 33).

An important observation was made in relation to the category Teacher as language analyst. This category is relatively infrequent in the data and is most often found in Norwegian Sign Language. There are a few general references to language structure, but in Foreign Languages, there are references to ‘detailed knowledge of the target language’s sound system, intonation and grammatical structure’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 30). Similar to the findings in the category Teacher as language user, the category Teacher as language analyst occurs more often in foreign language subjects and less frequently in Norwegian and English, which is not considered a foreign language in Norway. The references to language structure are about knowledge rather than being able to reflect on these structures, which corresponds with the fact that we found no instances of Metalinguistic awareness in the policy documents.

Additionally, Crosslinguistic awareness is almost non-existent in the data material. The only instance found comes from Foreign Languages, which states that ‘the foreign language teacher shall have (…) insight into the differences and similarities between the target language, Norwegian and other languages’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016b, p. 27).

The last category we used in our analysis was Miscellaneous. These instances cannot be clearly assigned to any of the seven categories, as is illustrated in examples (6) and (7).

(6)

The candidate has knowledge of the Sami language, literature and culture, national minority languages and neighbouring languages (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 29).

(7)

The internationalisation of society and working life presupposes linguistic and cultural knowledge and international experience (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 9).

Example (6), from the subject Norwegian, points to the knowledge of the Sami language and other minority and neighbouring languages. Here, it is not clear whether the reference is to the knowledge about the existence of the languages, the position of the languages in society, or the ability to speak these languages to a certain degree. The last instance that needs to be discussed in more detail is (7). This sentence can be found in the introduction to the National Guidelines and highlights the fact that all teachers need linguistic knowledge, regardless of which subject they are teaching, but it is not clear what this ‘linguistic knowledge’ entails.

3.2. Results from New Zealand

In New Zealand, there is a lack of awareness of the need for all teachers to be language teachers, and this is evident in the paucity of references to TLA in the ITE monitoring document. Where references to TLA do appear, it is generally in relation to the stipulations around teacher proficiency in the two languages of instruction in New Zealand: te reo Māori and English. There are also references to teaching Māori as a second language in English medium schools and some mentions of teaching students in diverse contexts. While this latter topic could be taken to refer to students from linguistically and ethnically diverse backgrounds, the context suggests students with a range of intellectual and physical needs.

Interestingly, in a policy document referring to all ITE in New Zealand and given that New Zealand is such a linguistically diverse nation with more than 160 languages spoken (Royal Society of New Zealand 2013), the naming of particular languages is quite narrow, limited to English, Māori and Pacific languages. There are references to bilingualism but not to multi- or plurilingualism.

The predominant LA category in the main body of the ITE monitoring document (Teaching Council 2019) is Teacher as language user, with a couple of appearances of the category Teacher as language teacher. In the appendices, one more category appears: Sociolinguistic awareness. There are no coded instances of Metalinguistic awareness, nor Psycholinguistic awareness or Crosslinguistic awareness.

The predominance of the language awareness code Teacher as language user can be explained through a strong emphasis in the ITE monitoring document on graduating pre-service teachers being able to use the mediums of instruction (either English or te reo Māori) at a high level of proficiency. Therefore, an effort is made to precisely stipulate proficiency levels required in both te reo Māori or English, depending on which language is being employed as the medium of instruction (Teaching Council 2019). For example, the code is found where the amount of te reo Māori beginning teachers will need to teach is explained. There are two levels of Māori medium instruction in New Zealand. One is known as immersion, constituted by teachers using between 81–100 % te reo Māori in class. The other is bilingual instruction, where teachers are required to use te reo Māori at least in the range of 50–80% (Teaching Council 2019).

Requirements for teachers in English medium settings to have specified levels of English proficiency are also detailed. This is particularly the case for those who do not have English as their first language/mother tongue (see Teaching Council 2019, pp. 42–44). For example, ‘Prior to entry, candidates for English medium programmes must demonstrate English language competency by providing one of the Council’s approved pieces of evidence of English language competency’ (Teaching Council 2019, p. 42). In addition, pre-service teachers entering English medium programmes are tested and then monitored on their te reo Māori proficiency as ITE programmes are required to ensure their candidates are improving their te reo Māori proficiency from whatever the baseline was when they entered the programme. These requirements also come under the code Teacher as language user, as exemplified in (8):

(8)

Candidates selected for entry into an English medium programme must be assessed on their te reo Maori competency as close as reasonably practicable after entry. English medium programmes must progressively monitor and support competency in te reo Maori during the programme... (Teaching Council 2019, p. 44).

The code Teacher as language teacher has been applied where pre-service teachers are referred to as future language teachers. It should be noted that while high levels of English or te reo Māori are often cited as requirements for effective teaching, they are hardly ever cited as necessary for effective language teaching. One example of Teacher as language teacher is where teachers are supposed to provide support for English language learners. It should be noted that although many students in the New Zealand education system come from households where a wide range of languages are spoken, particularly in urban areas, and many of these students would need extra support with English, there is only one mention of teachers needing the skills to be able to do this. The ‘approval panel’ for the teacher education programme will test for ’whether the programme will enable graduates to identify and respond appropriately to those for whom English is an additional language’ (Teaching Council 2019, p. 16). However, there is no explanation of what ‘identifying’ and ‘responding appropriately’ translates to in practice. Nor is there an indication as to what other language(s) English might be additional to and whether this means a student needs extra instruction or support in English or not. The overall interpretation and elaboration of the statement would need to be provided by the ITE provider. In the example above, the teacher would also need to be a Language analyst in order to be able to identify who has English as an additional language and then what kind of support they might need.

In the appendices of the ITE monitoring document, there are several instances of the code Sociolinguistic awareness, closely located with instances of the code Teacher as language user. For example, in Appendix 1 (Teaching Council 2019), sociolinguistic awareness is required so that teachers would be able to make accurate judgements about Pacific and Māori families, in particular, Pacific families’ familiarity with English. Graduating teachers need to be able to respond to families and students in culturally and linguistically appropriate and supportive ways. For example, a list is presented that unpacks the attributes, behaviours, and knowledge of a ‘good teacher’ from a Pacific perspective (9):

(9)

A good teacher….

• recognises that English might not be my and/or my parents’ first language and communicates with us in a way that we can understand (Teaching Council 2019, Appendix 1, p. 13).

The ability to recognise that English might not be the parents’ first language and judge the students’ level of proficiency in English was coded as Sociolinguistic awareness and Teacher as language analyst, respectively, while the ability to communicate with a family in a way they can understand was coded as Teacher as language user.

The following is another example of Sociolinguistic awareness and Teacher as language analyst (10):

(10)

A good teacher….

• does not make fun of my and/or my parents’ limited English language skills if we don’t speak it fluently (Teaching Council 2019, Appendix 1, p. 13).

As a final example in this appendices section, the code Teacher as language user was applied. In this case, it was hoped the teacher would be able to use simple greetings and polite phrases, presumably in a range of Pacific languages: ‘A good teacher …. makes an effort to learn and use simple words like saying ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in my language’ (Teaching Council 2019, Appendix 1, p. 13).

In summary, in the ITE Programme Approval, Monitoring and Review Requirements (Teaching Council 2019), TLA mainly arises in the form of the code Teacher as language user, less frequently as Teacher as language teacher, Teacher as language analyst and, occasionally, as Sociolinguistic awareness. While language awareness may be further elaborated by providers of ITE as they unpack teacher standards (Education Council 2017) and the New Zealand national curricula (Ministry of Education 2007, 2017) for educating pre-service teachers, the paucity of references to multilingual students, developing student plurilingual repertoires, and the overall importance of language awareness for pre-service and in-service teachers seems to be a significant lacuna in this document.

4. Discussion

Although New Zealand and Norway could not be further apart geographically, they have several linguistic commonalities. Previously, we discussed their comparable population size, their efforts at indigenous language revitalisation, the salience of minority languages, as well as strong inbound migration, which results in linguistically complex educational environments in both jurisdictions. Examining how two key policy documents that guide ITE in each country refer to different aspects of teacher language awareness has therefore been instructive. Comparing high-level policy documents across countries has offered new perspectives regarding TLA within ITE for policymakers and teacher educators, both concerning the type of policies that exist, their overall content and what they emphasise. In Norway, the National Guidelines specifically include information on what pre-service teachers are supposed to learn over the course of their studies, while the ITE monitoring document in New Zealand does not include any reference to the content of teacher education but rather focuses on how programmes are approved, monitored, and regulated. The National Guidelines are, furthermore, centralised to guarantee that pre-service teachers all over the country receive a comparable education. Interpretation at the local level is possible to some degree. In contrast, the ITE monitoring document gives the individual institutions more freedom for local interpretation and adaptation when it comes to the content of their ITE programmes. Based on the nature of these documents, we would have expected reference to TLA to feature more prominently in the Norwegian document. Interestingly, however, the term language awareness itself never occurs in either of the documents. Neither document communicates why TLA, whether plurilingual or more traditional TLA, would be an important skill for pre-service and in-service teachers to have or how to achieve it.

Looking through the lens of Otwinowska’s (2017) different categories that in combination foster plurilingual awareness, however, we do see differentiated pictures of how TLA is included in the respective documents. In the Norwegian context, Teacher as language teacher and Teacher as language user are the most common categories, followed by Psycholinguistic awareness and Sociolinguistic awareness. The Teacher as language analyst is relatively infrequent in the data, and Crosslinguistic awareness could only be found on one occasion in Foreign Languages. References to Metalinguistic awareness, namely the ability to reflect on similarities and differences in two or more languages, are not present in the National Guidelines. We furthermore found that these categories are only included in the language subjects (Norwegian, English, Foreign Languages, or Norwegian Sign Language), whereas non-language subjects, with very few exceptions, only refer to ‘basic skills’, namely reading, writing, oral, and digital skills, as well as numeracy. This means that pre-service teachers who do not choose to study a language subject may never be exposed to aspects of TLA. This, however, is in contradiction to what Fischer and Lahmann (2020) pointed out, namely that all teachers need linguistic knowledge and knowledge about language learning and multilingualism to reduce linguistic inequality in classrooms. Furthermore, the National Guidelines mention that ‘(t)he internationalization of society and working life presupposes linguistic and cultural knowledge and international experience’ (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 9). However, it seems that the National Guidelines do not facilitate this knowledge in all subjects.5

As in the National Guidelines, Teacher as language user and Teacher as language teacher are the two most frequent categories in the ITE monitoring document, but the order in which they occur most prominently is reversed. Teacher as language user receives more attention than Teacher as language teacher. That the categories occur in reversed order may be explained by the different purposes of the respective documents. In Norway, the categories refer to different aspects of TLA that the pre-service teachers need to acquire during their studies, while New Zealand uses these categories more to evaluate the language level of the pre-service teachers both before they start and their competence in te reo Māori after completing their teacher training. Significantly, other languages are hardly mentioned. The large focus on being a proficient user of the majority language (English) also differs from the National Guidelines, where there are few occurrences of Teacher as language user in both the Norwegian (mother tongue) subject and the general description of ITE.

Even though the National Guidelines do not explicitly mention LA, the English subject curriculum in Norway does: ‘Language learning refers to developing language awareness and knowledge of English as a system’ (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training 2020, p. 2). In the National Guidelines for the English subject, we found that Teacher as language teacher and Psycholinguistic awareness feature most prominently, whereas Teacher as language user is infrequent. Although teachers are expected to be ‘language models’6 (National Council for Teacher Education 2016a, p. 31), the English teacher’s own language proficiency is relatively unspecified and is rather generally described as improving one’s own language skills. This stands in contrast to Foreign Languages or Norwegian Sign Language, where more emphasis is put on the teacher’s intonation, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Furthermore, both Foreign Languages and English also have few instances of Teacher as language analyst. Knowledge of language as a system is an important aspect of the English subject curriculum, and we would have expected a stronger focus on this in the guidelines for ITE as well. This leads to speculations that there might also be less focus on it in the teacher education institutions’ course plans. These have not been subject to investigation in this study, but similar to findings by Nordlie (2019) for multilingualism in teacher education in Norway, the implementation of Teacher as language analyst may come to depend on the interpretation by teacher education institutions and the teacher educators’ personal preferences. Summing up, neither the curriculum nor the National Guidelines define (T)LA, and this may cause discrepancies in interpretation and uncertainties for the graduated teachers who are going to execute the curriculum in the classroom. Therefore, this increased focus on LA for pupils in the curriculum should also influence the type of knowledge and skills pre-service teachers bring with them from their teacher training.

5. Conclusions

In this article, we analysed high-level policy documents for ITE in Norway and New Zealand in order to investigate how the concept of TLA is incorporated in these documents. Despite both documents being aimed at supporting teacher education programmes, we found that these serve different purposes and that TLA is manifested in varying ways in the two countries. Employing Otwinowska’s (2017) additional categories of plurilingual TLA invites a wider range of interpretation of the data than the traditional model (Edge 1988) would have allowed us to do. However, even though we broadened our description of this concept, we only found fragments of it in the non-language subjects (Norway), and not all categories were represented, neither in the Norwegian nor the New Zealand ITE policy documents. It appears that the current policy documents are not likely to promote TLA in ITE programmes. We argue that a more detailed interpretation of the concept of (T)LA is needed in ITE documents to ensure the implementation of language-aware teaching and learning in ITE programmes and schools.

Our analyses further support the significance of international considerations and comparisons of policy documents. This can offer different jurisdictions new perspectives and ideas when developing guidelines aiming to increase the quality of ITE programmes.

A limitation of this study is that the two countries have different foci in their top ITE policy documents. We chose the respective policy documents from Norway and New Zealand because of their similar level of high authority in the hierarchy of ITE national policies. Including other documents which may be read alongside these policies could strengthen the analysis. However, this is deemed outside the scope of this paper. We should note that based on the documents analysed, we cannot know how teacher education is being carried out in the different teacher education institutions, but we see this as a fruitful topic for further studies. For example: How are these (and other) documents interpreted by providers of ITE, and how are they translated into practice? Which methods for language aware teaching are being used in the field? How does TLA influence teaching in a multilingual classroom? The praxis of TLA has been a subject of study since the early 1990s (cf. Wright and Bolitho 1993), but we need a broader research perspective in continuously changing school settings (cf. Gage 2020).