How teachers' beliefs about multilingualism are verbalized - linguistic patterns in reflective texts of prospective teachers

Abstract

Teachers' beliefs are relevant to their actions and therefore an important facet of professionality. The guiding question of this article is how beliefs about multilingualism are verbalized in the reflective texts of prospective teachers and whether usage patterns can be identified in these verbalizations that in turn allow conclusions to be drawn about the underlying beliefs. To answer this question on a lexical level for the use of nouns, the introductory and concluding reflections of 73 student teachers who participated in an additional qualification program were evaluated using content analysis. The analyses show both the use of typical nouns and a change in use at the end of the qualification program.