Browsing by Subject "Bilingual teacher preparation programs"

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    Bilingual pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their intercultural and plurilingual competences
    (Universidad de Zaragoza, Asociación Universitaria de Formación del Profesorado (AUFOP), 2024) Arnaiz-Castro, Patricia; Espejo, Roberto; Gómez-Parra, M. Elena
    The number of bilingual teacher preparation programs in Spain continues to increase, making it essential for research to address this evolving reality from multiple perspectives. Given that the success or failure of any educational innovation is closely tied to how it is understood and perceived, this study aims to analyse the usefulness of bilingual education from the perspective of one key group of stakeholders: bilingual pre-service teachers. Specifically, participants’ levels of self-perceived intercultural and bilingual competences were measured in relation to four variables: gender, involvement in a bilingual track in primary education, participation in international programs, and language proficiency. The relationship between intercultural competence and plurilingual competence was also examined. Data were collected through a questionnaire designed by the research team of the national project SELF-CITATION. The sample comprised 99 students from four public universities in Spain. Results of the Mann Whitney U tests indicated that participants’ self-perceived levels of both competences seem to be linked with their participation in international programs and their language proficiency. Participation in bilingual programs in primary education proved to have a weak impact. No gender differences were detected. Pearson correlations revealed the positive correlation between the two dimensions examined. This study has gathered overall trends among bilingual pre-service teachers, which can have relevant implications for initial teacher education and language education in general.