The Multilingual Learner Research Group, begun in 2014, comprises academics in Finland, Germany, France, Denmark, England and the United States.  The common theme in our individual and collective work – initially presented at ECER in 2016 – is language and cultural support for multilingual learners (MLLs) who are simultaneously engaging with curriculum content and the language of schooling across our educational contexts.  Then, we asserted that such considerations were especially timely in the context of global migration patterns, which were producing significant changes in global, national, and therefore pupil, demographics (Acquah et al., 2015).

This roundtable discussion captures the ways the group has collaborated since then to examine issues in the educational support for MLLs in each of our countries, with a focus on teacher preparation for linguistically diverse classrooms (Lucas, 2011).  We propose to share aspects of our joint work, which has taken shape in various forms, including smaller working groups that have emerged and/or strengthened since the group’s inception.  A vision for our future collaboration will also be considered, including the ways our work should respond to continuing challenges in global and European education, politics and society.

Group discussions in online and face-to-face meetings  point to a number of phenomena common in all countries, defined as ‘teacher beliefs’ and ‘teacher preparedness’ for the support of MLLs, which we considered to be key elements in our collaborative work.  Widespread evidence indicates that teachers do not feel equipped to meet the needs of pupils in linguistically diverse classrooms (Alisaari, Heikkola & Acquah [forthcoming], NALDIC, 2014; Lucas & Villegas, 2011, Becker-Mrotzek et al., 2012); there is ongoing work by colleagues in the group to map the scope and factors influencing such beliefs and knowledge (Hammer et al., 2016; Hammer et al., 2015). There is a universally acknowledged need to prepare teachers for work in multilingual classrooms in a way that is culturally and linguistically responsive to their learners.  In Finland and the U.S., such work is well underway (Acquah, Alisaari & Commins, 2016; Viesca et al., 2016).

In this proposed roundtable we will share our plans for the joint E-Workshops Project, expected to begin autumn 2017.  The Project involves the creation of an online education platform, to support in-service teachers to develop effective pedagogy and resources for MLLs in four participating countries.  Taking its initial design and content from the successful e-CALLMS workshops implemented by colleagues at the University of Colorado Denver and University of Nebraska Lincoln (Viesca et al., 2016), these online workshops will be launched in Finland, France, Denmark and England for in-service teachers.  Colleagues in each country will oversee the e-workshops, in collaboration with group members with expertise in research design and management, participant sampling and data analysis.  Teacher beliefs about home language(s) and education, as well as their perception of their own competence to support MLLs will be captured in online questionnaires before and after participation in the online workshops.  These questionnaires are based on a previously developed research instrument from Germany (Hammer et al., 2016).  Such data will offer unique insight into this aspect of teacher beliefs and teachers’ perceptions of their own competence to support MLLs in their classrooms.

With continuing changes in the demographics in our respective countries, set against a changing global political context, we recognise that our efforts must be flexible, sustained and resilient against competing national priorities.  This round table will provide an opportunity to reach out to and involve colleagues from across Europe in these critical discussions.

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