As a result of immigration and internal EU mobility, the number of migrant children has reached a significant number. This has far reaching implications for education systems in Europe (COM 2008). Especially in urban areas large percentages of student populations grow up with first languages other than the majority language (Extra/Yaĝmur 2004, Bühler-Otten/Fürstenau 2004). Data from school effectiveness research show that European school systems are far from providing equal opportunities for pupils with an immigration background and from linguistic minorities.

In Germany, school assessment tests have repeatedly shown that migrant students achieve poorer results than monolingual students of autochthonous origin (Gogolin & Lange 2011). In this context, the development of teaching practices plays a vital role. The question of how to improve language teaching within the context of linguistic and socio-cultural diversity is one of the important issues discussed in German as well as in European education policy and research.

This paper presents one aspect of the German research project BilLE - Bildungssprachförderliches Lehrerhandeln. Eine videobasierte Unterrichtsstudie in migrationsbedingt mehrsprachigen Schulklassen, a video based classroom study which analyses successful and innovative language teaching in regular multilingual classrooms. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2012 through 2014 and is being carried out at the University of Muenster. Focusing on teacher activities, the empirical analysis of the video study is determined by the question of how teachers build bridges that allow their students to move from a level of everyday language to an academic language level. Academic language is a linguistic register students need to acquire in order to “become full members of the school community” (Gibbons 2002). It is characterized by linguistic structures which help to express complex and abstract content isolated from its initial context and it features characteristics of written language (Cummins 2008, Morek&Heller 2012). Academic language is key to success in school and, as the European Core Curriculum for Inclusive Academic Language Teaching (EUCIM-TE Consortium 2011) illustrates, teachers need to be qualified to teach it.

The aspect of the project that this paper presents is the creation of a concept of video-based case examples showing best classroom practices of academic language support in regular multilingual classrooms. These examples are intended for use in teacher training.

Classroom videos link theory and practice in a specific way. Their potential has been recognised and their use in teacher education is encouraged (Brophy 2007). However, the potential of videotaped classroom episodes for teacher education has not yet been fully utilized (Towers 2007, Helmke 2012).

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of converting results from a qualitative, interpretive video classroom study into a format of video-based learning tools for teacher education. The study combines empirical research, teacher development and research in the field of learning with digital technologies. The research question being examined here is: How can video-based case examples of best practices of academic language support in multilingual classrooms be formed into tools for teacher education?

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