Pre-service teachers’ questions about literacy instruction for multilingual learners

As classrooms in the United States become increasingly linguistically diverse, teachers need to be prepared to provide equitable literacy instruction to multilingual learners (MLs). This paper explores the experiences of pre-service teachers (PSTs) in one elementary education course focused on literacy instruction for MLs, specifically asking: What questions do PSTs ask about literacy instruction for MLs? PSTs posed questions multiple times a week as part of their reading responses and post-class exit tickets, resulting in 1,375 questions for analysis. Open and pattern coding found that PSTs’ questions focused on: 1) students, 2) environment, 3) teaching practice, 4) self, and 5) language. Findings describe these categories as well as sub-categories for each type of question, using representative examples. We argue that these questions provide insight into the content knowledge, ideologies, and pedagogical practices of early-stage teachers preparing to work with MLs. Implications for teacher education are discussed.