‘Am I multilingual?’ The relationship between pre-service teachers’ multilingual identities, language experiences and beliefs about multilingualism

Despite an increase in research on language learners’ multilingual identities (MId), the construct of teacher multilingual identities as a gateway to linguistically inclusive teaching remains under-researched, and the factors shaping teachers’ willingness to claim and express a multilingual identity remain unclear. This article explores two factors that might influence teachers’ MId, namely teachers’ language experience and beliefs about multilingualism. MId data was obtained through a questionnaire administered to 117 pre-service teachers spanning subject specialism in England. A sub-sample of 51 participants also completed a Q-sorting activity where they expressed their views of multilingualism. Correlation analyses revealed that perceived language fluency had the strongest association with MId. Furthermore, those participants who held a prescriptive view of languages and perceived multilingualism as the exception in schools also tended to express a monolingual identity. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study findings for researchers and teacher educators.