Spanish Teachers’ Beliefs about Plurilingualism: A Case Study in a Monolingual Context

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attached document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

In the attached file we have included the explanations to the questions and suggestions made by the reviewer, to whom we thank for his/her contributions to improve our work

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

More information is needed about the participants in relation to the language(s) they teach. The language taught by the participants should be one of the independent variables of the research, that way the author/s can present results comparing the different groups. It appears that the vast majority of participants are English teachers; the author/s' comments in 2-3 sections indicate that they have divergent opinions from the rest of the participants, demonstrating that the language they teach should be considered as a variable in this research.

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the revisions made by the reviewers, which have undoubtedly contributed to improve our article.

Here are the modifications made:

REVIEWER 2
PROPOSED AMENDMENT	MODIFICATION MADE
More information is needed about the participants in relation to the language(s) they teach	It has been included within the article when explaining the sample participant.
Language taught by the participants should be one of the independent variables	This is not possible as, it has been indicated in the article, they are quite unequal groups.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the study, namely the exploration of teachers´ beliefs about plurilingual education in a monolingual context, is interesting and relevant, especially in Europe considering the plurilingual language policy in the EU. This is a large-scale study focusing on practising language teachers and teachers in bilingual educational settings. I appreciate that the study forms part of a larger research and only part of the data is analysed here, although more clarity is needed on this.

However, the paper is very difficult to read and for this reason I do not recommend its publication in the current form. Mostly because the sentences are too long with multiple subordinations and coordinations, and occasionally because of the use of inadequate vocabulary. In what follows I will make a few suggestions on how the text can be made more readable. These are only examples as I cannot rewrite the whole article. I recommend that after the suggested changes, the text undergoes a thorough proofreading.

As for the content, I understood that the authors aimed at a deeper understanding into how teachers see plurilingual competences. I think data that is only based on surveys, especially on surveys with closed questions, cannot provide this. Although, in the Discussion section the authors try to explain their quantitative results based on earlier findings in the literature, these remain a mere speculation.

From lines 532 the authors claim that “language teachers, because of their more specific training, have a clearer awareness of the advantages of plurilingualism and are more favourable towards its promotion and language learning in the school system.” What if they are only in favour of language teaching because they hope to keep their jobs? Are these beliefs similar for naïve speakers of (zero, one, two, etc.) additional languages? Why do the authors think that their data is not representative of teachers in Extremadura (line 418)?

2. Materials and Methods

It would be good to have a list early on (and probably also include this in the Abstract) of the variables you are examining in the study.

In the Results section you speak about other dimensions, could you say what these are? Or just don´t mention them since the article doesn’t deal with these.

In line 298 you mention some results “before” the first question. Where are they?

I cannot see what Figure 1 adds compared to Table 6.

In Table 7, it is not clear what two groups were compared: one FL vs. more than one FL?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Here are a few examples of how I think the text could be amended. (This is not an exhaustive list!) The revised manuscript should undergo a thorough proofreading.

Abstract:

In Spain, the learning of foreign languages has become one of the most interesting educational challenges in recent decades. Regulatory changes have been proposed to align with the Council of Europe's language policy, which aims to promote plurilingualism and pluriculturalism among its citizens. Although developing plurilingual competence in students has become a key goal, there is little evidence about the beliefs of current teachers, especially in monolingual contexts where multilingualism is mainly developed through instruction. The study involved 307 teachers who taught languages or subjects in a foreign language. The results sometimes reveal beliefs about promoting plurilingualism, the objectives of language learning, the importance of plurilingual competence, and its characterization that do not align with European language policy and its approach to plurilingualism, though there is agreement on other issues. Among the variables analysed, two—academic training and the number of languages known—are found to significantly influence the beliefs revealed.

p. 1 lines 36-40

More recently, Recommendation CM/Rec (2022)1 (Council of Europe, 2022) reiterates the importance of plurilingual and intercultural education for a democratic culture. It recommends not only "implementing whole-school policies and practices that welcome and value linguistic and cultural diversity, promote language learning, and the development of plurilingual repertoires" (p. 9), but also asking teachers "to focus on pedagogies that foster inclusive plurilingual and intercultural education."

p. 2 lines 57-60

Thus, the number of languages involved, the social or individual use to which it refers, and when a person can be called multilingual—conditioned by a monolingual vision of multilingualism and the native-speaker model—all impact how different researchers use this term.

p. 3 lines 121-127

As Pajares (1992) explains, all teachers hold beliefs about their work, students, subject matter, roles, and responsibilities. Research highlights the relationships between these beliefs, which develop through their own experiences as students and their education as teachers, and their teaching, learning, and classroom practices (Borg 2003; Maggioni and Parkinson 2008; Neokleous, Krulatz, and Xu 2022). Particularly relevant is the fact that teachers' experiences as language learners can have more influence on their teaching practices than the pedagogical principles learned during teacher training (Gutierrez Eugenio 2014).

p. 3 lines 198-203

Although many studies have examined teachers' beliefs about multilingualism, including those referenced in this article, they often focus on different contexts and circumstances. For instance, Rodríguez-Izquierdo's (2022) study on the preservation of the primary language among immigrant students in a monolingual Spanish region like Andalusia contrasts with the scope of our study. Thus, research questions are the following:

p. 1 line 33
CLIL has to be spelled out

generally there is no need for a definite article before “research”

The paragraph on Research context (1.3) needs to be thoroughly revised. E.g. line 183 “fala is a co-official” is hardly understandable for someone who does not know the Spanish context. Also, in line 186 “earlier” than what? Please check in line 195 what has an impact on what?

LE in the tables should be changed to FL

Table 1 [1] plurilingual (should be one l)

Line 547 – Please clarify what you mean by “personal theories”

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the revisions made by the reviewers, which have undoubtedly contributed to improve our work. We would also like to thank reviewer 3 for his/her suggestions for improvement in English.

In the attached file we have included the explanations to the questions and suggestions made by the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Excellent job incorporating the feedback I provided and that you thought could improve the manuscript. Here are two minor comments:

 

1.3  Research context and questions

- Please elaborate: “However, it contrasts with the scope of our study, as it is quite a different region, covering a very specific aspect.” Why is Andalucia so different from Extremadura? What specific aspect? It is unclear

3        Results

Please specify what the values reported in lines 428. 430, 433, 438, etc (e.g., x= 2.92 vs. x=2.57) refer to. Are they the result of an inferential statistics test? Which one?

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is considerably improved. I feel that the authors haven't much considered my previous feedback as to "As for the content, I understood that the authors aimed at a deeper understanding into how teachers see plurilingual competences. I think data that is only based on surveys, especially on surveys with closed questions, cannot provide this. Although, in the Discussion section the authors try to explain their quantitative results based on earlier findings in the literature, these remain a mere speculation." But I also understand that at this stage it is not too easy to amend.