Preparing Teachers for Linguistically Diverse Classrooms—A Systematic Review on Interventions and Intersectional Perspectives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Very interesting and meaningful topic, especially nowadays, which emphasizes topicality of intersectional aspects among linguistically diverse learners as an inclusive and equitable approach in education. More often the emphasis is put merely on language learning and not on context-dependent aspects like learners’ diversity, experiences, historical background. 

The article gives clear methodology that is in line with the norms of research and the data and results are reported accordingly. 

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to revise our paper. We truly appreciate your feedback and are pleased about your positive remarks. Please note that a new revised version of the paper will be uploaded.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This review is on a topic of ongoing importance in the fields of linguistics and education and will be a good resource for those working with preservice secondary teachers after some revisions. I make the following recommendations:

1. The authors should include a more thorough theoretical justification for why teachers who design (and researchers who study) methods for teaching about linguistic diversity should be taking an intersectional approach, as opposed to one solely focused on language-related issues. I agree with the authors’ position—that an intersectional approach is better—but I don’t understand their overall rationale for RQ2, and specifically their focus on (dis)ability, though it is somewhat addressed toward the end of the discussion section. Why is an intersectional approach important specifically for those preparing teachers to work with linguistically diverse students? Foregrounding this rationale (perhaps in sections 1.4 and/or 1.5) will help readers better understand the authors’ reasons for choosing RQ2 before getting into the details of the study.

2. I have a lack of clarity around this section of the methodology (p. 6):

Therefore, the following 267 additional exclusion criteria were applied in the full text screening: Papers that did not 268 report on an intervention, evaluation with data, or outcomes of any kind were excluded, 269 just like empirical studies that did not target the development of knowledge, skills, 270 attitudes, beliefs, behavior, or practice. Finally, papers were excluded for quality of 271 construct, if the operationalization of the investigated construct was not transparent, e.g. 272 if the main concepts, terms or theories were not been defined in the paper.

It's not exactly clear to me how these additional criteria were evaluated, perhaps partly due to a lack of parallel structure in the sentence itself. Some examples of why some articles were excluded (due to these specific reasons) might help clarify. I’m especially confused about the last point regarding undefined terms/theories, particularly because the authors discuss one such paper that was included in the study that failed to define a key concept, intercultural awareness (p. 16, line 640). The authors should be clearer about these criteria, why they were necessary, and how they were evaluated.

3. I find the term “diversity referent” (p. 8 and elsewhere) to be both confusing and potentially misleading; I would use something more like “social identity characteristic” or “(macro)social category.” If the authors want to use “diversity referent,” they should make sure to define it for readers the first time they use it. 

4. It’s not clear to me exactly what “assessment tools” and “literature-based knowledge transfer” refer to (p. 12). Each of these has just a single-sentence explanation in the subsequent paragraph, so more information and an example or two would help clarify. For example, it’s not clear to me if “literature” refers to narrative (such as a firsthand account written by a multilingual person, for example) or just reading a textbook or article on linguistics concepts, for example. 

5. On p. 9, the authors discuss the outcomes of the studies examined. They discuss how most studies revealed positive outcomes, but some had mixed outcomes. They do not discuss whether particular studies showed more positive results than others. (For example, some studies had quantitative results, so, in theory, the authors could compare the studies, determining which showed the largest positive effects from pre- to post-testing.) I mention this because much of the discussion section seems to simply review all the strategies used across all the studies, and in this way, it seems not to add much to what has already been stated in the results section. A stronger discussion section would make more targeted recommendations to readers regarding how to design curricula or intervention strategies based on which strategies across the reviewed studies showed the most positive results. Or the authors could tailor their recommendations for which strategies to use when attempting to accomplish particular instructional goals. This would make the discussion section more useful for readers and less repetitive.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

For the most part, the paper is well written and edited. I found a few small problems here and there, including one sentence that I bring up in my comments above. I also noticed the need for revision of the sentence on lines 62–64 on p. 2. One more read through should allow the authors to catch any remaining sentences that could inhibit their clarity.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your detailed feedback, which was very helpful in improving the quality of our review. Please find the detailed responses in the attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf