Balancing national language policy and classroom realities: teachers' negotiations of multilingualism in Turkish schools

Abstract

This study aims to explore how teachers in Turkish state schools negotiate between national (monolingual) language policy and multilingual classroom practice. T & uuml;rkiye requires that instruction be conducted only in Turkish, and English is the first foreign language to be taught according to a compulsory-instruction-only strategy. But many classrooms include students who speak Kurdish, Arabic, or other minority languages as well as Syrian refugee children, making them rich multilingual environments that defy the prescriptions of policy. Informed by three research questions-how teachers' interpretations of policy shape their teaching practice, what multilingual practices teachers enact, and how they rationalize or legitimate these practices-the study assumes a qualitative case study design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 118 teachers, classroom observations of 40 teachers, and document analysis of the Ministry of National Education policies and curricula. Document analysis corroborated that minority and refugee languages are seldom pointed out in official guidelines. The paper foregrounds the role of teachers in shaping multilingual education. It implies flexible policies, teacher training in multilingual pedagogy, and explicit recognition of minority languages. Treating the Turkish case in relation to transnational discussions of language policy and multilingualism, this article participates in recontextualizing national planning for such societies.