Integrating Language Across the Curriculum: Challenges and Solutions in Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

"Training the Teachers of the Future: Language Policy and Literacy Development" is an international collaborative initiative that involves many institutions in India. The overarching goal of this project is to provide a framework for a Bachelor of Education degree program that incorporates disciplinary literacy (DL) and language across the curriculum (LAC). This article delves into the difficulties encountered by subject matter lecturers in the field of education while attempting to teach non-language classes on a disciplinary literacy approach and with an emphasis on language throughout the curriculum. The thirty-nine professors who participated in the survey were part of a needs study that used a sequential exploratory mixed-method strategy. Subsequently, in order to ascertain the extent to which LAC was incorporated into the syllabi, a sample of fifteen lecturers was selected at random for further interview and classroom observation. In the end, twelve students were interviewed in a focus group to find out what they thought of LAC in the classroom. The deficiencies highlighted in this needs assessment pertain to insufficient understanding of how to address students linguistic diversity, inadequate understanding of language arts and language learning (LAC and DL), particularly as it pertains to academic reading comprehension and academic vocabulary development, and the time limitations associated with creating suitable curriculum materials. We present and investigate a "Four Levels of Support" program for educators, which is designed to foster the growth of curriculum-wide sustained language and the incorporation of disciplinary literacy into educational programs.

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