Impacting Prospective Teachers' Cognition on Language Acquisition in a Plurilingual and Intercultural Education Perspective: The Effects of Targeted Instruction in a Primary Education Degree.

This article examines the beliefs and attitudes of preservice primary education teachers in Lombardy, Northern Italy, toward plurilingualism and multilingual education, focusing on how targeted training influences these views. Using questionnaires administered to first-year and fifth-year students before and after a specialized 36-hour course on multilingual teaching and a 9-hour practical workshop on pluralistic and translanguaging pedagogies, the study found no significant difference in attitudes between early and late-stage students prior to the course. However, participation in the course significantly enhanced future teachers' positive beliefs about plurilingualism, particularly regarding language use in families, the role of plurilingualism in teaching, and the feasibility of plurilingual pedagogies. The study also identified intercultural sensitivity as a meaningful predictor of openness to plurilingual inclusion. These findings highlight the importance of integrating linguistically and culturally responsive teaching (LCRT) and plurilingual education concepts into teacher training programs to better prepare educators for diverse, multilingual classrooms.