37.2208, Reviews: Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders: Fernando Zolin Vesz, Darío Luis Banegas & Luciana C. de Oliveira (eds.) (2026)

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Subject: 37.2208, Reviews: Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders: Fernando Zolin Vesz, Darío Luis Banegas & Luciana C. de Oliveira (eds.) (2026)

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Date: 29-Jun-2026
From: Alison Henehan [a.m.henehan at rug.nl]
Subject: Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics: Fernando Zolin Vesz, Darío Luis Banegas & Luciana C. de Oliveira (eds.) (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-1176

Title: Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders
Subtitle: Multilingualism, Transculturalism, and Critical Approaches
Series Title: Critical Approaches and Innovations in Language Teacher
Education
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/language-teacher-education-beyond-borders-9781350408326/

Editor(s): Fernando Zolin Vesz, Darío Luis Banegas & Luciana C. de
Oliveira

Reviewer: Alison Henehan

SUMMARY
Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders: Multilingualism,
Transculturalism and Critical Approaches is edited by Fernando Zolin
Vesz, Darío Luis Banegas and Luciana C. de Oliveira, was published in
2024 by Bloomsbury Academic in hardback, paperback and e-book formats,
and has 200 pages. The eight chapters draw on multilingual and
transcultural education research from around the globe to explore
language teacher education from a critical perspective. With chapters
from Scotland, Thailand, Qazaqstan and Brazil, the edited volume
provides perspectives on critical multilingual teacher education which
contribute to our current understanding of language ideologies, power
dynamics and globalisation within education systems.
In Chapter 1 “Introduction: On How Language Teacher Education Can
Critically Address Multilingualism and Transculturalism,” Fernando
Zolin Vesz, Darío Luis Banegas and Luciana C. de Oliveira introduce
multilingualism and transculturalism as “part of the pluralistic range
of theories that can embrace critical language teacher education” (p.
2) and that are used to frame the book. They conceive of a critical
multilingual and transcultural perspective on language teacher
education, whereby multilingualism and transculturalism do not figure
as deviations from the native-speaker norm of monolingual and
monocultural education, but embrace movement and diversity. In order
to do so, they present the history of critical theories and their
position in educational studies today. This leads to the framing of
critical theories of language teacher education as “a political
practice that entails questioning the contemporary social world” (p.
5); this in turn is used as a theoretical framing for the entire book.
Chapter 2 “How Language Education Finds It Difficult to Go along with
Critical Approaches,” by Argyro Kanaki, examines the “1+2 Approach”
language policy in Scotland, in which Scotland’s languages of English,
Gaelic, Scots, community languages and British Sign Language are
taught, primary school pupils learn a second language (L2) and
cultural elements of an L3 are introduced. Language learning is based
on the neoliberal market value of languages and cultures and, while
pupils’ heritage languages and cultures are encouraged to be
celebrated, there is no allocation for this in the policy. Kanaki then
reports on an ethnographic study from an urban primary school, where
teachers found benefits from the 1+2 approach, yet had little
multilingual awareness, imposing neoliberal market values on language
education and emphasising the importance of English and English
literacy over multilingual communication, resulting in monolingual
ideologies.
In Chapter 3 “Decolonizing Multilingualism and Transnationalism:
Narrative and Linguistic Landscapes from Language Education,”
Adcharawan Buripakdi and Thidaporn Jumpakate explore multilingualism,
multiculturalism and transnationalism in Thailand in an ethnographic
study using linguistic landscapes and interviews with  language
teachers in higher education. The teachers tended to conceptualise
multilingualism as either structuralism-oriented or critical
multilingualism. Some participants considered Thailand to be a
multilingual country and many used multilingual practices in their
teaching, including using regional dialects to make students feel more
comfortable. Although the linguistic landscape analysis found Thailand
to be a richly multilingual country, many teachers showed little
awareness of everyday multilingualism in Thailand.
Chapter 4 “‘Even Though I’m Not a Native Speaker’: An EFL Teacher
Educator’s Identities,” by Serikbolsyn Tastanbek, discusses native
speaker ideologies in a case study of an EFL teacher educator in
Qazaqstan, a country where translanguaging is common between the state
language Qazaq, the intercultural language, Russian, and the global
language, English. The teacher holds native-speaker ideologies,
framing herself as a non-native English speaker, and maintains
English-only classroom ideologies. She engages in translanguaging
practices from a deficit multilingual perspective, viewing herself as
a bad role model for students because of using translanguaging.
In Chapter 5 “Promoting Multilingualism through a Transnational View
of Culture,” Daniela Silva argues for a transnational view of culture,
with the aim of promoting asset-based pedagogies of multilingualism.
Culture is broken down into the large culture of nation states and the
small culture of everyday practices (Holliday, 1999; Kramsch, 2006).
The author emphasises the importance of a critical approach to culture
in language education as “it allows language educators and students to
understand issues of power and inequality in society” (p. 90). She
encourages the development of raciolinguisic, decolonial pedagogies
and suggests that teachers interrogate the language ideologies that
students bring to the class, implement translanguaging practices and
bring a transnational approach to culture into their teaching.
In Chapter 6 “An Analysis of Language Teacher Education Curricula:
Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Contemporary Pluricultural
Classrooms,” Camila Höfling and Patrícia de Oliveira Lucas analyse
official curriculum documents for language teacher education in Brazil
and present their impact on two undergraduate English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) programmes in two universities, one in the Northeast
and the other in the Southeast. They outline the main features of the
curricula, including language proficiency, pedagogical strategies,
applied linguistics, and others. Important topics for critical
language teacher education such as Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous
history and culture, intercomprehension and English as a lingua franca
are missing from the curricula, leading the authors to recommend that
the curricula be redesigned.
Chapter 7 “Toward a Plurilingual Pedagogy and Critical Intercultural
Perspective in Bi/Multilingual Schools: The Global Kids Portfolio,” by
Michele Salles El Kadri, Vivian Campagnolli Bergantini Saviolli and
Andressa Cristina Molinari, discusses prestigious bilingual schools in
Brazil, using “the Global Kids Portfolio as a tool designed to help
bilingual teachers incorporate new narratives into the curriculum” (p.
131). While prestigious bilingual education programmes are becoming
more popular in Brazil, teachers are often not prepared to engage with
decolonialising, heteroglossic bilingual pedagogies as part of a
critical approach. The authors introduce the Global Kids Portfolio as
a set of materials for early years bilingual Portuguese-English
education which is based on a framework of critical interculturality
and a heteroglossic perspective on language learning. Two units of the
portfolio are presented and analysed, with examples of activities for
fostering inclusive plurilingual education and the principles behind
their inclusion in the portfolio.
Maryam Almohammad concludes the book in Chapter 8 Crafting Borders and
Identities through State Multilingualism and Interculturalism
Policies, emphasising the importance of critical transcultural and
multilingual perspectives in language education. She provides a
history and overview of interculturality, connecting it to today’s
political discourses around migration, nationalism, war and racism.
The author raises questions on the values of multiculturalism, and its
potential associations with human rights, equality and diversity, with
neoliberalism, as a top-down state policy or as a social practice, and
how each of these values has implications for multicultural practices
and discourses in education. The aim of critical intercultural
education in this book is summarised as “to raise teachers’,
practitioners’, and researchers’ awareness of the political nature of
multiculturalism and interculturalism and the borders which these
projects could create across individuals, institutions, and
communities” (p. 164). Alongside this aim, the book also
conceptualises “multiculturalism and multilingualism as an integral
part of critical intercultural language education” (p. 164). While
teachers play an important role as critical agents of neoliberal,
top-down state policies regarding language and culture, Almohammad
argues that the teachers in this book lack sufficient multicultural
and multilingual awareness to engage critically with these concepts,
marking a gap in teacher education. The author concludes the volume
with two recommendations for future research: to deconstruct how
theories of multilingualism, culture and interculturality can be
applied in professional training, including language teacher
education, and to engage with decolonial theories and practices of
“the self, knowledge, practice, teacher, and learner identity” (p.
168) in relation to the implementation of critical approaches to
intercultural education.
Overall, the volume Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders:
Multilingualism, Transculturalism and Critical Approaches showcases
theories and examples of critical approaches to multilingualism and
interculturality from several global contexts.  It contributes to our
understanding of how language and culture are intertwined and engaged
with through a critical perspective on language teacher education,
enhancing our understanding of how language teachers include
multilingual and transcultural practices in their teaching, as well as
how they are prepared to engage critically with interculturality and
the top-down, political perspectives which prevent teachers from
taking a critical approach to language teacher education.
EVALUATION
The authors successfully achieve their goals of contributing to the
conversation around critical approaches to multilingual and
transcultural language teacher education with a strong analytical,
critical lens, by exploring what language teacher education is, what
it means and its purposes in several contexts, with broader
implications for teacher education in general.
A strong theoretical framework of the critical approach is presented
in the introduction and each chapter builds on this framework,
allowing the reader to understand different perspectives and
interpretations of criticality in education. Furthermore, several
examples showcase language teachers and language teacher educators who
do not engage critically with multilingualism and transculturalism,
demonstrating the urgency and relevance of this volume to encourage
greater engagement with the concepts presented in the book.
The volume covers a broad scope, combining ethnographic research,
policy analysis, case studies and materials analysis relating to
language teacher education in early, primary, higher and general
education in Scotland, Thailand, Qazaqstan and Brazil, resulting in a
heterogenous collection of study designs and settings. These studies
collectively contribute to readers’ understanding of critical
approaches to multilingual and transcultural language teacher
education and how they can be applied across contexts. The thread of
multilingualism and transculturalism in critical language teacher
education runs coherently throughout the book, and further volumes
could add to the contribution by exploring more contexts in order to
reach a broader understanding of how language teacher education can
benefit from critical approaches.
This volume is suitable for anyone interested in critical approaches
to language teacher education, although it is particularly applicable
to language teacher educators. While language teachers and educators
in Brazil, Scotland, Thailand and Qazaqstan may find the research
presented here most directly applicable in terms of the policy and
curricula analysis, those in other contexts will surely also find it
relevant and significant, especially when it comes to developing a
more thorough understanding of critical approaches to multilingualism
and transculturalism. It could also be recommended as a suitable
introduction or as follow-up text to critical language teacher
education for bachelor or master students of education or applied
linguistics. Despite the complex topic, the language is accessible and
the structure of each chapter is easy to follow. The detailed analysis
provides a substantial contribution to the topic for researchers in
language teacher education, without being full of jargon or too
complicated for non-experts to understand.
This volume fits well within the series, Critical Approaches and
Innovations in Language Teacher Education (Yazan, 2024-27),
particularly forming connections with the books Humanizing Language
Teaching and Teacher Education in Transnational Spaces (Jain et al.,
2026) and Criticality, Agency, and Language Teacher Identities (Kim et
al., 2027), which would act as ideal companion volumes to this book as
they expand upon the theory of critical approaches to teacher
education, including language teacher identity and humanising concepts
in language teacher education. Its discourses on multilingualism and
transculturalism are contextualised within the wider field of
multilingualism and applied linguistics, such as in relation to
translanguaging theories (e.g., García & Wei, 2014). The critical
approach framework and analysis also fits into existing research
(e.g., Pennycook, 1999; Young & Diem, 2017).
This book paves the way for new research into critical approaches to
language teacher education, particularly in response to the two
suggestions for further research in the conclusion:  (1)  to study
“how deconstructing notions of culture, interculturality, and
multilingualism could be considered in preparing student teachers,
in-service teachers, and other future professionals (e.g., journalists
and consultants) for intercultural communication” (Almohammad, 2024,
p. 168), and (2) to further examine how language teachers engage with
multilingualism and transculturalism in order to decolonise
educational practices and learning.
Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders: Multilingualism,
Transculturalism and Critical Approaches offers a strong contribution
to our understanding of critical approaches, interculturality and
multilingualism in language teacher education, drawing on research
from several contexts and developing a conceptualisation of how
multilingualism and transculturalism can be approached in language
teacher education from critical, decolonising, heteroglossic,
multilingual and raciolinguistic perspectives. It offers clear
suggestions for future work, allowing for the future development of
critical approaches in education.
REFERENCES
García, O. & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism
and Education. Palgrave Pivot. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137385765
Holliday, A. (1999). Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20(2),
237-64. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.237
Jain, R., Chen, J. & Trinh, E. (Eds.). (2026). Humanizing Language
Teaching and Teacher Education in Transnational Spaces: Critical
Perspectives on Identities, Pedagogies, and Research. Bloomsbury.
Kim, H. J. & Uysal, H. (Eds.). (2027). Criticality, Agency, and
Language Teacher Identities: Research and Praxis from Global Teacher
Education. Bloomsbury.
Kramsch, C. (2006). Culture in language teaching. In H. L. Andersen,
K. Lund, & K. Risager (Eds.), Culture in language learning (pp.
11-24). Aarhus University Press.
Pennycook, A. (1999). Introduction: Critical Approaches to TESOL.
TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 329-348. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587668
Yazan, B. (Ed.). (2025-27). Critical Approaches and Innovations in
Language Teacher Education (Series). Bloomsbury.
Young, M. D., & Diem, S. (Eds.). (2017). Critical Approaches to
Education Policy Analysis: Moving Beyond Tradition. Springer Nature.
Zolin Vesz, F., Banegas, D. L. & de Oliveira, L. C. (Eds.). (2024).
Language Teacher Education Beyond Borders: Multilingualism,
Transculturalism and Critical Approaches. Bloomsbury.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Alison Henehan is a PhD student at the University of Groningen and
Macquarie University, working in the fields of applied linguistics and
teacher education. Her research focuses on pre-service teachers’
multilingual identities and cognitions of multilingualism using
arts-based approaches and AI. Alison has a particular interest in the
dominant constellation framework and its applications in educational
contexts. Her goal is for multilingual pedagogies to be widely
implemented in teacher training programmes and school curricula, and
she is interested in  exploring how AI can be used to help
(pre-service) teachers engage with multilingualism critically and
ethically.



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