Multilingualism in the Australian Suburbs

Ruth Fielding is Assistant Professor of TESOL and Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Canberra. She is the Course Convener for the Master of Arts in TESOL and Foreign Language Teaching program. She previously worked for over eight years as a Lecturer in Languages Education and TESOL at the University of Sydney where she coordinated the single method Languages Curriculum units within the pre-service teacher education courses and a unit within the MEd TESOL program. Ruth began her career as a secondary teacher of French and German. She completed her PhD in 2009 with a thesis exploring bilingual identity. Ruth's current research focuses upon four bilingual programs introduced in NSW, and explores the pedagogies in these contexts and the assessment of language and content achievement in these programs. Her postdoctoral research has included: an exploration of the implementation of four new bilingual programs; an examination of language and literacy programs for recently arrived school students in Australia; exploration of the use of a variation to the IRE turn as a potential intercultural pedagogical tool; and exploration of the transition of language learners from school into university.Ruth has been involved with languages education through the national and State language teacher associations. She co-convened the AFMLTA's 17th Conference in Sydney in 2009. She served as Secretary of the national language teacher association – AFMLTA from 2012 -2013 and is an executive committee member of the State language teacher association - MLTA NSW. Ruth teaches and researches in the areas of primary and secondary languages education, language teacher education, bilingualism and bilingual identity.