The context of this article is the language education in Finnish and Swedish-speaking schools; more specifically the early language education. We present a qualitative investigation which was conducted as a part of the project Multilingual Didactics and Dialogs (DIDIA) at University of Helsinki in Finland.
The teachers' beliefs affect their choices of actions and classroom activities, and are influenced by ideologies, language policy orientations as well as the teachers' own perceptions about teaching and learning (see Alisaari et al. 2019, 49). We focus on early language teaching practises in Finnish primary schools and analyse the relationship between teachers' attitudes towards language education and multilingualism (see Tarnanen & Palviainen, 2018). We aim to identify the teachers' views on language and language teaching behind their teaching practises in early language education and pose the following research questions: 1. What do the teachers emphasize or take into account in their planning of the early language education? and 2. How is the teachers view on multilingualism reflected in early language education? Through interviews we aim to create an understanding of which challenges and possibilities teachers see in their daily work in Finnish, Swedish and foreign language teaching.
The data was collected by using a questionnaire (N=18) and interviews (N=3) of practicing teachers. In the analysis of the interviews, we followed the principles of content-based data analysis.
The results give an insight to the practises in early language teaching. Overall, from the teachers interviews, a picture from early language education as a communicative language education can be drawn and the sociocultural change can be identified when the teachers describe their teaching practices. There is a wish for a broader language reserve in Finland, the early language teaching should not focus on English, but either on the national languages Finnish and Swedish or another foreign language. The analysis of the interviews revealed that the teacher felt comfortable with bilingual teaching practises, but not with multilingual teaching practises. The teachers' attitudes towards multilingualism in the classrooms were somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the teachers seem to possess a positive attitude towards multilingualism, on the other hand they see the variety of the students' linguistic repertoires as a challenge in their daily practices. They seem to need as well understanding as concrete tools in facilitating understanding and communication with students with little skills in Swedish or Finnish, the target language or the language of instruction. This indicates that there is a clear need for further training targeted to promoting multilingual didactics. We argue, however, that there is also a need for new thinking and new ways of understanding the linguistic practises (see Wei 2018, 10).
Alisaari, J., Heikkola, L., Commins, N., & Emmanuel, O. (2019). Monolingual Ideologies Confronting Multilingual Realities. Finnish Teachers' Beliefs About Linguistic Diversity. Teaching and teacher education 80: 48–58. Web.
Tarnanen, M., & Palviainen, Å. (2018). Finnish Teachers as Policy Agents in a Changing Society. Language and education 32(5): 428–443. Web.
Wei, Li. (2018). Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language. Applied Linguistics 2018: 39(1): 9–30. doi:10.1093/applin/amx039
