Venäjänkielinen alakoululainen suomen rakenteiden oppijana

This article examines, how two Russian-speaking children (ages 9 and 11) learn Finnish morpho-syntactic structures in interaction in a transitional classroom at primary school. It also discusses whether the influence of the mother tongue is observable in the learning process. The study focuses on the development of prototypical possessive structure and standard negation. The data consist of 15 lessons, video-recorded during one school year. The episodes, including the structures used by the children, are analysed by drawing on the principles of conversation analysis. The analyses show that for both children the possessive structure appears to be more complex to learn than the standard negation. However, the children’s acquisition of these structures follows different paths. At the end of the semester, the younger child’s possessive has not become established in Finnish, whereas the older child has begun to use it in accordance with the target language norms. The negation, however, follows the target language norms, in both children’s speech.

Kehollinen toiminta opetuskeskustelun tukena valmistavassa opetuksessa

This article examines bodily action as an interactional resource in instruction preparing for basic education. Using conversation analysis as method, the study seeks to answer two research questions: How does bodily action support and enable participation in the classroom interaction, and how do the teacher and the students use it in IRE/IRF-sequences? The first focus is on how the teacher uses bodily action when asking questions from the students. Secondly, the study focuses on how the teacher verbalizes students’ bodily action into verbal utterances. The writer argues that bodily action can enable participation in the classroom interaction as well as language teaching and language learning. For the teacher it serves as a pedagogical tool and for the student as a means of participation when learning a new language.

Opettajien käsitykset monikielisyydestä

This article examines teachers’ views (N = 2,864) on school multilingualism. The results have been analyzed using statistical methods and the conceptual frameworks of Spolsky’s language policy and Ruíz’s language orientations. The respondents were divided into three groups: positive (18%), deliberating (34%) and cautious (48%). The teachers’ language orientations were analyzed using three sum variables: teacher’s use of multiple languages, student’s use of multiple languages, and schools’ language attitudes. Classroom teachers were more positive about multilingualism than subject teachers and there were more teachers with cautious attitudes in schools where the number of foreign-language pupils was less than 5%. Additionally, the attitudes to multilingualism were more permissive in Swedish-speaking than in Finnish-speaking schools. Overall, the analysis of teachers’ views suggested that language policies vary. Finally, the individual respondents’ views did not fully correspond to any of Ruíz’s formulated language orientations.

Kohdekielisyyden normin oikeutus ja toteutus venäjänkielisessä CLIL-alkuopetuksessa

This article examines the pedagogical-didactic legitimacy of an institutional language practice called the target language norm, and its implementation in Russian-language content-and-language-integrated (CLIL) classroom in primary education with 6–8-year-old students. Here, the language norm refers to an arrangement in which the teacher uses only the target language and restricts the students' use of their native tongue. The data consist of video recorded classroom interaction and ethnographic notes by the teacher-researcher, both collected during a two-year period. The microethnographic analysis shows that the students gradually adopt the norm as a part of their everyday school routine as they are socialized into classroom practices. The study argues that in certain contexts it is justified to introduce a language norm that supports the systematic and goal-oriented nature of language learning.

Koulun monet kielet

This article introduces the AFinLA-e thematic issue on plurilingualism in the school. Lately, multilingualism has been a buzzword in both sociolinguistic research and applied linguistics. Through the reform of national core curriculum for basic education, multilingualism, alongside language awareness, has also become an inextricable part of public educational discussions and the normative framework of basic education. There remain, however, questions about how all these changes translate into linguistically responsive classroom pedagogy and practices that support achieving learning goals, the process of language socialization, and pupils’ plurilingual identities. Our aim is to give a brief general introduction into the flourishing field of multilingualism research, its developments, approaches and trajectories, and describe the contributions that the articles in this issue make into the growing body of work in the Finnish context. We also identify three future trajectories for research on plurilingualism in the school.

Kielitaitojen kirjo käyttöön, limittäiskieleilyä luokkaan

This paper focuses on pedagogical practices that enhance language awareness and encourage the use of the pupils’ diverse linguistic repertoires in the classroom. The paper is based on the sociolinguistically informed action research project Itä-Helsingin uudet Suomen kielet. The data for this paper come from video recordings of the projects’ workshops as well as interviews with the teachers. I describe the ways in which the pupils take the role of language experts in the project workshops and analyze how the project changed the pedagogical thinking and practices of the teachers. The analysis shows that transforming the monolingual institutional space into a translanguaging space is possible with language awareness and translanguaging pedagogy. In the translanguaging space, registers from different contexts encounter in shared practices, which allows learning beyond the borders of languages. Action research proves to be a fruitful way for implementing research knowledge and ideas in practice.

Muuttuvat näkökulmat monikielisyyteen

Within sociolinguistics, perspectives to multilingualism have changed considerably during the last decades. At the same time, along the ‘multilingual turn’ in sociolinguistics and in language education studies, the number of available concepts to discuss multilingual repertoires and practices has increased very quickly. Notions such as translanguaging and plurilingualism have entered the linguistic parlance yet the actual nature of the change or its pedagogical relevance might be difficult to discern amid the diverse scholarly discourses where theoretical and practical concerns are tangled together. This article discusses the multilingual turn and its theoretical and pedagogical consequences by focusing on some broader, metatheoretical changes that have taken place along the so-called turn in language education studies. These changes in perceiving the essence of language, language skills, language learning and multilingualism are tightly connected with ideological changes within the field. I illustrate these ideologies and discuss their relevance especially for classroom pedagogy with newcomer students.

Koulunkäynninohjaaja perusopetukseen valmistavan opetuksen luokassa: koskettaminen ohjaamisen tukena

The article presents a microethnographic study on touch episodes between teaching assistants and pupils in the context of immigrant students' preparatory classroom. The data consist of 16 classroom lessons, 45 minutes each, with 7–12-year-old participants, 4–7 pupils at a time. We calculated all touches, categorizing them by touch initiators, and classified various physical types of touch. In three vignettes, we outline how the teaching assistant implemented teacher's verbal instruction in verbal-tactile mode, made discreet tactile interventions to disturbing or passive students, and thus enabled the classroom dialogue to continue. The institutional roles of the teacher and the assistant are evident in their different ways of touching, rather than in their frequency: the teaching assistant's touch episodes were often long-lasting, or series of different touches, even with two hands, while the typical way for a teacher to touch was a light one-hand-touch on a pupil's shoulder.

Kieli ja taide

This article introduces the AFinLA-e thematic issue focusing on creative inquiry in applied linguistics. This is a relatively new field of research, but it is expanding fast. Our aim is therefore to give a brief general introduction into this transdisciplinary field – its trajectories, approaches, methods and future directions – and to describe the contributions that the articles in this issue make into the growing body of work. The articles display a variety of research topics and approaches, illustrative of the diversity of research in the field. Art adopts a number of different roles: context, medium, process, partner, or the outcome of a research project. The articles cover various art forms, such as music, literature, visual arts, social circus, dance and photography, as well as a number of approaches to language and communication.

S2-lukija tulkitsijana selkomukautetun kaunokirjallisuuden lukupiirissä

This article discusses reading circles of adult Finnish as a second language (L2) readers. The books that were read and discussed in the circles were easy-to-read fiction. The study focuses on how the readers interpret what they read and what kind of support they need for their interpretations. The analysis utilizes the concept of scaffolding, used in socio-cultural learning theory. The readers’ reading stances vary from what is literally said in the text to creating their own interpretations of the hidden meanings of the text. The latter are not very common in the reading circles, although many participants express a wish to create and discuss interpretations too. The analysis shows that interpretations can emerge if the participants are scaffolded in the reading circle by the teacher and other readers. The study thus provides useful information for designing reading circles in adult language education.