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- Alisaari, Jenni, et al.
(author)
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Finnish Teachers’ Perspectives on Creating Multilingual Learning Opportunities in Diverse Classrooms
- 2023
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In: Critical and creative engagements with diversity in Nordic education. - : Lexington Books. - 9781666925852 - 9781666925869 ; , s. 109-131
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In Finland, the core curriculum for basic education supports multilingual pedagogies. However, while the multilingual turn has been recognized in policy documents since 2014, the actual shift toward multilingual pedagogies has not yet happened. We examined Finnish teachers’ (n = 650) perspectives on using students’ linguistic repertoires by analyzing their responses to the following open-ended question: [The revised Finnish common core] curricula encourage the use of all the languages students know for learning. Do you practice this in your own teaching? How? If not, what are the potential obstacles? Our results showed that most of the teachers understood the importance of using students’ entire linguistic repertoires for learning, and only very few had a negative stance toward languages as a resource. Many teachers also reported implementing multilingual pedagogies in the classroom, for example, encouraging their students to use translation dictionaries or to process content in their first languages. However, other teachers reported various obstacles that prevented them from implementing multilingual pedagogies, such as inadequate skills, a lack of time, and heterogeneous groups. In addition, students were not always considered as willing to use their own languages or reveal their linguistic and cultural backgrounds, which can hinder supporting the linguistic diversity of students’ voices. To create equitable learning environments, ongoing work to foster linguistically and culturally aware school cultures, including in-service trainings in multilingual pedagogies, is needed.
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