Browsing by Author "Väätäinen, Ella"

Goals. In the research, primary school’s preparatory classroom teachers’ experiences in preparatory teaching materials of Finnish language are being examined. The acquisition of Finnish language is one of the bases in preparatory education because one’s linguistic readiness must be sufficient for daily schoolwork and interaction when proceeding to mainstream education. The goal of the study is to examine what kind of materials teachers use, which materials they find useful and what things they find challenging in using the materials. Guaranteeing equality for the newly arrived is behind the goals for those who in the beginning face in addition to a foreign environment also a foreign school language. Methods. The study was made as a part of University of Helsinki’s Meeting in the Middle -project. The study is qualitative case study and it was carried out as a semi-structured theme interview. The interviewees were chosen by their expertise in the topic of the research. Two experienced preparatory class teachers served as experts in the study. The teachers are from different schools, but they both work in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The interview data was analysed inductively, so according to material-based analysis process. Results and conclusions. The study revealed that teachers use different types of materials as part of the Finnish language teaching. Materials that were intended to the preparatory teaching, other learning materials and also self-made materials were used in their teaching. In the preparatory education, the needs of the pupils are very different and therefore the teachers felt they benefited from using versatile, both ready-made and self-made materials. However, many materials and meeting the needs of the pupils created challenges. The materials did not always meet the pupils’ needs when it came to meaningfulness and functionality thus the teachers provided self-made materials. These factors caused problems for teachers in the planning and to the time spent on it, too. Although the teachers showed contentment towards some materials, it was noted analysing the data that there is still a demand for materials suited for the needs of the pupils.