Browsing by Author "Palovaara, Ria"

Objectives. The aim of this study is to find out what kind of assumptions and experiences primary school class teachers have about mother tongue and literature as a school subject and its teaching. Teaching is influenced by teacher education and one’s own personal experiences and beliefs. Mother tongue and literature is a broad subject that encompasses many aspects. The class teacher has certain freedoms to carry out their work, so teaching takes place in a slightly different way in different classes. Students need the skills of this subject for other subjects and outside of school. The work of a class teacher involves much more than just teaching subjects. The purpose of this study was to find out how class teachers perceive one of the most important subjects in primary school. Methods. The study was carried out using qualitative methods. The material consisted of interviews with seven classroom teachers. The material was collected through a semi-structured interview in the spring of 2020 and analyzed by thematic analysis. Results and conclusions. This study found that class teachers perceive mother tongue and literature as a diverse school subject that would require additional time resources to teach. In addition, class teachers saw this subject strongly as a tool whose skills management enables the rest of schooling. Class teachers reflect extensively on the importance of the skills in this subject to the student. Reading, writing, interaction skills and multi-literacy were highlighted as important skills. The differences in competence between students bring challenges to the teaching of mother tongue and literature. Differences in competence can be related to the teaching of those who are still learning Finnish as well as to the teaching of pupils in need of special support. Here, too, the challenges were related to limited resources. Class teachers described the different teaching methods they use in teaching mother tongue and literature. As one of the effective methods to support students' motivation and learning, they mentioned action-based learning that is suitable for teaching grammar, for example. Mother tongue and literature appear to class teachers from many different perspectives. This study shows that in order to be an expert in mother tongue and literature a classroom teacher must have diverse knowledge.