Browsing by Author "Räisänen, Sanna"

The purpose of this master's thesis was to study the ways in which the development of multilingualism of children from different linguistic backgrounds is acknowledged and promoted in Finnish comprehensive schools. Do the schools have common practices or models through which the development of the students' language skills is actively promoted, or is it dependent merely upon the teachers' interest and devotion? And through which means the teachers themselves aim to promote the language development and learning of students from immigrant backgrounds? The theoretical framework of this thesis consists of the theories on language development and multilingualism, of the national core curriculum on teaching multilingual students, and of previous studies on promoting the language development of students from immigrant backgrounds. In this thesis, the subject was approached by studying the views and experiences of teachers. This study aims to describe the means through which the language development of the students from immigrant backgrounds is being promoted, by school cultures as well as by individual teachers, in the Finnish school context. The data was collected by using a web-based questionnaire, to which 16 teachers working in schools in the Capital Region answered. Since the study was qualitative by nature, open questions were used in the questionnaire. For the analysis of the data, content analysis was used. The results of this study indicate that the schools can be categorised according to their school culture, which is either reactive or proactive in regard to promoting the language development of students. Reactive school culture responds only to the inevitable needs regarding the language development of students. Proactive school culture aims see the language skills of the students as a resource. Most of the respondents worked at schools whose school culture seemed reactive. The means of individual teachers of promoting the language development can be categorised into three groups, which are: acknowledging and appreciating the student's language skills, utilising the student's language skills when studying, and co-operation with guardians. Almost all of the respondents mentioned at least one means of promoting the language development of students from immigrant backgrounds. The results of this study can be utilised, when teachers and schools are planning the means in which to integrate the language skills and backgrounds of students into teaching and school culture.