Browsing by Subject "bilingual"

The objectives: The number of children under three years of age with an immigrant back-ground has increased in early childhood education. Most children are in all-day childcare, which may cause that the Finnish language overtakes the native language of the child. For the child, his / her native language is also the language for feeling and thinking. Maintaining the native language is a precondition for the parent-child interaction. According to studies on the subject, strong skills in the native language also facilitate the learning of another language. The purpose of this study is to chart out how parents maintain and enrich the native language of their child in the new home country, how they value their own native language and what kind of guidance they have received in supporting bilingualism. My questions for this research are: How do parents maintain and enrich the native language of their child in their new home country? How important do the parents experience maintaining the native language of their child to be? What kind of guidance / information have the parents received in supporting the native language from the early childhood education personnel, from the school, and / or the child welfare clinic? Eight parents with an immigrant background, part of whom have lived in Finland already for a long period of time, were chosen to participate in this research. Methods: The research was carried out as a qualitative research. The method of the research was thematic interview. The data was analyzed by means of content analysis. Results and conclusions: As a rule, the parents spoke to their children their own native language, and preserving the native language was considered important. A general rule in the families was that at home only the native language was to be spoken. However, the parents experienced maintaining the native language as a challenge in the new home country. The parents had received very little support from the professional personnel to the means of maintaining the native language.