Browsing by Author "Sarpakunnas, Heini"

The aim of my study is to research the behavior of the multilingual children in the day care center during active planning. The interest is focused also on how children make and main-tain friendships in the day care center. Additionally, another important objective is to find out how the kindergarten teachers feel about the support they receive to work with the multilin-gual children. Multilingualism has increased a lot in Finland in the recent years, which also means that the day cares centers have a lot of children who don't have Finnish language skills yet. However, it is equally important for them to receive high quality early childhood ed-ucation. The theme of the study is large and largely researched, but further research can be conducted from different points of view. My research questions are: 1. How 3-6-year old multilingual children behave during the planning activity at the day care center? 2. Does their behavior include withdrawing from the activity? 3. What kindergarten teacher considers about her ability to welcome multilingual children to their work? This research was qualitative, and interviews were used as the research method. The inter-view served as the method for collecting information. The analysis phases was conducted as content analysis. I interviewed four kindergarten teachers founded in the social media or through my friends. The results showed that the behavior of the multilinguals children during the planned activity depend on the temperament of the child. Understanding the language does not always have an impact on how the child behave. If the child had a skill for the majority language it was easier to have a contact with a Finnish child. Also, the children who did not speak Finnish were noticed to withdrawn from group situation and from social relationships. The kindergar-ten teachers felt receiving support within their work with the multilingual children if they need-ed to.