Browsing by Subject "äidinkieli"

The aim of the current study was to examine whether the subject interest and utility value of Finnish language among high school students predicts the experiences of the first Finnish language course in high school. The second aim was to explore whether these experiences predict further course grades. Course experiences consisted feelings about interest, strain, effort and expectancies of success. All research questions included the effect of earlier school success. The second question included also the effect of the course experiences. The whole study was designed by means of Interest and Expectancy-Value Theories. The respondents of present study (n = 172) participated in first Finnish language course in High School between 2012 and 2013. The factor analysis was used to test the questionnaire of course experiences and the predictions of research questions was analyzed by means of hierarchical linear regression analysis. As expected results indicated that interest toward Finnish language predicted experiences of interest, effort and strain of the first course. Despite expectations interest in Finnish did not predict the course grades or expectancies of success. Despite expectations the utility value of Finnish did not have any significant effect towards course experiences or grades. Course experiences did not predict the course grades. At the first step earlier success predicted experiences of interest and success expectations, but the effect predicting interest was not significant after second step. Earlier success predicted course grades after every step of hierarchical model. The interest and utility value toward subject was examined relative concisely. It would be interesting to replicate the research setting by studying the phenomena more comprehensive and test the design between genders and age groups.

My Bachelor's thesis examines the connection between language and identity in the life of a multilingual child aged up to six years. There is plenty of prior research related to learning a language as well as the link between language and identity. On the other hand, it has been difficult to find comprehensive information regarding how a mother tongue and a second language or multilingualism and identity impact each other. My assumption nonetheless was that a minority language child of a lower status gradually develops into a higher status child through her or his progression in second language skills. My thesis is a literature review and it is based on the theories of an everchanging nature of identity by Hall (2002) and Bauman (2001) as well as theories by Cummins (1986; 2000; 2001) based on which language development is a dynamic process, with simultaneous development of first and second languages. With respect to mother tongue, I have relied on the theories of Skutnabb-Kangas (1988) and the theories of Karmiloff and Karmiloff Smith (2002) related to mother tongue acquisition and development as an interactive process between an individual and his or her environment. As to the second language, I have relied on the theories of Baker (2000) and Krashen (2013). I have selected content analysis as the method of my research as it is suitable for carrying out a systematic theoretical review. I conducted my research by analyzing and summarizing information from several selected studies and by categorizing this information into three different groups, based on which I have drawn the conclusions of my research. The results show that a child's identity development is dependent on the child feeling respected in the kindergarten. If the child feels accepted the way he or she is regardless of his or her background, the impacts on his self-esteem and identity development are positive. The child feels belonging to the group and is involved. Prerequisite for this is that the child is able to read and write in both languages. In this case multilingualism benefits the child since it is linked with success. If the child does not have the sense of being respected in the kindergarten, it poses a risk to the development of both of his languages and identity. In such a case multilingualism causes harm to the child’s learning and success, which can lead to social exclusion.

Some research on the attitudes among comprehensive school pupils have been made in the context of different school subjects. In this study, I wanted to examine the attitudes among comprehensive school pupils toward mother tongue and literature. Consideration of subject name definition and teaching content in the research were also considered due to versatility of the subject. I was also interested in what methods were used in the studies and what were their effects on the results. This study was conducted as a literature review, which first summarized the findings of the research and presented their main points. Moreover, a separate discussion of study results and description for name and content parts were presented. The materials used in this study were searched from Helka Finna service databases and from Google Scholar search en-gine. In addition, two articles were searched from Google search engine. Studies showed that the attitudes among comprehensive school pupils are either neutral or slightly negative towards mother tongue and literature. However, some studies also showed slightly positive attitudes towards the subject. Many studies had taken gender differences into account. Attitudes were measured either qualitatively or quantitatively, nonetheless the results were rather similar regardless of the used methods. However, a more versatile picture of attitudes was obtained by qualitative research. In studies that considered teaching content, grammar was generally considered to be the most unpopular part of the subject. However, the importance or usefulness of both the grammar and the whole subject was recognized. Pupils believe that the content of mother tongue and literature is needed, for example, in working life. Teaching contents were considered in half of the research. The subject was referred to as either mother tongue or mother tongue and literature. The used name was not related to the time when the subject content changed to include both mother tongue and literature.