Browsing by Author "Kumpulainen, Maria"

The city of Helsinki started English-enriched education in 2016 and since then many primary school pupils have started this dual-focused bilingual programme in which subject matter is taught in an additional language. This master’s thesis is a qualitative mixed-design study that investigates teachers’ language choice in English-enriched education and their use of different translanguaging strategies. In addition, it explores the varying attitudes and beliefs teachers have towards translanguaging and English-enriched education. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. Six teachers from two primary schools in Helsinki participated in the study. Four teachers took part in both interviews and observations and two were only interviewed. Based on the observations, three of four teachers used translanguaging strategies in their lessons. According to the interview responses, all six teachers used translanguaging in their teaching. Most teachers had positive attitudes towards translanguaging and plurilingualism but some monolingual attitudes were also present and only Finnish and English were used in the classrooms. All the teachers reported facing some sort of challenges in CLIL teaching: for example, they reported a need for more training and cooperation and also felt that planning lessons and materials for diverse groups is burdensome.