Projects per year
Abstract
This study examines how practitioners of minority-medium Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Finland reflect on language awareness (LA) in their professional learning communities (PLCs). The study is conducted within in-service training for ECEC practitioners and it also highlights how these practitioner reflections can be of use and support developing future in-service training within the action research framework. The data include nine group discussions on a reflection task, with 41 primary participants and 165 secondary participants from each primary participant’s respective PLC. As a starting point, the researcher-trainers identified six language-policy themes on LA in national policy documents. These were presented for practitioners, who then discussed them both in their respective PLCs and within the in-service training. The in-service discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed for qualitative-content analysis. During the analysis, the focus was on the dynamics of minority-majority positions, with the following themes emerging: i) Language contacts; ii) bilingual children and multi-layered identity; and iii) developing multilingual pedagogies. The results showed that the same insights often were treated both as strengths and weaknesses, and that a need exists for support so that practitioners can implement language-aware educational policy into their operational cultures.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 85–102 |
Journal | Apples : Journal of Applied Language Studies |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- Operational culture
- Professional learning
- Early childhood education and care
- Language Policy
- Language awareness
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Language-aware operational culture – Developing in-service training for early childhood education and care'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Listiac: Linguistically Sensitive Teaching in All Classrooms
Björklund, S. (Principal Investigator), Bergroth, M. (Co-Principal Investigator), Storås, L. (Co-Investigator), Haagensen, J. (Co-Investigator) & Pakarinen, S. (Co-Investigator)
15/02/19 → 14/02/22
Project: EU