Äidinkielen ja vieraan kielen opettajien käsityksiä lukustrategioiden opettamisesta ja oppimisesta

In a multilingual world, reading in different languages is an essential skill. Both studies and news reports stress the importance of literacy and the fact that achieving good reading skills is not a given. Research has shown that the changing reading habits of young people in Finland, among other things, are reflected in their reading skills, as also the results of the PISA survey show. In a bilingual country like Finland, it is also important to promote linguistic diversity and inter-linguistic competence. The knowledge of both of Finland’s official languages is important both in everyday life and at school. The main challenge of reading in a foreign language is often the lack of language skills. Especially for reading comprehension, active engagement with the text is important. Previous research has shown that, with appropriate teaching methods, reading strategies can be transferred from the first language to a foreign language. Explicit and formal teaching of reading strategies can also lead to better reading comprehension in both the first language and a foreign language. Through the training of reading strategies, learners can become more active readers and promote their reading comprehension. In order to enable learners to use reading strategies independently, teachers must be familiar with the methods of teaching reading strategies. Successful teaching of reading strategies is influenced, for example, by the teaching style and skills used to explain the strategies and their use. In this article, I examine how mother tongue teachers (Finnish, Swedish) and teachers of German as a foreign language in Finland perceive the teaching and learning of reading strategies. I investigate their theoretical and action beliefs and their beliefs on teachers’ roles. The aim was to explore mother tongue and German teachers’ beliefs of reading strategies and the methods they use to introduce their students to active reading. I investigated how teachers guide their students to read and use reading strategies. The article also examines the links that teachers perceive between reading in the mother tongue and reading in a foreign language. Data was collected through individual interviews (n = 9) between September 2022 and January 2023. The data consists of semi-structured interviews based on themes that were selected based on previous research on the teaching of reading strategies. The individual interviews, lasting one hour on average, were conducted remotely and the interviews were recorded for analysis. The recorded interviews were transcribed. The analysis was carried out using qualitative content analysis and the NVivo software. The results show that the mother tongue teachers and German teachers interviewed in this study had partly similar beliefs of the teaching and learning of reading strategies. Both groups stressed the importance of a systematic approach towards the text and the active engagement with it, as well as teacher’s support for both. Regarding reading strategies, only some teachers had a wide theoretical understanding, while all teachers reported having used reading strategies in their teaching. Only some teachers reflected on interlanguage competence in reading skills and strategies. Both groups of teachers emphasised the role of the teacher as a motivator for reading. German teachers used authentic texts as a motivator, while mother tongue teachers allowed pupils to influence the choice of texts.