Manifestations of an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy in translanguaging situations in early childhood education and care

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Manifestations of an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy in translanguaging situations in early childhood education and care © 2023 the Authors Published version Palojärvi, Anu; Koivula, Merja; Mård-Miettinen, Karita; Rutanen, Niina Palojärvi, A., Koivula, M., Mård-Miettinen, K., & Rutanen, N. (2023). Manifestations of an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy in translanguaging situations in early childhood education and care. Apples : Journal of Applied Language Studies, 17(3), 23-43. https://doi.org/10.47862/apples.129191 2023 ________ Corresponding author’s email: a[email protected]i eISSN: 1457-9863 Publisher: University of Jyväskylä, Language Campus © 2023: The authors https://apples.journal.fi https://doi.org/10.47862/apples.129191 Manifestations of an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy in translanguaging situations in early childhood education and care Anu Palojärvi, University of Jyväskylä Merja Koivula, University of Jyväskylä Karita Mård-Miettinen, University of Jyväskylä Niina Rutanen, University of Jyväskylä This case study explores how an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy is manifested in translanguaging situations involving the use of multilingual children’s home languages in early childhood education and care. Practical theory encompasses teachers’ views of good teaching in relation to values, aims and principles. We applied nexus analysis to observation data, analysed interactions in translanguaging situations involving multilingual children’s home languages and related them to the teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy. The main result was that some principles and aims, such as pedagogical tact, were variously manifested in different situations, while others, such as utilising children’s language expertise, stayed the same across situations. Furthermore, multiple principles and aims from a practical theory can affect even activities of short duration. The results also show that translanguaging occurred both in teacherand childinitiated situations, implying a dual locus of power when using the children’s home languages. The expert teacher’s practices were mostly in line with how she had previously verbalised her practical theory. The findings point to the importance of enhancing reflection on the dynamic relationship between practical theory and situational practices in both preand in-service teacher training. Keywords: practical theory, bilingual education, early childhood education and care, expert teacher, translanguaging situations 1 Introduction Due to the rapidly growing multilingualism in Finnish society (SVT, 2022), especially because of increased immigration, children’s groups have become more linguistically heterogeneous. Such groups are characterised by diverse linguistic backgrounds and home languages1. Working efficaciously with a linguistically Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Vol. 17, 3, 2023, 23–43 24 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies heterogeneous group means that all languages in the group should be recognised, valued and respected in order to implement socially just education (Adam, 2021). Therefore, it is important that educators develop pedagogical practices that makes the use of several languages possible in ECEC (Díaz, 2016, pp. ix–x). This article focuses on how an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy is manifested in interactional situations involving multilingual children’s home languages (translanguaging situations) in a bilingual (FinnishSwedish) early childhood education and care (ECEC) programme. By practical theory, we mean the teacher’s vision of good teaching (Maaranen et al., 2016). The way in which teachers’ practical theory of language pedagogy is implemented in ECEC has been sparsely studied. Previous studies of the relations between practical theories and practices have been conducted in school contexts. In Finland, the ECEC structure and working culture differ from those in the school context due to the greater focus on holistic learning (EDUFI, 2022 instead of discrete subject areas; thus, getting information from ECEC can broaden knowledge of the implementation of practical theories. It is also important to study the manifestation of the practical theory of language pedagogy in order to understand how a practical theory about language use affects actual practices in ECEC. The implementation of multilingual practices can promote social justice (Kirsch & Seele, 2020) and give multilingual children the possibility to use their entire linguistic repertoires (Quehl, 2022). The first step for a teacher to develop multilingual practices is by building a practical theory that acknowledges several languages. The teacher participating in this study had taken this first step and developed a practical theory of language pedagogy that acknowledged the linguistic diversity in her group (see section 2.1.; Palojärvi et al., 2021). However, a practical theory bears little meaning if the actual practices are not aligned with it. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore how the ECEC teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy is manifested in situations involving the use of the children’s home languages. To do this, nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004), which is a form of discourse analysis, was used to uncover the ways in which interaction occurs and how it relates to the teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy. Nexus analysis was chosen because it is a good way of capturing the interaction by analysing the interaction order, thus helping to understand the manifestation of the practical theory. 1.1 Translanguaging and translanguaging pedagogy Translanguaging is a common concept used in discussions on multilingual practices in educational settings. Translanguaging can be regarded as a theory, as multilinguals ways of speaking and as a pedagogy. When talking about translanguaging as a theory, there are two competing theories which García and Lin (2017) call the weak and the strong version of translanguaging. The weak version of translanguaging, also known as the multilingual perspective of translanguaging (MacSwan, 2017), recognises national languages but “yet calls for softening these boundaries” (García & Lin 2017, p. 126). However, according to the strong version of translanguaging multilinguals have a single linguistic repertoire (García & Lin, 2017) and therefore the existence of languages and multilingualism has been questioned (MacSwan, 2017). In this article we do not go into detail about translanguaging as a theory (for more information, see García A. Palojärvi et al. 25 & Lin 2017; Wei 2018). Instead, we focus on translanguaging as multilingals ways of speaking and as a pedagogy. As multilinguals way of speaking, translanguaging refers to the use of a speaker’s whole linguistic repertoire (García & Kleyn, 2016). In translanguaging different language resources are used flexibly (García & Kano, 2014). From a multilingual perspective of translanguaging, it can also refer to “participants’ choice and use across multiple languages” (Sembiante et al., 2023, p. 2). In educational contexts, translanguaging can be understood as “the dynamic discursive exchanges in which teachers and students engage as they draw on and choose from multiple languages and language varieties” (Gort & Sembiante, 2015, p. 9). Thus, translanguaging permits multilinguals to use languages in ways that are natural to them (MacSwan, 2017). As a pedagogy, translanguaging refers to multilingualism as an asset in instruction and the possibility for students to use their whole linguistic repertoires (Tian & Shepard-Carey, 2020). Translanguaging pedagogy also focuses on “the dynamic use of multiple languages to enhance learning” (MacSwan, 2017, p. 191). According to Kirsch and Seele (2020), the intention of translanguaging pedagogies is to enhance learning and participation. In translanguaging pedagogies, teachers design activities that utilise the learner’s whole linguistic repertoire and model languaging in various ways (Sembiante et al., 2023). In other words, teachers model multilingual behaviours and treat multiple languages as resources for learning, which promote multilingualism and viewing a multilingual language repertoire as “normal, natural and valuable” (Gort & Sembiante, 2015, p. 9). Translanguaging pedagogy requires that teachers make multilingual students’ translanguaging legitimate, natural and visible (García & Otheguy, 2020). In utilising students’ full language repertoires through translanguaging, teachers enable socially just education for multilingual students (García & Kleyn, 2016; Kirsch & Mortini, 2023). According to Parra and Proctor (2022), translanguaging pedagogy promotes educational equity since incorporating students’ full range of communicative resources into the instruction ensures participation and learning (see also Kirsch & Mortini, 2023). Cenoz and Gorter (2022) categorised translanguaging practises into strong and weak forms according to the degree of pedagogical intervention and the use of two or more languages during class activities. According to Cenoz and Gorter enhancing metalinguistic awareness (using and reflecting on several languages cross-linguistically in the same classroom) and the use of whole linguistic repertoires (using several languages to carry out the activity) are stronger forms of translanguaging practices, whereas integrated language curriculum (using only one language as a classroom language where syllabuses in different languages are coordinated so that the languages support one another) and translanguaging shifts (translating words or giving explanations in a language that is not the language of instruction) are weaker forms of translanguaging practices. In this study, translanguaging practices are mainly related to the use of whole linguistic repertoires, which means that students are encouraged to use several languages to carry out activities (Cenoz & Gorter, 2022). Duarte (2020) used three categories for the functions of translanguaging based on the use of minority and migrant languages in teaching: symbolic, scaffolding and epistemological functions. The symbolic function involves acknowledging and valuing children’s home language proficiency. Scaffolding function denotes that “temporary but systematic bridges towards other languages are incorporated in everyday teaching, thus attributing equal value to all languages” (Duarte, 2020, 26 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies p. 244). The epistemological function involves using the different languages to enhance content and language knowledge. In order to use the symbolic and scaffolding functions, teachers are not required to be able to speak or understand the children’s home languages, but to implement the epistemological function, this kind of knowledge is needed (Duarte, 2020). In this article, we categorise translanguaging according to Duarte’s functions, in order to capture how translanguaging is used in the different situations. 1.2 Bilingual and multilingual education in ECEC and multilingual children Bilingual education refers to education where two languages are used for instruction (García, 2009). Different models of bilingual education differ in the way the languages are used. In bilingual education, languages can either be kept strictly separate, e.g. by separating languages by person, time or place, or they can be used flexibly together (García, 2009). Previous research in bilingual education has mainly examined practices where all or most of the children are L1 or L2 speakers of one or both of the instructional languages (e.g., Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Mård-Miettinen et al., 2015; Schwartz & Asli, 2013). This is so partly because, previously, multilingual children were not frequently accepted to bilingual education programmes or were ignored or pushed out (Taylor, 2009, 2015). However, bilingual education programmes have been mainstreamed in many contexts. Furthermore, the number of multilingual children entering ECEC units has increased, and all groups have become more linguistically heterogenous, even those offering bilingual education. This means that teachers working in bilingual education programmes also need to consider the linguistic heterogeneity of their groups. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989, art. 29, 30) states that multilingual children have the right to use their home languages and that education should foster respect towards these languages. Thus, teachers in bilingual ECEC programmes also need to consider how children’s home languages can be used and respected. In some countries (e.g., Luxenburg) instead of bilingual education multilingual education is provided, where more than two languages are used in the instruction. Kirsch (2020a, 2020b) studied the use of children’s home languages in multilingual education through the lens of translanguaging pedagogies and found that including and using children’s home languages fostered relations between children and adults, enhanced children’s well-being and participation and supported meaning-making and language learning (2020a; see also Kirsch & Seele, 2020). Multiple languages were used in planned activities and daily interactions (Kirsch, 2020a, 2021), while the children’s home languages were used for translation, to get and sustain attention, ensure participation, comfort them, enhance their well-being and value their home languages (Kirsch, 2020a; Kirsch & Seele, 2020; Mary & Young, 2017). The practitioners also acknowledged home languages by translating utterances from these languages into institutional languages, for example, the main instruction languages used in kindergarten (Kirsch, 2020a, 2020b, 2021; Kirsch & Mortini, 2023; Kirsch & Seele, 2020; Mary & Young, 2017), collaborating with parents to utilise home languages (Kirsch, 2020b; Mary & Young, 2017), expecting answers in home languages and elaborating on them (Kirsch, 2020b, 2021; Kirsch & Mortini, 2023) and encouraging children to use home languages, for example, to retell stories (Kirsch, 2020b). However, there was a lack of knowledge of how the children’s home languages were used in A. Palojärvi et al. 27 Finnish ECEC and how teachers’ practical theory affected them. This study addresses these issues. 1.3 The significance of practical theory Practical theory encompasses teachers’ vision of good teaching (Maaranen et al., 2016) and guides teachers’ actions (Aaltonen & Pitkäniemi, 2002; Maaranen & Stenberg, 2017) and is based on teachers’ beliefs, experiences, conceptions, values (Maaranen et al., 2016), goals and ideals (Aaltonen & Pitkäniemi, 2002; Maaranen et al., 2016; Tiilikainen et al., 2019). It is only partially conscious (Aaltonen & Pitkäniemi, 2002) and can thus be divided into articulated practical theory, which is the conscious and verbally descriptive part of practical theory, and the unconscious part. The teacher’s practical theory is built mainly on actions in practice and experiences, and thus, the teacher often believes in such guiding principles that also work in practice (Aaltonen & Pitkäniemi, 2002). Therefore, ideally, practical theory affects practice, and experiences from practice affect practical theory. However, there are differences between how well teachers’ practical theories correspond to their actions in practice (Pitkäniemi, 2010). Student and novice teachers’ thoughts and conceptions of teaching do not usually correspond to their actions in teaching (e.g., Fung & Chow, 2002; Mellado, 1998; Wilson et al., 1994), although there are some exceptions where thoughts of teaching have affected practice (Ryan, 2003; Sweeney, 2003). Levin and colleagues (2013) article discusses three teachers that have been teaching a few years. According to their findings both current and previous practical theories affected the teaching actions, although some inconsistencies were also found. Similar observations were made in a case study of a more experienced teacher: The practices were mostly in line with the teacher’s practical theory, although some cognitions diverged from these practices (Feryok, 2008). Many case studies have found that experienced teachers’ thoughts about teaching correspond well with their actions in the classroom (Marland & Osbourne, 1990; Michell & Marland, 1989; Ritchie, 1999). However, the relation between practical theories and teaching practices in ECEC has been sparsely studied. This study seeks to narrow this research gap through the following research question: How is an expert teacher’s articulated practical theory of language pedagogy manifested in interactions in translanguaging situations involving children’s home languages? 2 Materials and methods 2.1 The context and the participants In Finland the ECEC is for children under six years old and it is not compulsory, however it is followed by a one year of compulsory pre-primary education. In ECEC the children are often grouped by age. Often the groups are divided into under-threes and over-threes according to the different child-adult ratios. ECEC may be provided by public or private service providers, both of which must follow the National Core Curriculum (EDUFI, 2022). This study was conducted in the context of bilingual education. In the case of this study, the two instruction languages were Finnish and Swedish: Swedish was new to all the children, 28 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies whereas Finnish was the first language (L1) of some children and the second language (L2) of the multilingual children. The programme under study was labelled “small-scale bilingual education,” which means that Swedish was used in the instruction less than 25% of the time (EDUFI, 2022), with the remainder being in Finnish. This qualitative case study was conducted in a kindergarten located in a town where Finnish was the official and dominant language and Swedish an official language in numerical minority. The study participants were an ECEC teacher and children whose parents had given research permission (five children in the first year and 12 in the second). The anonymity of the children was protected by using codes for the children and the identity of the teacher was protected by using a pseudonym for the teacher. The ECEC teacher (pseudonym Johanna) implemented small-scale bilingual education in Finnish and Swedish, which was called bilingual pedagogy, in a group of children from diverse language backgrounds. Johanna was a bilingual speaker of Finnish and Swedish who had over 20 years’ working experience from contexts in Finland and Sweden (see Palviainen et al., 2016). In her current position, she was also in charge of multicultural issues and teaching L2 Finnish. She was chosen because she was an expert teacher who worked with bilingual education in a linguistically heterogeneous group and had been the subject of earlier research (e.g. Palojärvi et al., 2021; Palviainen et al., 2016). We also wanted to examine how multilingual children’s languages were acknowledged in practice, and the earlier research gave insights into Johanna’s practical theory and bilingual practices. In the ECEC group, there were two other early childhood educators besides Johanna. The group comprised slightly more than 20 children between three and five years old. Depending on the point of time, there were between three and six home languages besides Finnish in the group. However, Swedish was new to all the children, which they learned through the teacher’s bilingual pedagogy. Johanna’s bilingual pedagogy began with language showering activities in Swedish in a linguistically homogenous group in 2012, which she developed further through reflection and discussion with researchers (Palviainen & MårdMiettinen 2015). In her bilingual pedagogy, Johanna used Finnish and Swedish according to specific linguistic principles, for example, using Swedish in simple and concreate utterances and Finnish in complex and abstract utterances and avoiding translations (Mård-Miettinen et al., 2015). She also had certain objectives for the bilingual pedagogy, such as getting the children acquainted with Swedish and creating positive attitudes towards Swedish (Palviainen & Mård-Miettinen, 2015). The objectives were in line with those of small-scale bilingual education, as stated in the National Core Curriculum for ECEC (EDUFI, 2022). Johanna now works in a linguistically heterogenous group with multilingual children. To examine how practical theory is manifested in practice, we now present our characterisation of aspects of Johanna’s articulated practical theory based on our previous study (Palojärvi et al., 2021). In Johanna’s work with multilingual children, her practical theory of language pedagogy was constructed from interview data via thematic analysis (Palojärvi et al., 2021). In the article of Palojärvi and colleagues (2021), the analysis revealed that the practical theory was constructed from a core value and several aims and principles (see Figure 1). The core value emphasised the equality of languages which meant that all languages were seen as equally valuable and shown interest to. The aims of Johanna’s practical theory were mutual learning, enriching activities with languages, A. Palojärvi et al. 29 supporting language identities and enhancing awareness of languages. The mutual learning signified that as Johanna taught the children Finnish and Swedish, she also strived to learn their home languages of the multilingual children. Enriching activities with languages meant incorporation of various languages into activities in order to enrich them. Supporting language identity was also a central aim, with Johanna seeking to encourage the use of home languages. Finally, the aim of enhancing language awareness was to promote the children’s awareness of different languages. (Palojärvi et al., 2021.) The main principles in the practical theory were pedagogical tact, whole-day pedagogy and utilising the language expertise of families. We borrowed the concept of pedagogical tact from van Manen (2015), which means that Johanna sought to be sensitive to the children, the group and the situation when choosing which language(s) to use and how to use it/them (Palojärvi et al., 2021). Wholeday pedagogy means that the entire ECEC day is deemed important for learning, not only the formal learning situations. Utilising the language expertise of families highlights how to use children’s and parent’s language abilities. In Johanna’s practical theory, the aims, principles and core value were closely intertwined. Figure 1. Johanna’s practical theory of language pedagogy. 2.2 The data and analysis The data were gathered during three mornings over two years (days 1 and 2 in year one and day 3 in year two). The data consist of observation notes (24 pages), video recordings (93 min) and audio recordings (133 min). Due to ethical reasons, not all situations could be recorded; thus, the actions were documented mostly through written observation notes. Also, two thematic interviews (84 min in total) were used as background knowledge relating to the activities and the arguments for them. We applied nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) to our data. In nexus analysis, the focus is on the social action – the nexus – located at the intersection of the historical body of the participants (e.g., life experiences), the interaction order (e.g., social arrangements) and the discourses in place (e.g., discourses relating to the issue in focus; Scollon & Scollon, 2004). In nexus analysis, it is possible to examine all these dimensions; however, one can also focus on only one or two of them (Hult, 2015, p. 225; cf. Scollon & Scollon, 2004). In this study, we focus only on the interaction order, because we wanted to examine how Johanna’s practical theory was manifested in the interactions in translanguaging situations involving the multilingual children’s home languages. Mutual learning Pedagogical tact Enriching activities with languages Value Aims Principles Equality of languages Supporting language identity Enhancing language awareness Whole-day pedagogy Utilising language expertise 30 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies The term interaction order was coined by Goffman (1983) and describes how the interaction proceeds and what social and situational norms are connected to it (Hult, 2015; Scollon & Scollon, 2004). There are several factors affecting the interaction order, including the situation, social structures and conventions (Goffman, 1983). The practical theory affects how the interaction proceeds and therefore it is connected to the interaction order. Through the practice the practical theory turns into the interaction order. The analysis began by transcribing the data and reading and rereading the transcripts several times. Thereafter, key moments on which to focus the analysis were identified (Hult, 2015). These key moments were translanguaging situations that included the multilingual children’s home languages (n = 10). From these key incidents, the interaction order was analysed. To determine how the practical theory was manifested, we identified and marked passages relating to the aims and principles of practical theory in Palojärvi’s and colleagues (2021) research (see Figure 1). The passages remaining outside of the identified aims and principles were critically examined to understand their function. To determine how the interaction order was realised, we focused on examining how the interaction proceeded and its typical aspects (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) as well as who were the central and peripheral participants and their roles (Hult, 2015). In this article, with central participants we refer to participants engaged in the action, whereas with peripheral participants we refer to persons that somehow affected the social action but were not present in it. After this, illustrative examples representing the different combinations of aims and principles were chosen and translated into English. The examples were also analysed by interpreting how the translanguaging functions occurred (Duarte, 2020). Thereafter, the examples were divided into teacherand child-initiated situations in order to structure the results section. 3 Results In this section, we first discuss how practical theory was manifested in teacherinitiated situations involving home language use, followed by an analysis of child-initiated situations involving home language use. The children’s home languages were changed to protect their anonymity. In the reporting, the home languages were changed to other languages from the same continent, except English, which was not changed due to its widespread use. 3.1 Teacher-initiated translanguaging situations involving home language use Just over half (6/10) of the translanguaging situations involving the children’s home languages were initiated by Johanna, the teacher. Thus, Johanna played an active role in including the home languages in the activities and exercised power in deciding when, how and which home languages were used. Below, we present three examples of teacher-initiated translanguaging situations involving the children’s home languages and explore how the aims and principles from Johanna’s practical theory were implemented in them. In the first example, the child’s home language was introduced during an ordinary lunch situation. A. Palojärvi et al. 37 10 Johanna: Okei. Håll i dig, Ett två tre fyra fem sex sju otta nio tio [Okay. Hold on tight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten] ((pushes the swing and counts how many times she pushes it)) 11 Johanna: Trevlig resa [Have a nice journey] 12 […] 13 Johanna: No niin (lapsen nimi) kävi sanomas että te meette taas johonkin [Okay (child’s name) came to say to me that you are going somewhere again.] 14 Children: Englantiin [to England] 15 Johanna: Okei ja hei mites me ollaan laskettu nyt ruots-, suomeks, ruotsiks ja mites laskettiin englanniks, auttakaas mua [Okay and hey, we have now counted in Swe-, Finnish, Swedish, and how can we count in English, help me] 16 Child: one 17 Johanna: Okei oota, lähtee, nyt lähtee (lapseni nimi) alota [Okay, wait, now we go (child’s name) start] 18 Children: one, two, three, xxx, five, six, seven 19 Johanna: eight, nine, ten. Hyvää matkaa [Have a nice journey] The central participants were Johanna and the four children on the swing. Johanna orientated to the children’s traveling play, and upon hearing that some of the children were going to Sweden (lines 2, 4–6), she translanguaged by using Swedish for counting and short utterances (lines 10 and 11), thereby illustrating whole-day pedagogy (bringing the new language into an ordinary play situation) and pedagogical tact (linking language use to the children’s play). Johanna also translanguaged in a similar way with English by asking the children to count in English when she heard that they were going to England, similarly illustrating whole-day pedagogy and pedagogical tact. Furthermore, Johanna named the languages (line 15), thus promoting language awareness. She also enriched the children’s play by incorporating different languages into it, which illustrates enriching activities with languages. Here, her translanguaging served both symbolic and scaffolding functions (Duarte, 2020) since she acknowledged different languages and built bridges between them by counting in a similar way using both Swedish and English. Furthermore, Johanna assumed the role of an instructor by advancing the activity with questions and guiding the counting. This shows that she exercised power in deciding how the languages were used in the situation. Therefore, even though the use of the languages stemmed from the children’s play, Johanna had an important role in guiding the activity according to her practical theory. 4 Discussion This study examined how an expert teacher’s articulated practical theory of language pedagogy was manifested in interactions in translanguaging situations involving multilingual children’s home languages. The main finding was that the principles and aims of practical theory were variously manifested in action in some situations. For example, in various situations, the principle of pedagogical tact affected the sensitivity with which the child was corrected (example 3) or counting together with the child and using familiar Swedish expressions (example 2) or that language use was incorporated into the children’s play (example 5). This illustrates how the situation affects the way in which the principles and aims of the practical theory are implemented in practice. The situationality of implementing the practical theory shows its inherent adaptability, which has not been found in previous research. However, a few aims and principles were 38 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies implemented in the same way across situations. For example, utilising language expertise was implemented either by asking the children to name words or count in their home languages. This shows that certain aims and principles were more stable in the way they were implemented. The study also shows that even in activities of short duration, multiple practical theory principles and aims can feature. In each situation, it was possible to identify two to five aims and principles. However, there were differences in the frequencies of the principles and aims. The most frequently occurring principle was pedagogical tact, and the most frequently occurring aim was enhancing language awareness. The least common principle was whole-day pedagogy, while the least common aims were supporting language identity and enriching activities with languages. This shows that the aims and principles did not have the same space in the activities, arguably because they rival each other: Since all aims and principles cannot be incorporated into the same situation, the teacher needs to choose what to implement in each situation, which has hitherto been a gap in previous studies. Another finding was that interactions involving translanguaging in home languages were sometimes teacher-initiated and sometimes child-initiated. In the teacher-initiated situations, incorporating the home languages stemmed from the aims and principles of the teacher’s practical theory, whereas in the child-initiated situations, using the home languages stemmed from the children’s own motivation, although the teacher’s practical theory was focal in how she responded to the child’s initiative. In the teacher-initiated situations, the results show that Johanna used a great deal of power in deciding when, how and whose home languages were included in the translanguaging situation (cf. Weng & Ataei, 2022). However, the children also exercised power in deciding when to volunteer their home language as well as agency in deciding whether or not to translanguage their home language when asked to do so (see also Bergroth & Palviainen, 2017; Gyogi, 2015). This reflects the dual locus of power in the group: On one hand, the teacher is in control and decides how, when and whose language is used; on the other, the children exercise power when it comes to the use of their language. Nevertheless, although the children also possessed power, the teacher had a significant role in determining language use. Thus, how the teacher exercises her power remains paramount. Another finding was that the teacher’s articulated practical theory corresponded with her actions in practice as the practices were closely related to the aims and principles identified in her practical theory (see Palojärvi et al. 2021). This substantiates previous findings on expert teachers (Marland & Osboune, 1990; Mitchell & Marland, 1989; Ritchie, 1999). Although the practical theory corresponded with actions in practice, there were a few inconsistencies: Namely the actions in practice seemed to create wider learning opportunities for the children than in the aim of the practical theory, and the teacher assumed the role of a teacher in the children’s home languages instead of only assuming the role of a learner, as stated in the articulated practical theory. However, small inconsistencies between one’s practical theory and practices are not unusual, even for expert teachers (Feryok, 2008). These inconsistencies could stem from unconsciousness regarding some parts of the practical theory (Aaltonen & Pitkäniemi, 2002), and hence do not come forth when asked. When including the children’s home languages in the translanguaging situations, Johanna mainly performed symbolic and scaffolding functions (Duarte, A. Palojärvi et al. 39 2020), which means that the languages were used to acknowledge and value the children’s language proficiency (symbolic function) and build bridges between languages (scaffolding function). There was also one instance where Johanna’s use of a child’s home language (English) served an epistemological function (Duarte, 2020), that is, enhancing language and content knowledge. With only one instance of the epistemological function in the use of different languages, it can be argued that the children’s languages were not used mainly for learning. This might be due to the fact that Johanna did not have knowledge in most of the children’s home languages and was unable to facilitate learning through them. The other interesting feature was that the symbolic function featured most frequently. To improve the activities, the scaffolding function could have been used more often to create bridges between languages, for example, by comparing languages with each other or using different languages side by side. This study has created new knowledge of how practical theory is implemented in language pedagogy in ECEC by showing the situationality of the implementation of a practical theory. This is important because the correspondence between practical theory and actual practice has previously been studied only among school teacher samples (e.g. Feryok, 2008; Levin et al., 2013; Ritchie, 1999). The findings have implications for ECEC teacher training. Since the principles and aims were variously implemented in different situations, it would be important to provide student teachers with various situations in which to practise implementing their practical theories. Furthermore, guided reflection on these situations could help students implement their practical theories in situation-specific ways. Giving student teachers opportunities to try out their practical theories with linguistically diverse learners may also enable them to work with such groups, about whom many students feel insecure (see Dražnik et al., 2022). The findings could be applied to in-service training to help teachers become more aware of the inconsistencies between their articulated practical theory and practice by, for example, videorecording their activities and reflecting on the videos together. This could help teachers to incorporate previously unconscious aspects into their explicit practical theory and thereby make their articulated practical theories more nuanced and richer. The study findings also illustrate how skilfully the expert teacher acknowledged both her own aims and principles and the children’s initiatives, which is something that other teachers could learn from. The study illustrates the benefits of nexus analysis as a valuable tool in examining the manifestations of practical theory. Nevertheless, as in all studies, this study has some notable limitations. First, it is a case study of only one teacher; therefore, the findings cannot be generalised to other teachers. There is a need for further studies on how other teachers in ECEC implement their practical theories of language pedagogy into practice, especially since practical theories are situationally constructed. Second, the correspondence of the articulated practical theory and practice was examined only by contrasting the practical theory articulated in the interviews with observation data. In order to make the findings more reliable, stimulated recall interviews could have been applied. However, in this study it was not possible to use stimulated recall interviews because of the extensive period between the data gathering and analysis. Thus, stimulated recall interviews would not have been reliable after this lengthy period. Instead, we analysed the interaction order to uncover the relationship between practical theory and practice, which succeeded in creating a multisided picture of the phenomenon. 40 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Funding This research has been funded by Svenka Kulturfonden. Acknowledgements We wish to thank the teacher, children and the daycare center that participated in the study. We also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers who helped to make the article better. Endnote 1 By home languages we mean the languages that the family members speak with each other. They can be mother tongues and/or other languages spoken in the family. 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