Implementing multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups : from monolingual practices towards more systematic approaches

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/ Implementing multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups : from monolingual practices towards more systematic approaches © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published version Aerila, Juli-Anna; Tyrer, Maria; Harju-Luukkainen, Heidi; Repo, Elisa; Bayram, Siddik Aerila, J.-A., Tyrer, M., Harju-Luukkainen, H., Repo, E., & Bayram, S. (2024). Implementing multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups : from monolingual practices towards more systematic approaches. International Journal of Multilingualism, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2024.2418862 2024 International Journal of Multilingualism ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rmjm20 Implementing multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups – from monolingual practices towards more systematic approaches Juli-Anna Aerila, Maria Tyrer, Heidi Harju-Luukkainen, Elisa Repo & Siddik Bayram To cite this article: Juli-Anna Aerila, Maria Tyrer, Heidi Harju-Luukkainen, Elisa Repo & Siddik Bayram (06 Nov 2024): Implementing multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups – from monolingual practices towards more systematic approaches, International Journal of Multilingualism, DOI: 10.1080/14790718.2024.2418862 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2024.2418862 © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 06 Nov 2024. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmjm20 Implementing multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups – from monolingual practices towards more systematic approaches Juli-Anna Aerila a , Maria Tyrer b , Heidi Harju-Luukkainen c , Elisa Repo b and Siddik Bayram a a Department of Teacher Education, Rauma Campus, University of Turku, Rauma, Finland; b Department of Teacher Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland; c Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland ABSTRACT The study explores the implementation of multilingual pedagogy in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Utilising the LangPeda assessment tool, data were collected from 82 ECEC groups across 47 centres. A qualitative content analysis was conducted to evaluate the pedagogical activities. Findings reveal that while systematic multilingual pedagogy can be implemented irrespective of children’s ages or the proportion of multilingual children, only 10 per cent of the groups practiced it systematically. Many ECEC personnel showed narrow engagement with multilingual activities, often due to a lack of knowledge and confidence in supporting languages other than the institution’s primary language, or English. Key features influencing the implementation of multilingual pedagogy include perspective to languages, parental engagement, the use of diverse languages, and multilingual activities. The research emphasises the importance of pedagogical choices and attitudes in creating supportive multilingual learning environments, underscoring the potential benefits of multilingual practices for all children. Despite the language policies, the study finds that many educators are not adequately prepared to implement these activities, often requiring self-reflection and adaptation of their teaching methods. The results underline the significance of supporting ECEC personnel through training and resources to meet the challenges of a linguistically diverse population. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 14 December 2022 Accepted 15 October 2024 KEYWORDS Early childhood education; language-aware pedagogy; multilingual pedagogy; multilingual education; home languages 1. Introduction The growth in the multilingual population has increased the need for countries to revise their language policies towards multilingual education. In Finland, which serves as the context of this study, there has been an increase of languages spoken alongside the © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. CONTACT Juli-Anna Aerila [email protected] Department of Teacher Education, Rauma Campus, University of Turku, Seminaarinkatu 1, 26100 Rauma, Finland INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUALISM https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2024.2418862 increase of immigration (Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2022). Currently, the population growth in Finland is due to immigration (Statistics Finland, 2023), and the number of multilingual children (ages 0–6) has increased from under 9000 children (year 2000) to over 35,000 children (year 2018) (Statistics Finland, 2019). Since 2018, the national core curriculum for early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland (The Finnish National Agency of Education and Care, 2022) has acknowledged the increase of multilingual population by containing the aim of supporting the development of children’s linguistic repertoires, their linguistic identities, and curiosity about languages, texts, and culture. This is in line with the policy recommendations at European level, as well as the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child which both strive at language learning from a young age and promotion of multilingual education in ECEC (Bergeron-Morin et al., 2023). To meet the challenges of multilingualism in Finland or other countries, personnel in ECECare required to pay attention to the centrality of languages and multilingual pedagogy. This emphasises the active responsibility of the educator for the language learners’ learning processes (Alisaari & Heikkola, 2020; Harju-Autti et al., 2022), and for understanding how to act pedagogically to support each child’s language skills (Lucas & Villegas, 2013). However, it seems that the personnel in ECECdo not always have sufficient means to implement a successful multilingual pedagogy, and they may even be unfamiliar with the concept of language awareness, or multilingual pedagogy (Aalto, 2019; Alisaari et al., 2019; Lahti et al., 2020). According to Pontier et al. (2020), there is a need for research targeting ECEC contexts to enhance the understanding of enactments of dynamic bilingualism and multilingualism, as well as their utility in practice and pedagogy. For example, in Finland, there is still a limited number of studies looking at the multilingual pedagogy through the lenses of the ECEC personnel. From these premises, the study explores the currently implemented multilingual activities in Finnish ECEC context. The data of this article is a part of the Assessment of Language-Aware Environments in ECEC (KOAVA in Finnish) study (Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2022), investigating the language-aware and multilingual pedagogy in Finnish ECEC groups using the LangPeda tool (Developing Language-aware Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education and Care). LangPeda tool is designed to guide ECEC personnel in promoting and assessing their language-aware working environment, multilingualism in the pedagogy, and Finnish as a second language practices in ECEC groups. The tool consists of three assessment forms: (1) assessing the language-aware learning environment, (2) examining the linguistic environment of a multilingual child in cooperation with the guardians, and (3) monitoring the development of Finnish language proficiency of a multilingual child. The forms contain sets of statements that guide ECEC personnel to examine and report the status of multilingual activities and orientations, aiming at providing ECEC centres with concrete information on how to improve their pedagogy further. This LangPeda tool has been piloted in municipalities around Finland (see the KOAVAreport, Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2022). For this study, the data were collected from 81 ECEC teams around Finland using the first form of the LangPeda. The data collection was implemented as part of a universitylevel in-service training course and the members of the training acted as research assistants. Thereafter, the data was analysed via data-driven qualitative content analysis (Krippendorff, 2012). 2 J.-A. AERILA ET AL. Two research questions guide this study: 1. How do ECEC teams describe the multilingual activities they take towards implementing multilingual pedagogy and what kind of multilingual pedagogy these activities illustrate? 2. How do the activities to multilingual pedagogy vary across different age groups and multilingual groups in Finnish ECEC settings? 2. Orientations towards multilingual pedagogy Children from multilingual families bring richness to the ECEC groups as their full language repertoire supports children’ sholistic development, and the learning experiences of the other children (Bergeron-Morin et al., 2023). Studies on multiand bilingual programmes have shown that effective multilingual pedagogy offer children cognitive advantages over monolingual pedagogy (Bialystok, 2018), and children with specific challenges (socio-economic, linguistic, developmental, and learning) experience no extra burden from multilingual pedagogy (Kohnert & Danahy, 2007). In general, multilingual pedagogy seems to lead to good results for both minority and majority children (Kirsch et al., 2020). The concept of pedagogy in ECEC covers practice, teaching orientation, organisation of the learning environment, and the operational culture, and it is all shaped in the sociocultural context (Kangas et al., 2021). Further, it is connected with historic, political, and societal factors of the education context in question (Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2021). According to Kangas et al. (2021), traditionally, ECEC pedagogy is viewed as a tool between the outcomes defined in the curricula and other guiding documents and children’s learning. However, pedagogy as a concept can also be divided into underpinning ‘categories’ (van Oers, 2008) that are considered central elements of pedagogy. These are, for example, interaction and care, supporting and scaffolding, teaching and contentoriented learning, and teachers’ and policymakers’ expertise in understanding and transforming goals behind the curriculum (see Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2021; Kangas et al., 2021). Multilingual pedagogy is connected to all the above-mentioned central elements of pedagogy and therefore multilingualism affects the entire ECEC group and many of its functions (Kirsch et al., 2020). According to Kirsch et al. (2020) and Alisaari et al. (2019), the language pedagogies in ECEC groups are still quite monolingual, they concentrate on the official languages of the countries, and the interest in promoting home languages is relatively low or restricted to free play. This indicates that multilingual pedagogy is considered challenging by the personnel in ECEC. This is not surprising as in order to promote multilingual pedagogy ECEC personnel must possess complex knowledge, skills and competences, as well as a deep understanding of child development and early childhood pedagogy from the perspective of multilingualism. (Bergeron-Morin et al., 2023; see also Kirsch, 2021) In a study by Norheim and Moser (2020) the challenges in multilingual ECEC groups seemed to concentrate on language, asymmetrical power relations and cultural differences or disagreements. It is safe to say that there is a recognised need for in-service training, readily available educational packages, increased and improved resources, and research-based information pertaining to multilingual pedagogy (Harju-Autti et al., 2022). INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUALISM 3 Multilingual pedagogy acknowledges children’s linguistic repertories and makes visible the different histories, identities, heritages, and ideologies of multilingual children and families (García & Wei, 2014), recognising the language resources of every child (García & Hesson, 2015). In multilingual groups, a linguistically and culturally sensitive learning environment increases the linguistic input and encourages multilingual children to interact (Kirsch, 2021). A sensitive learning environment where it is possible to implement multilingual pedagogy often requires employing bilingual staff, using translators, translating materials into different family languages, translanguaging as well as taking time and showing patience and respect to children and their families (Norheim & Moser, 2020). Only then can multilingual pedagogy be present in everyday activities. In general, multilingual pedagogy is implemented in visual materials, body language or gestures, tone of voice, routines, and repetition in various forms (Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2019). Other studies (e.g. Harju-Luukkainen, 2013a; 2013b; Koivula, 2021; Savijärvi, 2011) have shown that multilingual pedagogy usually consists of activitie ssuch as songs, rhymes, and conversations with teachers and peers. According to Kirsch et al. (2020) and Pontier et al. (2020) many ECEC teachers naturally support multilingualism by using their entire semiotic repertoire of mimes, gestures, postures, and intonation to communicate and make meaning (Kirsch et al., 2020). One important element of multilingual pedagogy is reciprocal relationships with guardians (parents or other caretakers)(Ramirez, 2023). According to Chan and Ritchie (2016) and Cheatham and Santos (2011), cooperation with guardians is often neglected, and pedagogy is dominated by ECEC personnel’s activities. However, cooperation with the guardians of minority language builds on children’s linguistic strengths’ while simultaneously highlighting how diverse languages and multilingual identities are respected and valued (García & Wei, 2014; Ramirez, 2023). According to García and Kleifgen (2010), pedagogy that focuses on connecting the language activities of families to the activities of the ECEC institution is transformative. Language policies – such as the national core curriculum for ECEC in Finland – do not translate into activities and pedagogy without educators who are able to reshape their orientations towards language policy implementation (see, for example, Hornberger & Johnson, 2007; Repo et al., 2024). Ruiz´s (1984) framework for language policy implementation illustrates how language policies and the role of language can be interpreted in pedagogy by the ECEC personnel (de Jong et al., 2016; Harju-Luukkainen, 2022; Macías, 2016). Ruiz’s framework (1984) consists of three types of orientations to language policies: (1) language as right, (2) language as a resource, and (3) language as problem. Language as a right orientation refers to one’s own language and culture as fundamental human rights. This means that individuals have the right to speak, preserve their home languages, and be protected against discrimination based on their language. Language as a resource refers to multilingualism and cultural diversity as valued resources for individuals and society. Language as a problem refers to the assumption that bilingual and multilingual children are slower to learn, are confused with languages, and that new languages are a burden on their brains. For example, the language policy in Finnish ECEC (the National Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care in Finland) highlights language as a right and resource orientation (The Finnish National Agency of Education and Care 2022). 4 J.-A. AERILA ET AL. 3. Data and methods This study used anassisted design research method (see McKenney et al., 2006; Repo, 2023; Stephan, 2014). The data were collected between October and November 2021 from 81 ECEC teams, including 239 members of personnel (in Finnish ECEC, a team consists of 1–2 teachers and 2 nurses) from 13 municipalities and 47 ECE centres from across Finland. All the groups participating in this study used Finnish as their official language. Further in the study, immigrant-background multilingual Finnish language learners are referred to as ‘multilingual children’, which means that these children speak other languages than the majority population as their first language(s). The concept ‘multilingual children’ was chosen as it provides a positive descriptor of what children ‘can do, rather than what they cannot do yet’ with their linguistic abilities (Perumal et al., 2020, p. 53). The data of this study consisted of textual documents from ECEC teams, in which they illustrated their multilingual activities and pedagogy in the child group. Additionally, the data consisted of information (provided by the teams) about children’s ages in the groups and an estimation of the proportion of multilingual children in the group. In the study, the multilingual children used at least one other language in their everyday life alongside Finnish, but several children had more languages in their repertoires. Besides the official languages of Finland (Finnish, Swedish, or Sami), ECEC groups in this study had linguistic resources in Albanian, Arabic, English, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Kurdish, Mandinka, Russian, sign language, and Spanish. The background data are presented in detail in Table 1. The study was conducted in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Prior to collecting the data, informed consent was obtained from the municipalities and from all participants. Participation in this study was voluntary, and the participants were allowed to interrupt their involvement at any point. The data was anonymised by research assistants and to ensure anonymity, the teams were coded by the number of the group in the data (1–82), the age group (T = toddlers, Y = young children, P = pre-schoolers, and M = mixed ages), and the proportion of multilingual children (0–100%). Table 1. Background data reported by age group and the proportion of multilingual children in the group. Per cent of multilingual children in the group 0–20% none or hardly any of the children 21–40% minority of the children 41–60% approximately half of the children 61–80% majority of the children 81–100% all or almost all of the children Total Toddlers (0–2 year olds) 3 7 4 6 1 21 Young children (3–5 year olds) 9 8 10 11 4 42 Preschoolers (6 year olds) 3 6 2 1 3 15 Mixed ages (1–5 year olds) 2 1 3 Total 17 21 17 18 8 81 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUALISM 5 3.1. Data collection and analysis The data collection for this study was conducted via LangPeda tool’s first form Assessing a language-aware learning environment using its´ third statement: The personnel encourage the child to use the languages they speak in various situations (Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2020; KieKu webpage, n.d.). The data collection was implemented by research assistants who were trained for the task. They collected the data from different municipalities across Finland and assisted the local teams in their discussions while filling in the forms of LangPeda. They were guided to implementing the textual data in the form as well as asking pre-planned additional questions, if needed, to keep the discussion flowing. Each discussion session lasted 1– 1.5 hours. A detailed explanation of the data collection progress is presented in Figure 1. The data was analysed in several steps following the principles of qualitative datadriven content analysis (Krippendorff, 2012; Schreier, 2012). In the first phase of the Figure 1. The progress of the data collection. 6 J.-A. AERILA ET AL. analysis, the authors read the data individually, and in the second phase, the individual interpretations were merged. The analysis resulted in three main categories: (1) mostly monolingual pedagogy, (2) narrow multilingual pedagogy, and (3) systematic multilingual pedagogy. The main features of the categories were multilingual activities, languages used, parental involvement and perspective to languages. These four features in each category were then further investigated. The category with the leastfeatures was named ‘mostly monolingual pedagogy’, as it best described the observations of the implementation of multilingual pedagogy in these groups. After confirming the categories for multilingual pedagogy (RQ1), the data was investigated in relationship to the background information, that is, the ages of the children and the proportion of multilingual children in the group (RQ2). The aim was to examine the relationship between the background information and the pedagogy implemented by the group. For this investigation, the ages and estimated proportions of multilingual children were compared with the categories of multilingual pedagogy. In the analysis, some quantifications were used to support the qualitative analysis (Krippendorff, 2012). 4. Multilingual activities and pedagogy implemented in Finnish ECEC groups The first research question was to investigate the types of multilingual activities and pedagogy Finnish ECEC teams implemented described by the team members. Out of the 81 groups, 24 used a mostly monolingual pedagogy, 49 used a narrow multilingual pedagogy, and 8 used a systematic multilingual pedagogy. In the following sections, we describe the categories in detail. The results of the analysis are illustrated and supported by direct quotations from the data, the aim of which is to provide a representative example of an observation made. 4.1. Mostly monolingual pedagogy About one-third of the groups implemented so few multilingual activities that the pedagogy was named mostly monolingual pedagogy. The teams in this category had several arguments for their pedagogical choices: they felt that learning Finnish as a second language was most important and that home languages should only be used in the home environment. One of the teams stated that even the children choose not to speak their home languages because they know that the personnel cannot comprehend their language: ‘The children don’t speak to us in their mother tongue because they know we don’t know it’(51Y5). Some teams were not aware of the languages the children spoke and especially in these teams, English was used alongside Finnish. The team explained their use of English by emphasising that most children comprehended simplistic English and, in some cases, using English was the only way to have contact with the child. The personnel described this simplistic English as YouTube English, referring to the fact that many children like watching YouTube and learn some English while watching: There is also one child in the group who does not know his mother tongue (Bastu) or Finnish, but who has independently learned English from tablet games. (34Y25). The only specific multilingual activity mentioned by the personnel was verbally encouraging the guardians to use their home languages with the children. In some INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUALISM 7 orientation, while systematic multilingual education aligns with his ‘language as a resource’ and ‘language as a right’ orientations (see also de Jong et al., 2016; Harju-Luukkainen, 2022; Macías, 2016). According to the results, it seemed that many of ECEC teams thought that multilingual activities were only needed if the children had learned to speak and that the implementation of multilingual activities related to the proportion of multilingual children. However, one of the main results of this study is that a systematic multilingual pedagogy could be implemented regardless of the ages of the children or the proportion of multilingual children. Nevertheless, children in ECEC groups encounter varying levels of quality and quantity in multilingual activities, and therefore (especially multilingual) children in early childhood education are not educated nor cared equally. The results of this study do not only apply to Finland, but can also be generalised internationally (see similar results Bergroth et al., 2021; Lucas & Villegas, 2013; Meier, 2018). The ECEC personnel and in training of ECEC personnel can find the features of multilingual activities and their qualifications beneficial when developing the pedagogy in a multilingual direction. This study highlights, how the implementation of language policies in ECEC is gradually transitioning to more multilingual pedagogy. However, as only about 10 per cent of the ECEC teams in this study describe using a systematic multilingual pedagogy, many ECEC teams are not adequately prepared to implement multilingual activities, often requiring self-reflection and adaptation of their teaching methods as well as activities. The results underline the significance of supporting ECEC personnel through training and resources to meet the challenges of a linguistically diverse population. In terms of the study’s limitations, we relied on self-reports from personnel rather than direct observations in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions. Because self-reports may not always accurately reflect personnel behaviour in learning environments (Borg, 2006), there could be aspects missing from the data. Especially, as according to Pontier et al. (2020) multilingual practices are rarely planned or not reported as such. Additionally, the study couldn’t explore changes in the implementation of languageaware education policies due to the non-recurrent nature of the data collection, which involved snapshot-like textual documents capturing experiential testimonies from ECEC personnel. Despite these limitations, the analysis sheds light on the gradual process of educational institutions adopting multilingual approaches in their agendas. 7. Conclusion Pedagogyis a multidimensional and dynamic phenomenon (Kangas et al., 2021), and ECEC groups are social and cultural arenas where people (i.e. children, teachers and parents) with various agendas, aims, views and desires meet (Pesch, 2021). Although teachers seem naturally use practices that support multilingual children and they feel that they are role models for solidarity and cooperation, equality and coexistence as well as implementation of multiple communication strategies (Juaristi et al., 2023), and even if the current language policies promote and accommodate multilingualism (e.g. Baker, 2011), the mindset from monolingual pedagogical practices to multilingual ones is challenging, as multilingual pedagogy is an outcome of a broader shift in educational linguistics regarding how scholars theorise and understand language, learners, and language learners (cf. May, 2014). 14 J.-A. AERILA ET AL. 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