Guest Lecture: Multilingual paths and challenges in Finnish schools

30th August 2022 

15:30 - 16:30 

Location: K-208, Stakkahlíð - Menntavísindasvið 

About: 

In my presentation I will discuss current issues about multilingualism and education in Finland, in a Nordic perspective. Focus lies on multilingual immigrant students’ school pathway in Finland and Finnish teachers’ views on language use from the perspectives of two national languages. 

As most of the other European countries, Finland has become more multilingual during the last decades – even if the numbers in a Nordic perspective are comparable low. This is reflected in the classrooms with a growing linguistic diversity among the students. In in language education policy, a discursive shift to promoting linguistic and cultural diversity, and language awareness – as a responsibility for all teachers – can be identified.  

The Finnish school system has always operated with many languages. In addition to the official bilingualism (Finnish – Swedish), three indigenous Sámi languages also have official status in some of the municipalities of Finland. The current Finnish core curriculum emphasizes a multilingual approach in a more prominent way than the prior policy document. The newly arrived students start their schooling as preparatory education for the first year after migration. The national core curriculum for preparatory education outlines that all newcomers must get a personalized curriculum and learning objectives corresponding the students' schooling, including the plan for integration to the age-appropriate regular classroom. Multilingual children have the right to study their own mother tongue at school as a non-mandatory subject. In year 2020, own mother tongue instruction was organized in 57 different languages for about 22 000 students in 84 municipalities in Finland.   

Teachers are in a key position in putting multilingualism into practice.  However, teachers may struggle in recognizing diversity and adapting a multilingual approach to their teaching and their teaching practices can be based on a monolingual ideology. This can be seen also in the Finnish classrooms. In the presentation I will also discuss the relation between the teachers’ view on multilingualism in Swedish- and Finnish medium schools in Finland, in the perspective of the teachers’ and students’ language use.