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The members of this research group are examining how bi- and multilingual practices can be used as a resource for language learning and teaching in Early Childhood Education and Care contexts. The researchers have followed one pre-school teacher and her implementation and work with the pedagogy that she has developed, for more than ten years. The research has been conducted in two phases:

Phase 1: The research project monitored the implementation of a novel type of bilingual pedagogy (concurrent use of both the minority language Swedish and the majority language Finnish), in a Finnish-medium pre-school classroom in a Finnish-speaking part of Finland. The children wer between 1-6 years of age. The data collection took place during a period of 2 years (2012-2014) and consisted of field observations, video-recordings of child-teacher interactions (approx. 6 hours), stimulated recall/semi-structured type of interviews with the teacher (approx. 5 hours), interviews with four families (4 h) and a family survey (9 families). The analysis of data focused on primarily the teacher and family perspectives and aimed at responding to how the two languages are used by the teacher and by the children; how the bilingual pedagogy works out and develops over time; how the activities are experienced by and affect the families. The project was supported by The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland during 2013-2016 and resulted in several academic publications and in the book XXX.

Phase 2: PhD dissertation... Anu Palojärvi...