Monenlaiset oppijat englanninkielisessä kielikylpyopetuksessa : rakennusaineita opetusjärjestelyjen tueksi

Abstract

Teaching content through a foreign language has a long tradition in the Finnish school history; it has been possible for over 20 years to complete compulsory education mainly in some other language than one’s mother tongue. In the Finnish National Curriculum, teaching in a foreign language and immersion education were officially mentioned for the first time in 2004. In spite of that, the national curriculum doesn’t give clear guidelines on how to organize the teaching in immersion education, therefore the school administration, the principals, and the immersion teachers carry a huge responsibility in enhancing immersion programmes. This research is a qualitative classroom research. Research material was collected by observing third grade English immersion teaching during two theme-teaching periods. In addition to that, the research material contains interviews with immersion teachers, field notes written during the observing periods, written materials by the pupils, and unofficial discussions and e-mail discussions with immersion teachers. To support the teachers and the teaching in an immersion classroom, we need more research information that focuses on the needs of diverse children in immersion education. In this research the term diverse child refers to all the children in the research classroom, children who all had their individual ability to learn. This research report will parse the main immersion principles to make them operate in a sensible, research based way in Finnish immersion schools. The planning and the organizing of the immersion teaching consist of the teaching and learning in the mother tongue as well as the teaching and learning in the immersion language. The main goal of in this research is to create a steady learning foundation in order to enable to get each child in immersion education to learn the basic contents and important concepts in the best way suitable for each child. At the same time it’s important to notice that the immersion language should be given abilities to enable learning the contents through the immersion language.