Children’s strategic participation in a bilingual Early Childhood Education and Care Centre

Abstract

This article considers children’s language learning experiences at an early childhood education and care centre (ECEC) in Central Finland. The article draws on data gathered as part of a Master’s thesis study (Holmila, 2019) which looked at the perspectives of staff, parents and children regarding the use of English as part of the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) methodology at the ECEC, with a view to future developments of CLIL provision. This article considers what can be learned from the children’s perspectives. Following a brief overview of the advantages of bilingual educational programmes and the educational context for this study, the main section of this article focuses on the strategies the children use in the day-to-day bilingual activities of the early childhood centre. The article closes with recommendations for the further development of language education in heterogeneous communities.