Kielimuureja vai yhteiseloa : odotuksia ja kokemuksia kahden kielen koulusta

Abstract

Finnish and Swedish are the national languages of Finland. Yet there are few schools in Finland where instruction is given in both languages, apart from immersion or second language classes, and the issue remains highly controversial. In this study, we report some of the findings of an internet survey conducted at Pietarsaari lukio and Jakobstad gymnasium in 2013. The Finnish- speaking and Swedish-speaking upper secondary schools were put under one roof in the fall of 2013 when Pietarsaari Lukio moved in with the Swedish-speaking Jakobstad Gymnasium. Our report focuses on how Finnish and Swedish speaking students (N=111) and teachers (N=26) perceived the new opportunities for using both languages and what kinds of emotions they attached to the change in their learning environment. The findings indicate that students had a mainly positive view of the change, and that while the two languages were kept separate in school, students’ use of languages, including English, was more diverse and flexible outside the school context. The current situation has features of both parallel monolingualism (Heller 1999) or diglossia, and more flexible translanguaging (García 2008) or heteroglossia.