Inclusive language teaching

Abstract

Through examples from Finnish primary school, this chapter discusses how the 4E principles can be implemented in inclusive language teaching. This means that children with special needs are taught together with the class, instead of being taught individually or in small groups outside their primary peer community (the class). The described courses, the Reading Circle and the Reading Lamp, shared a clear structure but also plenty of room for children’s individual and self-organised group work, while the teachers’ role was primarily to enable the pupils’ literary analyses and storytelling. Recognising that language is extended and integrated with children’s lifeworlds; that it is embedded in social structures in the school and beyond; that expressing oneself verbally often requires verbal and physical gestures; and that the fundamental motivation of speech is to communicate, gave rise to positive cascades of learning and personal growth in the pupils as well as self-reflective development in teachers.