Barnehageansattes språkpraksis med flerspråklige 1–3-åringer

Author
Lindquist, H.
Year
2018

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to investigate a sample of language situations involving multilingual children in kindergarten in order to see what characterises the language used by employees and the kindergarten’s work on language didactics. The article discusses the field of tension that arises when working with both multilingual skills and the strength of the children’s Norwegian-language competence. The research question is: What characterises the employees’ language didactics practice with the youngest children who have multilingual home backgrounds?

Result

In both kindergartens, Norwegian was spoken exclusively and the children’s nascent multilingual skills were not emphasised in the pedagogical work. When communicating with the youngest children, the staff often spoke in a teaching tone, rather than an exchange tone, at the same time as implicit language didactics dominated. The researcher concludes that there is a strong focus on learning Norwegian in the two sample kindergartens, and fears that the consequences of such an ideology will negatively affect the safeguarding of multilingual perspectives in kindergartens. 

Design

The study is conducted as a micro-ethnographic investigation where conversations taken from pedagogical activities in three toddler departments from two kindergartens in Oslo are video recorded and transcribed. The sample consisted of three kindergarten teachers and four kindergarten children (1-3 years old). The four employees spoke Norwegian as their first language, while all the children in the sample came from multilingual families, where varying degrees of Norwegian were spoken at home. The video recordings were made during the children’s first year of kindergarten and in situations where they participated in various activities together with the employees. The pedagogical leaders were interviewed three times throughout the kindergarten year. Recordings of interviews and observations were transcribed and analysed using conversation analysis. 

References

Lindquist, H. (2018). «Barnehageansattes språkpraksis med flerspråklige 1–3-åringer». NOA – norsk som andrespråk, (2018) 1-2:10-40.

Financed by

Not specified