Characteristics of preschool teaching in language, communication and multilingualism: expressions from ten Swedish municipalities

The purpose is to investigate what can characterise language, communication and multilingual teaching in kindergartens, expressed in writing by kindergarten teachers and coordinators in 10 Swedish municipalities. The study is based on the following research questions: (1) What can characterise language, communication and multilingual teaching in kindergartens, according to written descriptions from kindergarten teachers and coordinators? (2) What traces of didactic levels and didactic problems can be detected in relation to language, communication and multilingual teaching, according to written descriptions from kindergarten teachers and coordinators?

The results of the study show that the characteristics of language, communication and multilingual teaching in kindergartens involve children being at the centre of the teaching, which can be both limited or not. The teaching takes place all the time, spontaneously, but consciously, in all contexts and situations, but also through planned activities, projects or topics. Oral communication is most dominant in the teaching. The results also show that the teaching contains vague and low-frequency traces of multivocality related to multilingualism and special support. The described multivocal teaching mainly results in general kindergarten teaching – a general multivocal approach.

The source data consists of a reflection document with one open-ended question. The sample consists of 222 respondents representing their municipalities in a major research project. The study divides the respondents into two groups, teachers and coordinators. The respondents are not divided according to the municipality they represent. Didactically oriented analysis was carried out based on three didactic levels; action level, theoretical level and meta-theoretical level.

Palla, L. & Vallberg Roth, A. C. (2018). "Characteristics of preschool teaching in language, communication and multilingualism: expressions from ten Swedish municipalities". Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 76(2):189-214.