Multilingual Affordances in a Swedish Preschool: An Action Research Project

This article summarizes the work and the main findings of an action research project that was conducted in an early childhood education and care setting in the city of Malmo ", Sweden in the autumn of 2013 and spring 2014. Ronnerman's model (Aktionsforskning i praktiken: for-skola och skola pa vetenskaplig grund [Action research in practice: preschools and schools on scientific basis]. Studentlitteratur, Lund, 2012) for action research was applied, and the article responds to the research question What happens when parents are involved in constructing a multilingual environment through the use of digital tools in the daily activities in preschool? The analysis was performed collectively by a researcher from the Swedish Research Schools for Preschool Teachers; a teacher with graduate diploma in special needs education, specialized in children's language development and the staff from the participating preschool. The children were aged from 1 to 3 years and had different first languages. By following, documenting, and analyzing the children's encounters with digital tools that recorded parents' verbal monologues, three main themes were identified: Moving from a question-answer pedagogy to new ways of interaction, children's awareness of the different languages in preschool, parents' and teachers' feeling of togetherness.

"The findings primarily point to parents’ and teachers’ mutual feeling of togetherness. The staff did not define themselves as the only professionals, but rather they described how they thought providing the best education and care arose in cooperation with the parents. It is fair to argue that the project in some ways contributed to the dismantling of the boundaries between home and preschool. By using modern technology, it was possible to bring the home environment and the different languages into the preschool. The data provide examples of children reflecting upon the different languages they were exposed to. These reflections can also be a starting point for increased linguistic awareness....This action research project serves as an example of how the classroom environment can be used to develop bilingual children’s vocabulary in close cooperation with the parents." (Authors, 611)