Instructional Practices in Early Swedish Immersion in Finland

Abstract

In Finland, the most popular language immersion programme is the Early Swedish Immersion (ESI). This approach has been adapted to Finland from the Early French Immersion programme that was developed in Canada in the 1960s. ESI has been an attractive alternative for children of Finnish-speaking families for over 30 years in Finland. Despite this fairly long history, only a few minor studies have been conducted with a specific focus on immersion teachers’ instructional practices in early childhood education settings. The aim of this chapter is to describe different instructional practices preschool teachers use in order to support the communication and language acquisition of 3–6-year-old children. Altogether, nine different teacher-led activities were video recorded in four different preschools in Finland.