DIDIA, Multilingual Didactics and Dialogs

The project aims to promote positive attitudes, increase language competence, language awareness and strengthen the didactical knowledge about learning in multilingual contexts.

The target group consists of teacher students, educational science students, teacher educators, teachers and students. The project develops didactic multilingual activities and analyzes them with focus on language attitudes and language use. The results will generate models and concepts in multilingual didactics, based on an updated, flexible and diverse view of language use and language teaching, suitable in a Finnish language context.
DIDIA's blogg

Read more about DIDIA in Swedish and Finnish here.
Research team

Project leader Anna Slotte

Researchers:

Gunilla Holm
Riitta Juvonen
Marjo Savijärvi
Kirsi Wallinheimo
Harriet Zilliacus
Anne-Maria Kuosa
Project activities

DIDIA consists of five sub-projects:

  • Kaksi – Bilingual didactics in Finnish and Swedish ­– will study Finnish and Swedish-speaking teacher students’ attitudes towards multilingualism, multilingual teaching and Finnish and Swedish, and how the attitudes change during a multilingual course emphasizing language awareness and interaction between the language groups.
  • Sveaborg – Multidisciplinary didactics together – will analyze the significance of a joint multidisciplinary locally based project for a multilingual group of teacher students in the field of language attitudes and language skills. Through a shared study unit, located at Suomenlinna/Sveaborg, students are prepared for how to use a multilingual environment as a learning environment for multidisciplinary module-based teaching.
  • Pedagogik – Translanguaging in education – aims to increase students’ competence in translanguaging and multilingual competence. A joint course for Swedish- and Finnish speaking students in educational sciences will be organized and analyzed.
  • Varhis – Didactics for early foreign language instruction – will develop a language didactic method, suitable for early language education.
  • Skolmöten – Multilingual Skolmöten model, schools and local community in dialogue – will document and analyze phenomena and locally based multilingual education, organized for Swedish- and Finnish speaking students (year 2).
Cooperation and funding

Funding
Svenska kulturfonden (The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland), 1.9.2018–31.8.2021

Cooperation
TAKO r.f., Förening för främjande av kultur, hantverk och konst
Contact information

Anna Slotte, anna.slotte@helsinki.fi
Gunilla Holm, gunilla.holm@helsinki.fi
Riitta Juvonen, riitta.juvonen@helsinki.fi
Marjo Savijärvi, marjo.savijarvi@helsinki.fi
Kirsi Wallinheimo, kirsi.wallinheimo@helsinki.fi
Harriet Zilliacus, harriet.zilliacus@helsinki.fi
Anne-Maria Kuosa, anne-maria.kuosa@helsinki.fi
 
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