
Jenni AlisaariUniversity of Eastern Finland | UEF · School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education
Jenni Alisaari
Doctor of Education
About
46
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
August 2007 - July 2013
City of Turku
Position
- Finnish as a second language teacher
August 2013 - present
August 2002 - July 2006
City of Turku
Position
- Class teacher
Education
August 1998 - May 2002
Publications
Publications (46)
Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemme maahanmuuttosukupolven, kotona puhutun kielen ja taustamaan yhteyttä kouluun kuuluvuuden tunteeseen ja koulupoissaoloihin sekä sitä, miten kuuluvuuden tunne selittää poissaoloja. Aineistona käytämme Suomen PISA-kyselyitä vuosilta 2012, 2015 ja 2018 ja menetelmänä regressioanalyysiä. Maahanmuuttotaustaisilla oppilail...
The aim of this study was to examine Finnish pre-service primary school teachers’ (n = 92) understandings of academic language development and self-reported preparedness to support language learning when teaching multilingual students (MLSs) in Finnish primary schools. Data were gathered with a survey and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively....
Linguistic diversity is often addressed within wider abstract educational frameworks, making it difficult to concretize in teacher training. In this article we explore how linguistic diversity is connected to such frameworks as sustainable development (United Nations, 2015), inclusive education (UNESCO, 1994), and (global) citizenship education (UN...
The study examines language aware practices in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland. In Finland, the number of citizens with languages other than the national languages is estimated to increase, and population growth is dependent on migration. Children enrolled in ECEC have increasingly diverse language backgrounds. This calls for a...
Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee, miten Suomen kouluissa käsitellään pakolaisuuteen liittyviä aiheita ja pakolaistaustaisten oppilaiden kokemuksia. Artikkeli pohjautuu vuoden 2022 lopussa opettajilta, rehtoreilta ja koulunkäynninohjaajilta kerättyyn kyselyaineistoon (n = 267) ja kyselyä tarkentaviin puolistrukturoituihin opettajahaastatteluihin (n = 15)....
In this article, we examine Finnish school administration discourses concerning support for students with a refugee background. The data consisted of expert interviews and was analysed using a critical discourse analysis approach. Regarding learning support, we identified discourses concerning tensions between policy and practices, as well as the d...
The Declaration of a Nordic Language Policy stipulates that all Nordic residents have the right to preserve and develop their mother tongue and their national minority languages. Hence, this article investigates the question of mother tongue education for linguistic minority students. Through four 'telling cases', the article explores how four Nord...
The aim of the study is to deepen the understanding of how the Nordic view of multilingualism as a resource emerges in the staff's descriptions of good practices in connection with supporting multilingual children's languages in Finland. In particular we examine whether and how the children's own mother tongue is perceived by the early childhood ed...
This study examined students’ (N = 659) and teachers’ (N = 74) stances toward linguistic and cultural diversity in Finland after national educational policy reforms. The students’ and teachers’ stances were positive, and the students felt appreciated at school; however, differences were found based on the gender, age, and first language of the stud...
Music and especially singing are ways to liven up language teaching. Singing creates a sense of togetherness and evokes feelings, which supports learning. It also makes it easier to focus on and recall language, and thus supports the learning of words, expressions, and structures. Teachers can use songs in their teaching, even if they are not music...
Tarkastelemme luokanopettajaopiskelijoiden (n = 87) kieliopin hallintaa sekä käsityksiä kielellisestä tuesta matematiikan opetuksessa. Aineisto on kerätty opettajankoulutuksessa toteutetun monikielisyys- ja kielenoppimiskurssin yhteydessä kurssin alussa ja lopussa kyselylomakkeella, jolla kartoitettiin kielellistä tukemista matematiikan opetuksen y...
In this study, we use PISA 2018 data to analyze (1) how language learning and teaching of intercultural issues are associated with global competences (GC) both in terms of knowledge and skills aspects as well as attitudes towards diversity, (2a) how the teaching of languages and intercultural issues in the school are related to sense of belonging a...
This article considers what students with a migrant background in Finnish comprehensive schools report as difficult, and how they succeed in overcoming these difficulties. We draw on two sets of school wellbeing and learning surveys for migrant students, conducted in 2016 and 2021 in comprehensive schools (grades 1–9) in and around two major cities...
Abstract in Finnish:
Tarkastelemme tässä artikkelissa opettajien ja muun opetushenkilöstön (N=596) huolia maahanmuuttotaustaisten oppilaiden oppimisesta ja integraatiosta. Kyselymme vastauksissa nousivat esiin huolet maahanmuuttotaustaisten oppilaiden suomen tai ruotsin kielen taidon riittävyydestä, oppimisen ja kotoutumisen haasteista sekä rakente...
Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemme opettajien (n = 596) maahanmuuttotaustaisten oppilaiden opetukseen liittyviä huolia. Keskitymme erityisesti opettajien pohdintoihin omasta opettajuudestaan ja yleisesti kouluun liittyviin tekijöihin. Suurimpina huolina opettajien riittämättömyyden tunteessa olivat opettajan oma osaaminen ja opetustaidot, mutta myös...
This study analysed Finnish teachers' (N = 820) understandings and attitudes about teaching students from immigrant backgrounds and how these relate to linguistically and culturally responsive education. The data were gathered via an online-survey in 2016. The results indicate that the Finnish teachers surveyed had knowledge about second language a...
We investigated Finnish primary school teachers’ understandings of processes of
language learning, their reported linguistically responsive practices, their reported
professional learning needs, and the links between these. The teachers (n = 246)
responded to an online survey. Frequencies, possible links between the teachers’
background factors and...
Language has been conceptualized as both a measure as well as a predictor of integration among immigrants and their children. However, the relationship between language spoken at home and different educational outcomes remains poorly understood. Many studies indicate that nurturing students' first languages is positively associated with their learn...
Observations of Pedagogical Excellence of Teaching Across Nations (OPETAN) is a mixed methods observation study of 31 content teachers, most nominated for their excellence in teaching multilingual students in Germany, Finland, the US, and England. The study relied on an observation rubric that operationalizes seven Enduring Principles of Learning g...
The current Finnish core curriculum requires all teachers in basic education to be linguistically responsive. However, studies on the linguistically responsive practices used by teachers are scarce. The frequency with which teachers (N = 820) use 21 linguistically responsive practices was investigated through data that were gathered via an online s...
This study examined Finnish teachers’ (N = 691) beliefs about students use of their home languages in learningtasks and teachers’ preparedness to implement the requirements of the Finnish curricula. The teachers’ beliefsrelated to students’ use of their home languages were mainly positive; however, only 7% of the teachersreported encouraging home l...
This study investigates how Finnish teachers regard immigrant families’ home language policies. Of the teachers who responded, 53.3% believed it best for parents to speak their first languages at home, and 31.7% believed that both first language and language of instruction should be used at home. A minority of the teachers believed that only Finnis...
This study examines a learning experiment in which linguistic problem-solving tasks designed to increase students’ (aged 9–13) language awareness through collaborative dialogue were introduced in multilingual primary school classrooms in Finland. The aim was to analyse how the students ( N = 126) reported what was happening during the linguistic pr...
Educational disadvantages of children of immigrants have sometimes been linked to speaking a language other than that of school instruction at home. However, thorough investigations of the alleged benefits for immigrant families of adopting the language of the surrounding society are lacking. We used data from a subset of countries in the 2018 Prog...
This study investigated which aspects of working with multilingual students bring joy to Finnish teachers. The data was collected via an online survey from teachers working mainly in basic education in Finland. The teachers (N = 588) reported a positive stance toward multilingual learners. The greatest number of responses (44%) cited students’ intr...
Apples - Journal of Applied Language Studies ////
The number of students whose home language is different from the language of instruction is growing everywhere. Learning a new language while simultaneously learning different subjects in that language, is challenging and requires teacher support. However, research has shown that not all teachers...
This is an accepted version of a chapter Jenni Alisaari and I wrote for the book "Fluency in L2 learning and use" edited by Pekka Lintunen, Maarit Mutta and Pauliina Peltonen. This preprint is the same text as in the book that came out 31.1.2020. As the book is published only as a paper version, we have decided to share a digital version of this bo...
Culturally and linguistically responsive education takes the learners’ diverse identities and
languages into account in many ways. This article explores the orientations that emerge when
pre-service and in-service teachers evaluate their preparedness to conduct certain culturally
and linguistically responsive practices. Exploratory factor analysis...
This study examined Finnish teachers' (N ¼ 820) beliefs related to multilingualism and teaching multilingual Finnish language learners. Teachers' beliefs were mainly positive. However, teachers did not always consider home languages as learning resources. There were three categories of multilingual ideologies: advocacy for, allowance and denial of...
Recent studies have yielded contradictory results regarding how reading from print or from the screen influences reading comprehension. This study examined 12-year-old students’ (N = 142) reading comprehension using printed text and digital text. The results indicated that performance was similar for printed text and digital text, even when gender,...
The aim of the study was to investigate how different teaching methods, singing, listening to songs and reciting song lyrics, affect the development of pronunciation of Finnish as a foreign language pronunciation. The second objective of the study was to investigate whether future classroom teachers and future Finnish as a second language teachers...
Fluency is an essential part of a language learner?s skills. Despite various studies on fluency, little is known about the effects of different pedagogical methods on the development of written fluency. In this paper, we examine how different pedagogical methods affect the development of second language learners? written fluency. Participants in th...