Vertailututkimus opetussuunnitelmien ja opetusmäärien vaikutuksesta ruotsin kielen oppimiseen
A comparison study of the effect of curricula and amount of teaching on learning Swedish
Keywords:
Swedish competence, learning Swedish, core curriculum, curriculum reformAbstract
Learning Swedish was changed to start earlier in the Finnish language schools in 2016. Nowadays pupils study Swedish in four years (Gr. 6–9) but usually still 6 weekly lessons per year (wl/y). In some municipalities, however, the number of hours has been raised to 8 wl/p. We examine with a Swedish test how pupils’ learning results differ either with an increased number of lessons or with a different number of lessons, in one school in Helsinki (8 wl/p) and in one University of Helsinki teacher training school (6 wl/p). The results show that pupils’ Swedish proficiency is on average weak even after the increased number of lessons. The extra hours in the city school have yet supported pupils’ learning, although not in all areas. A slightly larger percentage of pupils in the teacher training school reached the level of good competence compared to the city school, while the situation was exactly opposite with those pupils who exceeded the level of good competence. In a curriculum reform, it would be important to utilize language education research so that the changes support and enhance language learning.
