:“It’s all about the language”. The variation in the Finnish language levels of sixth grade immigrant pupils

The purpose of this study is to explore the variation in the Finnish language skills of immigrant pupils in sixth grade. The study also investigates how the variables (gender, mother tongue, the age and reason of moving to Finland, the number of years lived in Finland and educational background of the pupils’ parents) and teaching arrangements, such as instruction preparing for basic education, instruction in mother tongue and Finnish as a Second Language, influence the Finnish language proficiency. In addition, the study aims to investigate a relationship between the language used by the pupil (Finnish and mother tongue) and the Finnish language proficiency.

The study was a mixed methods study, using the approaches of quantitative survey research and qualitative content analysis. The survey group consisted of 219 immigrant pupils in 20 schools in the city of Turku. The research material was gathered using a language test package prepared by special education teachers and Finnish as a Second Language teachers from the participating schools. Teachers assessed their pupils’ speaking and writing skills by using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The pupils also assessed their own language skills in Finnish and mother tongue. In addition, the pupils and their parents answered a questionnaire prepared by the researcher.

According to the language test results, over half of the pupils had satisfactory level of Finnish. Of all the four language modalities, the participants achieved the best results in the dictation and structure, whilst poorer results were found in the listening and reading comprehension. Based on teachers’ assessment, the pupils' oral communication skills were on average equivalent to independent user (B2) and written communication skills corresponded to threshold level (B1). Their grade point average in Finnish as a Second Language was 7.26 (on a scale 4-10). The number of years lived in Finland, the mother tongue, the age and reason of moving to Finland and the educational background of the parents seemed to have statistically significant relationship to Finnish skills. The longer the pupils had lived in Finland, and the younger they had come to Finland, the better they succeeded in the tests. Pupils with refugee status achieved the poorest results, whereas those who had re-emigrated to Finland succeeded the best. Mother’s higher educational background was found to be connected to pupil’s higher Finnish language level.

Pupils assessed their language skills in speaking, reading and writing to be higher in Finnish than in their mother tongue. The highest results in all categories were achieved by those pupils who had not taken part in preparatory studies nor in separate Finnish as a Second Language studies. Those who had studied their mother tongue for longer succeeded better in the grammatical tests than those who had studied it for a shorter period of time, but performed equally well to those who had not studied their mother tongue at all. According to the language tests and teachers’ assessment, those pupils who use both Finnish and their mother tongue with their friends proved to have a higher language level.