Multilingual study guidance : A qualitative interview based study with teachers and tutors in grades 1–6

Based on the experiences of a number of teachers and tutors, the overall purpose of this study is to contribute to knowledge about multilingual study guidance. The purpose is specified by the following questions: What experiences do teachers and tutors have of the importance of study guidance for the language, knowledge and identity development of multilingual students and what challenges do they face? What descriptions do teachers and tutors give of how multilingual study guidance can be organized and implemented and what challenges do they face? The method for this study is qualitative semi-structured interviews in seven focus groups consisting of 10 tutors and 19 teachers in grades 1–6. The perspective of the study is sociocultural and the result is interpreted based on the hermeneutic approach. The result of the study shows that the informants agree that study guidance favors language, knowledge and identity development of multilingual students by enabling students to strengthen and develop their mother tongue and second language in parallel to the development of subject knowledge. Through the opportunity to mediate their knowledge and thoughts, the students' sense of identity is strengthened and developed. Futhermore, the informants describe that multilingual study guidance is most commonly carried out during the lessons as well as in mathematics and social and science subjects. Several informants, mainly teachers express an uncertainty about how study guidance can be organized and implemented and what effects this will have on the development of multilingual students. The challenges that the informants in the study experience is that aspects of time and organization make it difficult to find forms of cooperation between teachers and tutors for the planning and evaluation of multilingual study guidance. The conclusion is that cooperation between teachers and tutors and knowledge of multilingual study guidance increase the multilingual students’ opportunities to develop