In the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Compulsory Education (2014), the conception of language is based on the communal and functional linguistics model of language. From the perspectives of teaching and learning, this requires that learning contexts and pedagogies enable learning in such learning environments, roles, and processes where the…

Early foreign language teaching has recently been made compulsory in Finland, making this an area open to development and innovation where policy-makers and teachers play a significant role in creating new kinds of learning environments, operating cultures, and pedagogy for foreign language learning. This article discusses the early foreign…

From a broad perspective, the entire time spent in teacher training can be characterized as a period of professional growth. Specific professional growth and development are realized when the students enter the advanced stage of master's studies to independently practise their profession in their own class of pupils. The uncertainty of a novice…

Success in an increasingly globalized world sets requirements for versatile communication skills and understanding about other cultures. One of the keys to success is versatile language skills, on which the European Commission spoke out as early as in 1995, recommending that every European citizen should learn two foreign languages in addition to…

This article describes a project called "The art based methods in developing transversal competence" funded by The Finnish National Board of Education. The article is based on the hermeneutic phenomenological approach in action research. The project developed learning environments as well as project-based learning with emphasis on the…