I continue my learning experience on ‘Internationalization‘ and ‘Language policies‘ through the pedagogical course ‘YA2 International and Collaborative Environment‘ provided to the personnel of the University of Helsinki.

Our group-assignment this week was to write a blog on a topic of our choice, but related to language diversity. At the University of Helsinki, the official languages of teaching are Finnish and Swedish, the two official languages of Finland. English and all other languages are of course welcome in the curriculum, but by law are not mandatory at the University. Nonetheless, English is the current language of international research, and many courses are provided in English, giving the opportunity to national and international students to interact and exchange in a learning environment.

After discussing different potential topics, we decided to write a blog on the cons and pros of organizing co-teaching in several languages.

You can find the blog here: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/ya2internationalcollaborative/2020/10/12/multilingual-co-teaching-is-time-consuming-but-well-worth-the-time/ . Written in collaboration with my three colleagues J. Eskelinen, R. Keto-Timonen, & H. Koivula.

In brief, we review some of the preconceptions of organizing and teaching in a multilingual settings – meaning teaching with a colleague (or several colleagues) using a different language. We described conceptions from the students, the institutions and the teachers point of view and support our claims with recent research on the topics.

Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts on this text, and let me know if you have any interesting experience with co-teaching!