Abstract

The aim of this study is to find out how preschool teachers interpret their role in supporting speech development for children with Swedish as their second language. The curriculum indicates that the preschool should support children who speaks other languages than Swedish to develop both Swedish and their mother tongue. This can become difficult since it means that a teacher often is commissioned to support a language that he or she does not speak.

The objective of this study is to find out how preschool teachers interpret and describe their role when they don ́t speak the languages that is represented in the class. The purpose is to find out how the environment can be meaningful without verbal understanding between the child and teacher, as well as between the children.

The data is collected with qualitative interviews that has been analysed with a social- constructionist perspective and theories of multilingual development for young children. The results show that the preschool teachers prioritize the support of the Swedish language to achieve multilingualism. They want the children to develop their mother tongue as well, but for this they often rely on parents. The teachers describe that a meaningful environment can be created by letting the children show what subjects is the most interesting, and plan for the basis of playfulness. The mother tongue is considered as meaningful to the child ́s identity and it is important that the child is permitted to be proud of his or hers language.