Bilingual preschool education is under researched compared with bilingual school education. There is also a lack of research on bilingual preschool teachers’ agency and how they negotiate between two languages in the classroom. We examined the language practices of five bilingual preschool teachers working within three different socio-linguistic settings, in Finland (Finnish–Swedish and Russian–Finnish contexts) and Israel (an Arabic–Hebrew context) and interviewed the teachers about their use of languages in the classroom. We found that in each context the teachers reported modifications to an initial bilingual education model over time: from a strict separation of languages, to flexible bilingual practices. A thematic analysis of the contents of the teacher reflections as they emerged through interviews revealed five shared categories: (a) the flexible use of two languages; (b) responsible code-switching; (c) contextual and linguistic supports; (d) adjustments for individual children; and (e) role-modelling. Despite the different settings and socio-linguistic conditions, the similarities in teachers’ practices and the rationale they gave for applying flexible bilingual practices were significant. The shared practices across contexts may have important implications for bilingual education.

The main goal of this study was to examine noun–adjective gender agreement in Russian by comparing bilingual children with diverse L2 backgrounds (English, Finnish, German, and Hebrew) with age-matched monolingual children and monolinguals one year younger. This comparison was made to investigate the influence of L2 grammar on the acquisition of gender agreement by (L1) Russian-speaking children. The participants included four groups of 4–5-year-old bilingual children with Russian as L1 and English, German, Finnish, or Hebrew as L2, who were compared to monolingual children in Russia in two age groups (3–4 and 4–5 years old). The children were matched by socioeconomic status and parents’ educational background. All children were tested individually during one testing session. Agreement data were elicited using a semi-structured elicitation test, with verbal and visual stimuli. We used qualitative data analysis to identify types and categories of errors, and quantitative data analysis to compare the tendencies of noun–adjective gender agreement in Russian (L1) between the groups. Development of gender agreement in the bilingual children from different L2 backgrounds was qualitatively similar to that of the 3–4-year-old monolingual Russian-speaking children. This result suggests that bilingual development in L1 follows the same developmental path as monolingual development, albeit with a delay. In addition, bilingual children whose L2 has grammatical gender (German, Hebrew) outperformed the other bilinguals on gender agreement, indicating that the presence of a grammatical category in both languages spoken by a bilingual facilitates category acquisition. The study contributes to the discussion on how the transparency and phonological saliency might affect the bilingual children’s acquisition of inflectional morphology and on how influence of L2 on L1 might in some cases help and in other cases impede the acquisition of L1.

The purpose of this article is to help language teachers at all levels of education to understand in depth problems posed by linguistic superdiversity. Based on the study of scholarly literature, documents of educational bodies and the authors experience in language teaching in different countries, the article answers the question of how the teaching of world languages such as English and Russian is changing due to the recognition that their functions and status differ in various countries. We explore why, despite gradual changes in curricula, there is still pervasiveness of pedagogies attempting to achieve a perfect command of the studied languages, without considering students needs and language repertoires, the local sociolinguistic situation and labor market requirements. We focus on methods of teaching English and Russian, taking into account various aspects of language ideologies related to mono- and pluricentricity. To show the dependence of language teaching on the socio-cultural situation, we apply the concept of Critical Language Awareness covering aspects of language variation and changes in attitudes to normativity, prescriptivism and regional language varieties. We also show that innovative pedagogies put new demands on teachers requiring that they have to adjust to new teaching formats, acquire skills of using educational technologies and teaching diverse student populations. The focus of the review on teaching English and Russian proves that despite different histories of their pedagogies, the interplay of language, ethnicity, identity, culture and education systems is significant for both, and without taking all these elements into account, the goal of educating effective multilinguals is elusive.

Introduction: The Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine had a significant impact on the Russian-speaking identity, reformulating existing linguistic and cultural boundaries and shaping Russian speakers’ self-perception and vision of the world. We focus on families with children who are trying to balance their inner and outer life in order to stabilize the positive environment of the upbringing process and analyze how adults explain to the children the need to learn the Russian, Ukrainian and other languages. This can shed light on the challenges and strategies employed in alleviating prejudiced attitudes against immigrants’ languages and cultures which can cause alienation from the roots in the one-and-a-half and second generation. The research questions were: How has the war altered language policies in families with different ethnic backgrounds? What changes in home language use strategies do parents propose?Material and methods: Material drawn from numerous posts of Facebook discussions have been analyzed with the help of thematic analysis.Results and discussion: We observe that in many multilingual families with Ukrainian roots the war has led to a greater emphasis on the Ukrainian language use as an attempt to reinforce ties to their cultural heritage and express support for the country. Russian is increasingly viewed as the language of the aggressor; moreover, Russian culture is devalued and rejected. Some families have become more open to new language learning, especially the languages of their new environment, and try to identify themselves as multicultural and multiethnic personalities. On the other hand, in those families where parents work or study in the fields in which Russian is widely used, adults prioritize the development of Russian language skills in their children in order to improve their future educational and professional opportunities. We explore attitudes and challenges faced by parents in Russian-speaking families, as they demonstrate the complexities of identity formation and language transmission while making salient the interplay between parents’ personal experiences, their aspirations for their children’s cultural identity, and the pressures of integration into the local society.

Originating from many different sources, Russian as a heritage language in Finland displays a spectrum of developmental tendencies: both attrition and maintenance can be observed in various degrees. The Finnish educational system allows for the organization of bilingual pre-schools and schools when there are sufficient numbers of potential pupils. At the very least, children who speak a minority language (anything other than Finnish or Swedish) at home are entitled to ninety minutes of lessons in that language per week. Accommodations are made in higher education as well, such as the special program for Russian heritage learners at the University of Helsinki. Research has shown that bilingual children who grow up without regular instruction in Russian lack higher-level skills in the language, and their Russian is influenced by Finnish or Swedish on every level.