Language Awareness in Teaching Practices (5cr)

Evaluation scale

Pass/Fail

Content scheduling

Start-up webinar on Tue 20.1.2026 at 15 - 17.30
Guidance webinar I on Tue 17.2.2026 at 15 - 17.30
Guidance webinar II on Tue 3.3.2026 at 15 - 17.30
Guidance webinar III on Tue 24.3.2026 at 15 - 17.30

Objective

The purpose of the course

In this course, you will enhance your skills to work in a multicultural environment and support multilingual learners. You will learn the principles of language-aware pedagogy and practical methods that you can apply in your work as a teacher and instructor.

Course competences

In this course, you will promote and develop your interpersonal competence, professional pedagogical competence, facilitating learning and reflection skills.

Interpersonal competence refers to teacher’s ability to strengthen learners’ competence. You will be able to support learners’ competence for continuous learning, such as self-regulation and reflection skills, and the ownership of their own learning process. As a teacher, you will also have the ability to take into account learner diversity and learners’ personal starting points and goals when planning and carrying out learning sessions and guiding learning. Your approach is dialogical and ethical in a way that supports the well-being of learners.

Professional pedagogical competence refers to the theoretical, ethical, and philosophical principles for vocational competence and learning. It refers to your ability to act in different learning guidance sessions in accordance with the set learning objectives, and the documents that define teaching. It refers to your ability to analyse and justify your own facilitating learning activities.

Facilitating learning skills refer to a teacher's collaborative approach and ability to planning, implementing, assessing, and developing learning and guidance processes taking into consideration the diversity of learners. It also refers to understanding of group processes and group phenomena in learning, employment of versatile and working life-oriented learning resources and ability to design, implement and facilitate learning processes in digital environments in a pedagogically meaningful way.

Reflection skills refer to your ability to recognise and assess your own pedagogical assumptions, and working methods as a facilitator of learning. It refers also to an ability to assess in realistic way your own learning and competence and ability to set new goals as a facilitator of learning.

Learning objectives

After completing the course, you will understand the principles of language awareness and language-aware pedagogy and be able to apply them in a multilingual teaching group. You will recognize the importance of culture and the opportunities offered by multilingualism in learning. You will be able to develop teaching and learning environments that support the participation and learning of all students

Content

Language-aware pedagogy, multilingualism as a resource, the importance of culture in learning

Materials

Andersen, L. K. & Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2019). Mitä on kielitietoisuus ja miten se näkyy koulussa?. Kieli, koulutus ja yhteiskunta, 10(2). https://www.kieliverkosto.fi/fi/journals/kieli-koulutus-ja-yhteiskunta-maaliskuu-2019/mita-on-kielitietoisuus-ja-miten-se-nakyy-koulussa.

Opetushallitus (ei pvm.). Kielitietoisuus. https://www.oph.fi/fi/opettajille/kielitietoisuus.

You will find additional learning materials and assignments in the online learning environment.

Teaching methods

This course is implemented as online studies. It is based mainly on independent work and peer work. The implementation methods deepen your professional competence and the development of your own professional field.

This course includes a start-up webinar and three online guidance webinars. The start-up webinar covers the course structure and its contents. In the three guidance webinars, questions related to learning assignments are addressed. You will receive peer feedback from other students and guidance from the course instructor. Otherwise, guidance is provided online through the Moodle learning platform.

Exam schedules

This course does not include an exam.

Student workload

In total, the course consists of 135 hours (5 x 27h) of students’ work:
- Orientation 7 h
- Lectures 8 h
- Self-directed learning in online environment, reading the learning materials, completing the learning assignments and discussions 90 h
- Peer tutoring and self-assessment 25 h
- Feedback 5 h

Assessment criteria, approved/failed

The criteria for assessing the approved level are as follows:

Interpersonal skills: You will develop your communication skills and ability to work in a multicultural environment. This includes skills to engage and support multilingual learners and understand the importance of cultures in learning.

Professional pedagogical skills: You will understand the principles of language-aware pedagogy and be able to apply them in multicultural and multilingual teaching groups. This includes pedagogical methods and practices that support the learning of diverse students.

Facilitating learning skills: You will be able to plan, implement, and evaluate learning processes that support the participation and learning of multicultural and multilingual learners. This includes the ability to utilize the opportunities offered by multilingualism in teaching and guidance work.

Reflection skills: You will be able to evaluate your own learning and skills and develop your pedagogical activities in a multicultural and multilingual environment.

Qualifications

-

Further information

The assessment is qualitative and is based on learning objectives. The methods for evaluation of the learning process are feedback and self-assessment. Competence assessment is based on criteria and the teacher educator makes the assessment decision once all the learning tasks have been completed. The assessment material consists of the learning tasks of the course and self-assessment tasks.