Translanguaging Strategies in Superdiverse Mainstream Norwegian ECEC: Opportunities for Home Language Support

Abstract

In Norway, 92% of all children between 1 and 5 attend early childhood education and care (ECEC), and 18% of these children are minority language speakers. The Framework Plan for Content and Tasks of Kindergartens (Ministry of Education, 2017, p. 24) states that ECEC staff shall ‘help ensure that linguistic diversity becomes an enrichment for the entire group of children and encourage multilingual children to use their mother tongue while also actively promoting and developing the children’s Norwegian/Sami language skills’. In this paper, we present a study of how home language (HL) support takes place within the context of Norwegian ECEC, focusing on the strategies used by the staff to promote HL use. After analysing 26 narratives from practice, we found that the most common strategies employed were initiating activities that encourage HL use, facilitating metalinguistic conversations and consulting/involving language experts. The strategies available depend on contextual factors, such as the number of children present and the languages spoken by both children and staff. The HL support strategies are discussed in light of the interplay between teachers’ language ideologies, planned actions and spontaneous responses in situations where children’s HLs are involved inspired by the theories in García, Johnson and Seltzer’s study (2017).