A few days ago I wrote a post in Finnish about the possibility of attending classes in mother tongues other than Finnish and Swedish. I’ve come to understand that the main reasons why not so many children go to these mother tongue / heritage language classes are the following
Lack of information: There isn’t much information about how to enroll in the classes, how they are organized, etc.
Inconvenience: the classes are usually outside the regular curriculum and often in a different school. Does the city provide transportation to these classes?
Not enough students: the city of Oulu requires 6 students for the classes to be held. The government would subsidize the classes for even 4 students, but for some reason unknown to me, Oulu wants to make it harder.
Lack of qualified teachers: The last I heard, Oulu only accepted teachers who were formally qualified to teach in Finland. It’s not easy to get such formal qualifications, but actually the law allows hiring unqualified teachers as well. It has also happened that even if the teacher is qualified to teach, they may not be the most competent to teach that particular language, but the employer is obliged to hire them over someone who knows the language well but has not studied pedagogy in Finland, for example.
I have contacted the person responsible for organizing the teaching of different mother tongues in Oulu, and will update this post as soon as I get more information. But before that, one last reason:
Lack of interest: Not everyone feels the need for their child to learn their parents’ mother tongue at school. It may be that the country of origin offers good quality online lessons. Or the parents may want to invest in their child’s future in Finland by encouraging the child to concentrate on learning Finnish and other subjects rather than taking lessons in the mother tongue. As a linguist and researcher on multilingualism, I would say that such decisions are often based on misconceptions. Unless they have dyslexia or learning difficulties, the number of languages a person, especially a child, can learn is unlimited, and learning many languages strengthens a person’s cognitive abilities. Although many of the world’s languages are currently undervalued in Finland, I am also optimistic about a future that embraces the huge potential of all our multilingual and multicultural citizens.
EDIT: After writing this, I contacted Eija Laasonen-Tervasoja, who is responsible for mother tongue teaching in the city of Oulu, and asked her about the matter. ”Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Kurdish, Nepali, Polish, French, German, Sinhala, Slovak, Tamil, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Russian and Vietnamese are currently taught in Oulu. Registration will take place in August via Wilma. Of course, paper registration forms will be distributed to families who are unable to use Wilma. Only a few of the mother tongue teachers have a teaching qualification in Finland. Otherwise, we will try to find a teacher with strong knowledge and skills in the language to be taught. Finnish language skills are also desirable. Active language communities play an important role in finding teachers.” I then asked whether it is not difficult to find teachers so quickly if registration for the classes takes place in August rather than in the spring, but I have not received an answer to this question.