Language-aware education

Language awareness refers to the teacher’s observation of language and language use in various situations, as well as the support for the simultaneous development of linguistic and content-related skills. The teacher needs an understanding of the learner’s linguistic resources, the linguistic practices of the different subject areas and the institution, and the pedagogical practices that support learning. Language awareness in education benefits not only multilingual learners but also students who speak Finnish as their first language, as they benefit from the same perspectives and support methods (Aalto et al. 2019).