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Our main aim in this study was to compare encouraging feedback practices in Finnish general upper secondary foreign language classes and examine how students perceive language teachers' assessment practices. The participants were 160 students of English, 95 students of Swedish, and 27 students of French from six general upper secondary schools. The data comprised one open-ended question and one Likert scale question with nine items. Both qualitative and quantitate methods were used to analyze the data. The results showed that content was the most important feature in feedback that was perceived as encouraging by students. The results further indicated that students considered teacher assessment practices to be primarily summative, but differences were also found between schools. The evidence from this study suggests that students appreciate teacher feedback, but do not perceive it to be an intrinsic part of teacher assessment practices. The importance of formative assessment and feedback should be more heavily emphasized in foreign language teacher education.

The professional development of teacher educators has received global interest worldwide following the notion that teacher educators are profoundly responsible for teacher education quality. Still, research on teacher educator professional development is scarce in Finland and under-researched in Turkey. In this article, the authors examine how teacher educators in two institutes in Finland and Turkey define their roles and knowledge base as teacher educators, professional development practices, problems in professional development, and suggestions for better professional learning opportunities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 university-based and school-based teacher educators working at two universities and two school settings in Finland and Turkey. Similarities and differences between the two groups in their professional development practices, problems and suggestions are discussed. The results reveal that though teacher education policies in these two countries share certain commonalities in structure and governance, definitions of professional development and practices differ in two contexts.

The development of automated systems for evaluating spontaneous speech is desirable for L2 learning, as it can be used as a facilitating tool for self-regulated learning, language proficiency assessment, and teacher training programs. However, languages with fewer learners face challenges due to the scarcity of training data. Recent advancements in machine learning have made it possible to develop systems with a limited amount of target domain data. To this end, we propose automatic speaking assessment systems for spontaneous L2 speech in Finnish and Finland Swedish, comprising six machine learning models each, and report their performance in terms of statistical evaluation criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While assessment is related to all levels of the Douglas Fir Group's (2016 hereinafter, DFG) framework, in this paper, we focus on language assessment in schools, that is, institutional meso level. However, we will also discuss micro (individual) and macro (societal) levels of the framework. We will discuss school classroom assessment focusing on four themes: (1) the understanding of quality of assessment in formal education, (2) assessment literacy required from teachers, (3) technology in assessment, and (4) challenges and opportunities that multilingualism in society and schools brings for assessment. We will also discuss future developments in Finnish classroom assessment research and practice, or indeed, a combination of the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this case study was to explore how student teachers at the University of Helsinki perceived pedagogical courses in emergency remote teaching. The dataset consists of the responses of 79 students to an online questionnaire and interviews with five students. Descriptive statistics, multiple linear regression analysis, and content analysis were used to analyze the data. The students pointed out that, on average, teachers have mastered the pedagogy of remote teaching well, although older teachers had more challenges than younger teachers. The quality of teaching was reported as being high. Teachers' pedagogical knowledge was the strongest predictor of successful remote teaching. In terms of assessment, teachers mostly used essays and other written assignments to assess students' achievement. According to most students, the assessment practices were implemented successfully. The results provide insights for developing remote teaching in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although this might result in more variation in When MT + 2 is not enough: Tensions within foreign language education in Finland 39 SOCIOLINGUISTICA 24/2010 language choices, it would no doubt be seen as downgrading Finland's official bilingualism, hardly a desirable outcome for responsible language education policies. SOCIOLINGUISTICA 24/2010 Tarja Nikula/ Sari Pöyhönen/ Ari Huhta/ Raili Hildén When MT + 2 is not enough: Tensions within foreign language education in Finland 1. Foreign language provision at secondary level 2.1 Developments and background influences For a small country whose national languages are small in comparison to big European languages, foreign language provision has constituted an important part of the educational system for decades. The development is also detected in terminology where language didactics in many universities came to be labelled "language pedagogy" or "language education" to highlight the unique mission of language teaching to foster students' whole identities (Kohonen 2001). [Extracted from the article]