Comprehensive school pupils are spoilt for choice when it comes to the selection of languages on offer. Children who have moved to Finland from elsewhere or speak a language at home other than Finnish or Swedish are entitled to special language education. Mother tongue language classes, also known as clubs, normally gather for two hours a week during the school year before or after the school day.

In Helsinki, instruction spans 45 different languages. Somali (812 pupils), Russian (790), Arabic (228), Estonian (171) and Vietnamese (91) classes draw the greatest number of students in the capital city.

But this doesn’t mean that languages with fewer speakers in Finland take a backseat.

”We also teach Urdu, Persian and Kurmanji, the most common dialect of Kurdish,” explains Annamari Kajasto, a project planner and language teacher at the Helsinki Education Department.

The classes focus on all aspects of language arts, including an emphasis on cultural heritage.

Sari Korkalainen, an education consultant at Helsinki’s Education Department, says multiculturalism is part of everyday life at schools in Helsinki, and these language classes support immigrant children’s integration into Finnish society.

Mother tongue clubs have increased in popularity over the years as the selection has swelled. These voluntary classes began in schools in the mid-1980s with Vietnamese, Chinese and Spanish to support the main newcomer groups at the time.

Some 3,300 pupils are taking part in the clubs this autumn term, reflecting around 14 percent of the city’s entire comprehensive school student body, according to the Helsinki Department of Education.

The minimum group size is four pupils, with the exception of Finland’s native minority languages Roma and Sámi, which need just two students to form a class.

”The language clubs are organised by the city, but it’s up to the school principals to find and hire qualified teachers,” says Kajasto.

Finding qualified teachers for minor languages sometimes proves difficult. In such cases, applicants with the most experience are usually chosen for the job.

The More Languages, the Better

While students with foreign backgrounds are encouraged to hold on to their linguistic heritage, Helsinki’s Education Department is also pushing for all pupils to broaden their language horizons.

This year the Confederation of Finnish Industries, a business lobbyist, called on educators to persuade pupils to study more foreign languages to prepare them for the increasingly international Finland of the future.

One such initiative is the Viehko project, launched this autumn by the Helsinki Education Department. The programme aims to encourage pupils to choose another language than English or Swedish as their first foreign language. Today English generally dominates, with some 90 percent of elementary school students choosing English ahead of other languages.

”We’re in Europe, so it’s important for pupils to be able to understand other European languages,” says Kajasto, referring to a study last summer by the Confederation that found while English is the number one language in business, Swedish is a close second. Russian and German take third and fourth place.

Since the beginning of the decade, the number of students choosing to study French or German has dropped considerably. For example, some 7,000 fewer pupils took an elective foreign language in Helsinki’s comprehensive schools in 2007 than in 2001.

Opening Doors

The Confederation’s study is based on a survey of Finnish companies employing a total of 370,000 people. Half of these firms said they believe the importance of Russian for their business will increase in the future. Other hot languages on the radar are Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish, reflecting budding Finnish business interests in Latin America and China.

”Companies firstly emphasise English in recruitment, but in addition to good English, we also need Swedish and proficiency in other languages,” says Markku Koponen, Director of Training and Education at the Confederation of Finnish Industries.

Path to Bilingualism

In addition to English, pupils in grades 1-6 in Helsinki can study Spanish, Chinese, French, Swedish, German, Estonian and Russian. Once pupils reach grades 7-9, the selection expands to include Italian and Latin. Some schools in the greater Helsinki area even offer bilingual education and language immersion classes in Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), French, Estonian, German, Spanish, Russian and English.

Helsinki is also looking to support homegrown bilingualism with its mother tongue clubs.

”Helsinki’s Education Department sees that instruction of immigrant children’s own native language supports their mother tongue skills and their cultural identity, and provides them with well-functioning bilingualism,” Korkalainen explains via email.

Kajasto says Arabic is one world language that may find its way into the Finnish school system in the future. Now it’s only available for kids through mother tongue clubs.

”Nothing official has been decided yet, but that’s not to say it’s not a possibility.”