Newly arrived children’s encounters with the cultural community of preschool

ABSTRACT

The Swedish preschools have evolved to be more diverse in terms of language and culture amongst the attending children. Previous research on newly arrived children in the Swedish preschools focusses on, amongst other things, how to provide for the best reception or education, but less is known about the newly arrived children’s own communicative ways when they start preschool. The aim of this paper is to explore how children entering a new linguistic environment are able to participate by using communicative tools in speech events at preschool. The analysis shows how the children participate by combining different communicative tools when they shadow, code-switch, invent language and make use of expressive body language. The study contributes with knowledge about preschool children’s various ways of approaching a new language and adjusting to a new cultural context and children’s social and informal learning practices in preschool.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication
• interaction
• newly arrived children
• linguistic environment
• second language
• peer learning

Introduction

Swedish preschools of today harbor a multitude of different nationalities, and are increasingly becoming more diverse in terms of language and culture (Skolverket 2020). Thus, receiving children from foreign countries has become a recurring phenomenon in Swedish preschools, where the common approach is direct integration. Therefore, in the paper, we use the concept newly arrived, which refers to any child, which for any reason is entering the Swedish education system soon after his or her arrival to Sweden. Previous research regarding children who have recently been introduced to the Swedish education system has tended to focus on the challenges of the reception process (e.g. Lunneblad 2017; Åkerblom and Harju 2019), or on how to provide the best education and support for children when learning an additional language (e.g. Kultti 2014; Åkerblom and Harju 2020). Thus, little is known about newly arrived children’s individual actions when enrolled into a new cultural and linguistic preschool context. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore how children entering a new linguistic environment are able to participate by using communicative tools in speech events at preschool. The following research questions have guided the analysis: What communicative tools are being used by the newly arrived children? How do they participate in interaction with peers by using these communicative tools?

Previous research

In research focusing on newly arrived children, it is common that an adult or a teacher perspective is adopted when studying, for example, teacher–child interactions (Peleman, Vandenbroeck and Van Avermaet 2020), communication between the school and the home (Tobin 2020), and the reception, pedagogy and education surrounding the child (Åkerblom and Harju 2019). In this paper, our perspective will be on children as active agents. This means observing children’s ability to act and affect during interaction with others (e.g. Björk-Willén 2007; Ledin and Samuelsson 2017). Within everyday contexts in preschool, children are able to exercise agency and create language policy (Boyd, Huss and Ottesjö 2017; Bergroth and Palviainen 2017).

It is reasonable to assume that newly arrived children will face linguistic and cultural challenges when enrolled into mainstream Swedish preschools soon after arriving in their new country. To manage the task of learning a second language, children use cognitive and social strategies in individual ways (Fillmore 1979). These social and cognitive strategies interact and have an effect on the rate at which each child can learn a new language; the social strategies, together with social skills and motivation, have been shown to enhance this rate.

Research from the sociocultural tradition emphasizes that children develop cultural and social knowledge together in peer learning through social practices in preschool (Williams 2001; Cekaite and Evaldsson 2017). When newcomers engage in physical play with peers and teachers with superior Swedish language proficiency, imitation tends to facilitate second language learning (Ledin and Samuelsson 2017) and when children engage in play, they can communicate, regardless of language (Björk-Willén 2007; Ledin and Samuelsson 2017). In activities of play, bilingual children use different linguistic strategies, such as shadowing (Björk-Willén 2007), language alteration and code-switching (Kleemann 2012), in various ways to gain or sustain participation. Shadowing is explained as a linguistic strategy used when repeating another person’s speech or action with a split-second delay in an attempt to participate in a conversation (Tannen 1989). Krupa-Kwiatkowski (1998) describes how a newly arrived boy, a second language learner, plays with the new language, and even more interestingly, how the child invents a language. The invented language has semantic meaning to the inventor but no meaning for the owner of the majority language. This shows us that before children can manage a new language, they try out and practice it by imitating intonation and phonology.

However, it has been known that immigrant children’s interactions with peers are at risk to be limited by their marginalized situation and lacking the ability of the Swedish language. Therefore, their social relations cannot be taken for granted as language developmental and socializing contexts (Cekaite and Evaldsson 2017). To explore how children entering a new linguistic environment are able to participate is therefore of vital interest.

Theoretical framework

With reference to sociocultural theories on learning (Vygotsky 1978; Rogoff 2003), this article focuses on newly arrived children’s interactions with their peers within a preschool context. It is noteworthy that interactions between the children and their peers and with teachers are vital to language learning and development. The preschool is generally perceived as a cultural community, with socially and culturally formed rules for participation (Rogoff 2003). For a person developing his/her identity as a member of a community of practice, from a peripheral into a full participant, the concepts of ‘newcomer’ and ‘oldtimer’ are applied (Lave 1991). These concepts help us to understand the position of newly arrived children in the context of preschool. These concepts differ from the notions of ‘novice’ and ‘expert’, which refer to an apprentice internalization of knowledge acquired in interaction with a more capable peer or adult (e.g. in a zone of proximal development, Vygotsky 1978).

Analytical concepts

In the analysis, the concept of ‘speech event’ (Goodwin 2000) is used to understand newly arrived children’s interaction with their peers. A ‘speech event’ is framed by the participants’ focus of joint attention, for example through role-playing, and the children’s visible use of semiotic signs (Goodwin 2000). An event starts when a child takes the initiative to which a peer responds to. The event ends or is paused when there is a change of focus in the joint attention (Saville-Troike 1982). Furthermore, to understand newly arrived children’s contributions to speech events, the term ‘communicative tools’ is used. Vygotsky (1986) has established how humans use signs as tools for the purpose of communicating through social interaction. According to Goodwin (2000), humans have access to semiotic signs, such as spoken and bodily language but also materials. Humans use these signs to create language, thinking and social constructions (Goodwin 2003). In a sequential structured analysis, a process is unfolded, where we can see how a linguistic action, the use of signs, is a response to an earlier action. Goodwin (2013) describes this as a chain of actions, as a coordination of different resources, through which future actions can be predicted Table 1:

Table 1. Analytical steps.

Step	What	Questions to data
1	Content analysis. A first encoding of the data material.	Time length, participants, room, course of events, artifacts and modalities
2	Speech events were framed and organized.	What is children’s joint attention in interplay?
3	Communicative tools, verbal, bodily and material, were identified	When, how and for what are communicative tools being used?
4	Patterns in the use of communicative tools were identified
5	Speech events including the same pattern in the use of communicative tools were compared	How, when and why is the girl ‘shadowing’ her peers?
6	Representative and clear examples were selected for interaction analysis.	Who takes, and what is the initiative? Who gives, and what is the response?

Methodology, methods and materials

This article is based on an empirical study, which explores how newly arrived children communicate when they are newcomers in the Swedish preschool context (Skaremyr 2014). Based on a qualitative case study design (Bryman 2011), including participant observation (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007; Gobo 2011) combined with the use of interaction analysis (Wooffitt and Hutchby 2008; Goodwin 2000, 2013), child interactions were observed, recorded and analyzed.

Two children, who had just arrived in Sweden, were observed during their daily child-to-child interactions with their peers, in two different preschools, for a period of five months. All the preschools of a municipality in Sweden were asked to identify children according to the study’s criteria for inclusion. The criteria were: Children aged three to five speaking another first language than Swedish. This was decided under the assumption that children that age would have learned the basics of a first language, and were novices to the Swedish language. Sara, a three-year-old girl, who spoke English at home and Maryam, a five-year-old girl, who spoke Persian at home, were selected for participation in the study. Both children were from a migrant background. When the data collection started, they had attended preschool for approximately four months. Sara had arrived in Sweden five months prior to the study and Maryam six months prior to it.

Ethical considerations according to the Swedish Research Council (Gustafsson, Hemerén and Pettersson 2011) have been addressed and the study has been approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Ethical vetting Reg. Nr. C2012/549) (https://etikprovningsmyndigheten.se/)

First, all preschools in a municipality were asked to identify children who have newly arrived in Sweden, for whatever reason. Three children were identified. After the process of gaining consent, two children were able to participate in this study. The teachers and legal guardians gave their consent prior to the study. The information asserted that participation is voluntary, names will be distorted, and empirical data will be locked away, used for publication and vetted in different research environments. The children’s consent was sought during observations when the researcher asked questions, such as: May I join you and can I record?, and at the same time showed the camera. The most common response was that the girls and their peers accepted being recorded, but sometimes they verbally declined or turned their bodies away from the researcher. If any child in any way showed or expressed something that could be interpreted as discontent, the recordings and the observations were immediately ended.

The data consisted of 17 h of video recordings and field notes. The field notes contributed with contextual understanding, as the video recordings were analyzed. The video recordings were analyzed, by using the analytical concepts of speech events and communicative tools, in the following steps (Table 1):

Results

The results show how newly arrived children use and combine different communicative tools, such as speech, body language and materials, in individual ways, when they participate in interaction with their peers. Both girls used the few Swedish words they knew entwined with complex use of a combination of tools. Sara combined speech, body and materials as she shadowed her peers and code-switched when she talked to an adult. Maryam invented a language and used expressive body language. In general, the girls’ use of bodily expressions was more noticeable than their linguistic efforts. These combinations in the use of communicative tools are linguistic strategies adopted to enhance the learning of Swedish and to incite participation in interplay with peers (see Tannen 1989; Krupa-Kwiatkowski 1998; Björk-Willén 2007). The speech events, in which the newly arrived girls participated, are characterized by including a small number of participants, usually two or three. In the following sections, Sara’s shadowing and code-switching will be described and analyzed, followed up by Maryam’s invented language and expressive body language.

Use of shadowing in Barbie horse game

Sara followed her peers closely, watching their every move, while she repeated, and shadowed their bodily and verbal actions in any given situation in preschool. In the speech event described below, Sara and a boy called Jesper, are participating in and constructing a game with Barbie horses. The event is an example of how Sara uses shadowing to take part in and contribute to activity. The event is taking place within a frame of free activities when the children can choose for themselves whether they want to draw, build with bricks, and play with dolls, trains, etc. Other children in the group are playing and interacting in the same room but are not taking part in the Barbie-horse game. Sara has now been attending the preschool for approximately four to five months.

Sara fetches two Barbie horses and gives one to Jesper, who takes his horse and crawls to a corner of the room. He lies down on the floor with the horse by his side. He places the horse with the muzzle facing downwards on the floor. Sara follows him. She crawls after, holding her horse in her hand and placing the horse, in the same way as Jesper, with the muzzle facing down.

Excerpt 1:

Table

1		(13) ((Sara smiles and looks at Jesper who is lying on the floor. The girl lies down. The boy sits up. The girl sits up))
2	Jesper:	dom ↑äter mat¿ ((looking at the girl.)) they are ↑eating food¿
3	Sara:	han äte ma:t, ((looking at the boy then at the horses)) he eat foo:d
4	Jesper:	((Is lying down and looking at the horses))
5	Sara:	((Is lying down and looking at the horses))
6	Jesper:	blä: (.) inte hundmat, ((looking at the girl who is sitting up)) blä: (.) not dogfood,
7	Sara:	ä e hundmat blä: ((looking at the boy then the horses)) ä e dogfood blä:
8	Jesper:	nä de går inte äta. ((shaking his head looking at the girl, who looks back)) no you can’t eat it

The speech event shows how Sara and Jesper co-construct a play activity using speech, gestures, the horses and bodily positioning. Jesper uses verbal and bodily actions as he takes the initiative for a new action (Line 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8) in the game. Sara shadows Jesper’s actions (Line 4 and 5) and sentences (Line 2 and 3, 6 and 7). Sara uses shadowing as an active action. By shadowing Jesper, Sara contributes to the activity and through shadowing the game and the speech event continue. Without Sara’s shadowing response, the play would simply cease. Jesper keeps the initiative throughout the activity and together they create a communicative pattern of initiative-shadow-initiative-shadow (Line 2-3, 4-5, 6-7). By shadowing, Sara can reduce the information and their joint attention for the interaction. According to Tannen (1989), shadowing also contributes to limiting the conditions for participation. If Sara had added her own initiatives to the Barbie horse game, their play would most likely have been more advanced and would have placed higher demands on the participants’ use of Swedish. However, by shadowing Jesper, Sara makes it possible to participate in the event despite her limited command of Swedish.

As the participants display their communicative tools to each other, a chain of actions becomes visible and we can see how their actions are coordinated, making their future actions predictable (Goodwin 2013). You can say that Jesper is Sara’s more competent peer. Through Lave’s (1991) concept of newcomer and oldtimer, we can understand Sara and Jesper’s actions. Sara, who is a newcomer, learns from Jesper, who is more experienced in this community of practice. Jesper shows Sara how to express herself in Swedish, how to play and participate in their preschool’s sociocultural context.

Use of code-switching in sickness-play

Sara also switches between her first language, English, and the Swedish language, but only when an adult, a teacher, is close by and interacting with the play activity. She knows who to address in Swedish and who to address in English. She uses the Swedish words she knows and switches to English when she wants something specific. The teachers also switch between the two languages, when they want to direct Sara’s focus to something specific. In the following excerpt Sara, her friend Jenny and a teacher are involved in the play. Jenny is the one who leads the game, and the teacher is given the role of a person who is sick at first and after that as a person with a toothache visiting the dentist. The play is taking place in the largest room in the preschool, where children can play with cars, trains, dolls, and can draw and read books. Other children are playing in the same room but are not interacting in the same game. The teacher is lying down on the floor and the two girls are standing up facing their teacher.

Excerpt 2:

Table

	1	Sara:	du va sju:k nu you were si:ck now
	2	Jenny:	du haront du haront i tanden ((points at her own cheek)) you are hurting you are hurting in the tooth
	3	Teacher:	ja jo men (XXX) inte till tandläkarn då? ((looks at Jenny)) yes but (XXX) not to the dentist then?
	4	Sara:	˚du ont i [tanden˚ ((looks at Teacher)) you hurt in [tooth
	5	Jenny:	[jo tanläkaren jo mennä ((rocking her body sideways)) [yes the dentist but no
	6	Teacher:	vi säger dentist (1) tandläkare ((looks at Sara)) we say dentist (1) dentist
	7	Sara:	((looks at Teacher and nods))
	8	Jenny:	kan ja få hämta filt? [((backs away from Teacher)) can I get blanket?
	9	Sara:	[[((goes after Jenny, moves away from Teacher))
	10	Teacher:	javisst. Sure
	11	Jenny:	Okej då Okey then
	12-24		[Jenny searches for a blanket with support from the teacher while Sara is watching closely].
	25	Sara:	˚ja vill också banket,˚ (sic) ((looking at Teacher))(child language in English) I want blanket, too
	26	Teacher:	här ha ja min kudde Here I have my pillow
	27	Sara:	vade min kudde? Where my pillow?

In the pretend game the teacher is sick and is taken care of by the two doctors, Sara and Jenny. Then Jenny adds another topic: the teacher has toothache (line 2). The teacher problematizes Jenny’s initiative by asking a question ‘yes but (XXX) not to the dentist then?’ (line 3). In Swedish, the correct term for a dentist is tandläkare, tooth doctor, and this creates a dilemma for the participants. Sara repeats Jenny’s sentence ‘you hurt in tooth’ (line 4) and can be understood as Sara’s attempt to contribute to the play. In line 5 Jenny confirms in a somewhat doubtful way ‘yes the dentist but no’. Both of the girls’ verbal actions clarify the teacher’s following action when she explains the term dentist to Sara (line 6). By switching to English and repeating ‘tandläkare’ in English ‘vi säger dentist tandläkare’ (we say dentist dentist), the teacher explicitly states what the play is all about and she provides language support to Sara so that the little girl can participate on equal terms. A difference is made in the game depending on whether it is about seeing the doctor or seeing the dentist. By using code-switching the teacher contributes to reducing the significance of proficiency in the Swedish language. In line 8 Jenny asks for a blanket and the following 9–24 lines show how Jenny, with the support from her teacher, searches for a blanket, while Sara is watching closely. Then Sara makes an explicit request and code-switches to English to make sure she is being understood ‘ja vill också banket’ (I want also blanket) (line 25).

The participants coordinated actions are understood as entwined with the surrounding context (Goodwin 2000, 2013). It is evident how Sara’s active language of choice relates to the surrounding context, involving her teacher’s and her friend’s actions. Her request for a blanket, and language of choice, becomes meaningful in this particular context. Sara’s request for the blanket is visibly a response to an earlier request from Jenny and therefore, as Goodwin (2013) explains, possible to predict. Similarly, it is possible to interpret how the teacher’s code-switching relates to Sara. The participant’s perception of the knowledge the others possess affects how the coordination of actions is constructed (Goodwin 2013). Here, the teacher’s linguistic scaffolding is built on her idea of Sara’s knowledge of the Swedish language.

Use of invented language in a circle-time activity

Unlike Sara, who shadowed her peers, Maryam took more initiative on her own. Her emergent Swedish language did not stop her from playing and did not affect her ability to get what she wanted. Maryam used the Swedish words she knew, she used her expressive body language, the preschool materials and an invented language. The invented language had no substantial meaning with regard to the Swedish or the Persian languages, but the intonation was Swedish. Mariam invented language for all kinds of situations.

The following excerpt shows a sequence from a speech event for which Maryam has invented a language. It is time for play and the children are playing, drawing, building with blocks, playing with dolls, etc. Maryam pulls a chair up to a shelf. She climbs up on the chair and reaches for some small cans (see picture below). These are recycled cardboard potato crisp cans that the teachers have decorated with different colorful pieces of paper. Inside the cans are objects that symbolize different songs. For example, a spider symbolizes the song ‘Incy Wincy Spider’. These cans are frequently used when the children are sitting in a circle on the floor. Maryam takes some of the cans and places them on the floor next to where her friend Sofie is sitting and sits down beside her. The speech event is framed by the girls’ joint involvement in the circle-time activity:

Excerpt 3:

Table

	1	Maryam:	Sofie? [ (eningquen)?. Sofie? [ (eningquen)?
	2		[((moves her hand in a circle above the cans, photo 1, eyes are directed towards the cans))
	3
	4	Sofie:	[((eyes are directed towards the cans))
	5		(0.8) ((Sofie chooses an orange can and tries to open it))

The excerpt shows how Maryam uses an invented language in combination with verbal language (‘Sofie? Eningquen’, line 1), body language (moves her hand in a circle above the cans, line 2) and materials (the cans). Mariam is the one who takes initiative in this game. She is in charge of the cans and decides whose turn it is to open a can. She moves her hand with a sweeping gesture over the cans and asks Sofie to choose one. Despite the invented language, Sofie’s actions show that she knows what to do. She chooses a can and opens it and the event can proceed. Maryam’s use of a combination of communicative tools and Sofie’s experiences of circle time activities when cans have been used provide support so Sofie knows exactly what to do.

To understand Maryam’s use of communicative tools, one can refer to Goodwin’s (2000, 2003) thoughts on how participants’ active actions are enwoven with the contextual surrounding. Without the context, Maryam’s use of invented language would not make sense. In this context, however, and in line with the views of Krupa-Kwiatkowski (1998), we can understand Maryam’s use of invented language combined with the use of speech, cans and gestures, as a linguistic strategy to initiate play together with her peers, when she is new in the Swedish preschool context. The participants’ actions are also responses to previous actions and it is, therefore, possible to identify and describe them (Goodwin 2013). In this excerpt, Sofie’s visible action is connected to her understanding of Maryam’s actions and related to the kind of play they are engaged in. Her response to pick up a can shows how the participants have a common understanding of how the play is performed and what the role of each of the participants is.

Use of expressive language in play with building blocks

Maryam used an expressive form of language in order to participate actively in play together with her peers. She used the Swedish words she knew and was at the same time very precise in her gestures and exclamations such as: ‘Come!’ and ‘No!’. If she wanted to play with a friend, she tapped her friend on the shoulder or tugged at his or her arm. Maryam chose between the toys at hand and fetched the ones she wanted to play with.

The following excerpt illustrates Maryam’s use of expressive language when playing with her friend Sofie. They are sitting on a carpet and their joint focus is building with blocks. Other children are playing in the same room but are not participating in this activity. Maryam has just placed a building block to help make a slide.

Excerpt 4:

Table

7	Maryam:	TITTA= LOOK= ((looks at Sofie and holds a car high up on the slide))
8	Sofie:	=titta va häftigt =look, this is awesome ((looks at her own building))
9	Maryam:	NEJ TITT NO LOOK ((lets her car down the slide))
10		((Sofie picks up her car from the floor, stands up and moves over to Maryam’s car slide and sends her car down))
11	Maryam:	haha haha ((looks at Sofie))
12	Sofie:	((crawls after her car))
13	Maryam:	((takes her car and lets it go down the slide))
14	Maryam:	NEHEHEJ NOHOHO ((Lies down and reaches for the car))
15		(15) (15) ((Maryam continues sending her car down the slide. Sofie sits down and continues to build on her construction))
16	Maryam:	((reaches for a block on the floor and places it close to the construction))
17	Sofie:	((fetches a block on the shelf and places it next to Maryam’s block))
18	Sofie:	((removes the same block))
19	Maryam:	↑NEJ. ↑NO. ((claps her hand on the floor, on the same spot where Sofie placed a block earlier, photo 2)) ↑HÄR. ↑HERE.
20	Sofie:	((puts the block down again))
21	Maryam:	((takes the block and lays it straight))

The transcript shows how Maryam wants to get Sofie’s attention, she shouts out ‘LOOK=’ (line 7). Almost at the same time, Sofie wants the opposite, to get attention from Mariam when she says ‘=look this is awesome’ (line 8). But Maryam wants Sofie to focus on what she is doing: ‘NO LOOK’, she replies while sending her car down the slide (line 9). The play with the building blocks continues (line 10–18). Aside from some laughter (lines 11 and 14), their interaction is quiet. Suddenly, Maryam shouts ‘NO!’. She claps her hand on the floor, on the same spot where Sofie earlier placed a block and shouts: ‘HERE!’ (line 19, picture 1). In lines 20 and 21 Sofie replaces the block and Maryam sets the block straight. They continue playing together.

In this excerpt, Maryam combines vocal calls with gestures. Sofie is also using verbal and bodily communicative tools, however, with a slight difference. Maryam’s ways of using communicative tools is more expressive than Sofie’s. To understand Maryam’s use of communicative tools, it might be useful to refer to Goodwin’s (2013) understanding of human actions as a coordination of resources, which involves the participators’ understanding of the actions of others. By raising her voice and combining her exclamations with gestures, such as hand clapping and releasing a car down a slide, Maryam can communicate and contribute to the ongoing act of playing together with Sofie.

Discussion

The way that the newly arrived children communicate and interact with their peers in preschool, shortly after their arrival in Sweden, points to the need to build a more holistic preschool pedagogy. In accordance with Fillmore (1979) and Björk-Willén (2007), this study shows how children with a migrant background are in possession of communicative abilities and can use and combine a variety of communicative tools. These children’s active and creative forms of communication reside in their way of embracing the cultural communities of preschools. The communication, be it linguistic or para-linguistic, of newly arrived children should not be regarded as inadequate, but as active communicative acts allowing them to participate in the preschool practices. It also means that these children from that perspective are creative actors of the preschool's cultural community. Therefore, the result conforms to research which highlights children as agents (Boyd, Huss and Ottesjö 2017; Bergroth and Palviainen 2017). Additionally, in the interplay between the children, the seemingly natural empathic and permissive ways of the peers also become visible. The peers use semiotic signs (Goodwin 2000) and coordinate them as a response to earlier actions and to the situation (Goodwin 2013), which in turn shows the peers understanding of the actions and communication of the newly arrived girls. The peers contributions to the speech events indicate that they interpret what it is like not to know the language and how it can be to be a ‘newcomer’ (Lave 1991) in the Swedish preschool context and in the Swedish language. Through the sociocultural lens (Vygotsky 1978, 1986) it is possible to understand how the communicative tools used by Sara, Maryam and their peers are strongly linked to each other and created in specific contexts. This result indicates that questions regarding second language acquisition, both in the preschool’s pedagogical practice and in research, would benefit from a widened approach where the interplay between children and the driving force of friendship are accounted for when facilitating newly arrived children’s development and learning.

Similar to research on peer learning (Williams 2001), this study shows how children learn with each other. The result does not contradict studies that demonstrate the importance of adult participation (Cekaite and Evaldsson 2017). However, we have illustrated how a sensitive situation, when a child encounters a new cultural community, can be bridged by the natural communicating ways of children. For this, teachers need to be sensitive and open to children’s many different ways of communicating when they are new in the preschool’s cultural community. To focus more on children’s interactions would help teachers to understand, learn about and use children’s interplay in everyday learning situations.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deep gratitude to the editors of this special issue, Gunhild Alstad and Sandie Mourão for their professional guidance, valuable support and constructive recommendations on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ellinor Skaremyr

Ellinor Skaremyr has a Ph.D. in educational work and her research interest concerns minority languages, multilingualism, linguistic and cultural diversity, and interplay in early childhood education. Skaremyr works as a senior lecturer in Educational work at the University of Borås.

Appendix: Transcription key

Table

(2)	Numbers in single parentheses represent pauses in seconds
(.)	Micropause, i.e. pause shorter than (.5)
((·))	Participants non-verbal actions
↑	Indicates rising intonation
¿	Indicates rising terminal intonation
:	Prolongation of preceding sound
,	Indicates continued terminal intonation
svenska	Speech in Swedish
english	Speech in English in italics
CAPITOLS	Verbal shout outs
bold	Code-switching to English
˚ ˚	Whispering
=	Verbal overlapping
[	Simultaneous verbal and bodily actions