Teaching English as a Second Language in the Early Years: Teachers’ Perspectives and Practices in Finland

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper looks at early L2 English language education in Finland. The authors seek to answer two questions; namely 1) the teachers’ planning and teaching practices, the assessment methods they use as well as 2) their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges in their early L2 classrooms. The data were collected during the testing stage of the early L2 education reform through an online open/closed-ended questionnaire. Overall, the paper is well-organised and contributes to the field which has not been extensively studied. Therefore, I suggest acceptance and publication of the paper with minor revisions. Nevertheless, the paper needs to be (professionally) proofread as it would greatly from it (i.e., there are long sentences which include lots of information and it is not always clear straight away to what they refer -especially when gerunds are used. Punctuation needs to be checked.). Other points to be taken into account:

et al à et al. (check throughout the text)

p.2 “The implementation of educational programs is not straightforward” à not connected to the previous sentence

p.3 “When L2 education was compulsory in the first grade…Pietarila, 2021).” à L2 became compulsory in 2020, right? The sentence “When L2 education was compulsory in the first grade” refers to? Please clarify.

number of questions the questionnaire included

table 2: no . in the title (at the end). The same with Figure 2, table 5, table 6

in section 4.1, excerpts are in italics as part of the text. In the following section, they appear separately. Change the part in section 4.1

When the findings are discussed use % and N throughout the text (in some cases N, in other % in other number of teachers).

Tables 3 and 5 should have the same format as other tables (i.e., %, columns alignment)

Figure 2 -there is no figure 1. Please make the appropriate change (which might affect the numbering of the following tables and reference to them in the text)

Table 4. is not bold

p.9: “For the lesson time….the week.” How does this relate to assessment which is discussed in section 4.3?

section 4.4: what is the open-ended question?

p11: “In relation to …write.” Different font is used. Please adjust it.

Bibliography: Changes are necessary. Comply to the guidelines. Pay attention to , before & / include place of publication/volume-number-pp / order of initials/surnames, etc

Bovellan is missing from text.

Brumen is missing from text

Leontijev no i in the name in the text

Kumpulainen, K., & Lankinen, T. (2012) or 2019 as in text?

Lantolf or Lantofl as in text?

Nikolov, M., & Mihaljević Djigunović, J. (2011). only Djigunović in text

Pinter, A. (2017). Teaching double entry

Penfield, W. and Roberts, L & instead

Purola, K., Kuusisto, A. & Awan, R. (Reviewing editor). editors?

See above

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations on a well written, easy to read paper. You have explained the context for L2 teachers in Finland very well. I had some very minor comments throughout, most were related to formatting for the tables or APA referencing style issues for the paper itself. You will see these in the attached PDF. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

There was just a very minor couple of small issues with English language and I have noted these as highlighted comments in the attached PDF. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your precious comments and supportive feedback to develop the manuscript. The sections that you mentioned in your pdf review have now been corrected. The revisions can be seen as highlighted blue in the text.

Sincerely,