Niina
Kekki
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Biography
Currently, I work as a university teacher at the Center for Language and Communication Studies. Additionally, I am a doctoral researcher in the Utuling doctoral program in the school of languages and translation studies.
I have worked as a university teacher of linguistically and culturally responsive teaching (LCR) at the Department of Education and as a project researcher in the project "Tuntemattomalla päähän?" (2020-2024). The project focused on the use of literature to support language learning of adult immigrants.
Previously, I have also worked as a Finnish language teacher in several adult education institutes in the Turku region, and as a visiting teaching assistant at the university of Tartu, Estonia.
Teaching
I teach Finnish for international students and staff.
Previously as a a teacher of LCR, I was teaching multiple courses for pre- and in-service teachers regarding Finnish as a second language and literature, language-awareness, multilingual pedagogy, teaching Finnish in preparatory education and linguistically and culturally responsive teaching.
Research
In my on-going doctoral research, I use corpus linguistic methods to examine the effect of first language on the use of synonymous expressions in Finnish, such as the close synonymous adjectives tärkeä/keskeinen ('important') and suuri/iso ('big').
In addition, I have conducted research on linguistically and culturally responsive teaching and the use of fiction and the reading circle method in teaching Finnish to adult immigrants.