New bilingualism in Estonia: language adaptation of Ukrainian refugee children

The aim of the project is to establish an inter-institutional research group to conduct a small-scale study to examine and compare the Estonian language skills of Ukrainian refugee children in schools and children with other first languages who learn Estonian as a second language. The proposed study will use a picture description test to map students' language skills, a questionnaire for parents to identify socio-economic factors, and classroom observations to identify the organisation of language learning in the school. The three types of data allow us to find links between pupils' linguistic adjustment, socio-economic factors and school language learning patterns. The project will result in a joint working group between the two institutes, based at the Centre for the Estonian Language, which will have carried out the study, published its results and prepared at least two project proposals for external funding.