In my thesis, I examined the integration of children from multilingual environments into Slovenian public kindergartens, with an emphasis on the role of the preschool teacher. In the theoretical part, I presented multilingualism, the characteristics of children from multilingual environments, and the importance of language for a child's communication, social relationships, and holistic development. The empirical part was based on qualitative research. I collected the data through semi-structured interviews with ten preschool teachers from public kindergartens in Ljubljana who have experience working with children from multilingual environments, and analysed it using qualitative content analysis. I found that the participating teachers frequently encounter children from multilingual environments and that they have a predominantly positive attitude towards multilingualism, although they also experience it as a challenge. In integrating these children, they rely mainly on visual supports, play, and peers, and they support language development through everyday activities while encouraging Slovenian and maintaining the mother tongue. They cooperate regularly with parents and adapt their communication to the parents' language abilities. The greatest challenges they reported were communicating despite the language barrier and a lack of systemic support, while the key factors for successful integration were openness, acceptance, a safe environment, and peers. The findings apply to the participating teachers and cannot be generalised to all Slovenian kindergartens, but they offer insight into the practice of integrating multilingual children and a basis for reflection on the support that teachers need.
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