Abstract
This article focuses on international students studying in an English-mediated nursing degree program in Finland. From sociocognitive and ecological perspectives, this study examines the development of the students’ professional Finnish language skills and agency during their practical training. In addition, this article explores how students are positioned as capable workers. To shed light on the students’ professional language skills, agency, and positionings, interviews with vocational teachers, head nurses, and two international nursing students are examined using narrative analysis. The findings suggest that due to their lack of Finnish language skills, international students are positioned differently than their local peers. Hence, they are given fewer responsibilities and fewer opportunities to perform work tasks independently. Although international students are expected to know the language needed before they start work as a nurse, neither the educational institution nor workplaces are willing to take responsibility for language skills training. Therefore, language learning seems to be students’ own responsibility. Consequently, international students may be set in unequal positions regarding their access to the labor market in Finland. Nonetheless, during their practical training, the students are positioned as active agents and scaffolded in many ways so that they can potentially exercise their agency and promote their professional language skills more independently. In this study, it was found that positionings are interconnected with the development of agency and professional Finnish language skills.
Highlights
In Finland, as in other Western countries with aging populations, the demand for nurses in the health care sector is growing
4.1 Positionings made by teachers and head nurses
Patient safety seems to be the biggest concern when it comes to recruiting international workforce: ettei tuu vahinkoja [so that no accidents happen]. It seems that the workplace is not considered to be a place for learning, as Päivi states later in the interview: kyllä mä siinä odotan kuitenkin niinku että se ei jäis työelämään se kielen opetteleminen [I do expect that language learning is not left for working life]
Summary
In Finland, as in other Western countries with aging populations, the demand for nurses in the health care sector is growing. This study examines how the students’ professional language skills and their agency develop during their practical training. It considers how they are positioned as capable workers (by others). Previous studies on culturally and linguistically diverse nursing students’ experiences on practical training have shown that limited language skills can be seen as obstacles for students trying to gain access to learning opportunities in clinical settings (see Crawford & Candlin, 2013; Mikkonen et al, 2016). This study investigates professional language skills and agency from a new point of departure by bringing in both the subjective viewpoints of language learners and the way they are positioned by others
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