Learning and maintaining languages in the workplace : migrant NGO practitioners in Finland

This is an electronic reprint of the original article. This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Please cite the original version: All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. Learning and maintaining languages in the workplace : migrant NGO practitioners in Finland Sahradyan, Sonya Sahradyan, S. (2017). Learning and maintaining languages in the workplace : migrant NGO practitioners in Finland. In J.-C. Beacco, H.-J. Krumm, D. Little, & P. Thalgott (Eds.), The Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants / L’intégration linguistique des migrants adultes : Some lessons from research / Les enseignements de la recherche (pp. 329-334). Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110477498-045 2017 SonyaSahradyan Learning and maintaining languages in the workplace: migrant NGO practitioners in Finland Abstract: This article reports on alinguistic ethnographic studyexploring migrant NGO practitioners’languagelearning and maintenance at work. The findingssuggest thatthe migrantslearnt not onlythe languageofthe receiving society,inthis case Finnish, but also English as an additional languagethrough work. The narratives also show that the workplace supported migrantsinmaintaining boththeir homelanguageand additional languages. Overall, the study highlights the importance of languagelearning and maintenance, which promote the linguistic integration and social inclusion of migrant NGO practitioners in the workplace. Résumé : L’article rend compted’une étudeethnographique sur l’apprentissage et la consolidation de la langue des praticiens qui travaillent dans des ONG de migrants. Elle conclut que les migrants ont appris non seulement la langue du pays d’accueil –danscecas, le finnois –mais aussi l’anglais comme langue supplémentaire, par le biais du travail. Lesauteurs montrent également que le travail aide les migrantsàconsolider la fois leur langue maternelle et des langues étrangères.Defaçon générale, l’étude souligne l’importance de l’apprentissage et de la consolidation de la langue pour favoriser l’intégration linguistique et sociale des praticiens migrants dansles ONG sur le lieu de travail. 1Introduction In Finland, languagehas increasinglybecome apolicy priority,and linguistic research has recentlyfocused on various migrant groups workingindifferent sectors.The Finnish integration policy supports migrants in learning nationallanguages, Finnish and Swedish, and in maintaining theirmother tongue, regardlessoftheir legal status (Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration 1386/2010). In addition, scientificstudies have revealed that migrants have an opportunity to develop their Finnish languageskills in the workplace (e.g. SonyaSahradyan,Centre forAppliedLanguageStudies, UniversityofJyväskylä, Finland, E-mail:sonya.s.sahrady[email protected] DOI 10.1515/9783110477498-045, ©2017 Sonya Sahradyan, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs3.0 License. Brought to you by | Jyväskylän Yliopisto University Authenticated Download Date | 3/29/17 6:37 AM Suni 2010;Tarnanen, Rynkänen, and Pöyhönen 2015).Several studies have also indicatedthat the workplace enables migrants to maintain theirhomelanguage within the Finnish context (e.g. Rynkänen et al. 2014). Even though language learning and maintenancehavebeen studied among migrants workinginthe Finnish public and privatesectors, relativelylittle research has been conducted on migrantsworkinginthe third sector,namelyanon-governmental organization (NGO), or their languagelearning and maintenanceatwork. This article, therefore, attemptstofill the above-mentionedgap by providing answers to the following question: “How do migrant NGO practitionerslearn and maintain languages in the workplace?”The linguistic ethnographic studypresented in this paper is conducted in asuperdiverse NGO basedinFinland. The key participants in the studyare migrant NGO practitioners, that is, employees, apprentices, trainees, interns,and volunteers. 2Asociocultural approach In my research, Idrawupon the sociocultural perspective on languagelearning. From this perspective,languageissituated in acontext co-created in social interaction and is learned from others within this interaction (Vygotsky 1978). In addition,Ibuild on workplace learning research, which emphasises thatlearning is aproduct of involvement in social practices,for example, happening in workplaces (Billett2002).The studyconducted by Billettalso highlights that learning is formed by “workplace participatory practices”and can be “co-participative” (2002: 1). Moreover,Malloch and her colleagues shedlight on the fact that learning and performance are “embodied phenomena”(Mallochetal. 2011:24). By combiningthese two strands of research, Iconsider languagelearning to be situated in different settingsand to take place through social interaction and participationatwork (seeTarnanen, Rynkänen, and Pöyhönen 2015), which concerns languagemaintenanceinthe workplace as well(see Rynkänen, Sahradyan, and Tarnanen2014). 3Informants,data, and methods The studyfocuses on migrant NGO practitioners (n =22) who werefirst-generation adultmigrants. They wereworkingaspart-orfull-time employees, apprentices,trainees, interns,orvolunteers in the superdiverse organisation located in Jyväskylä,Finland. The informants had various culturaland socio-economic backgrounds,and they all spoke more than two languages. At the time of the 330 Sonya Sahradyan Brought to you by | Jyväskylän Yliopisto University Authenticated Download Date | 3/29/17 6:37 AM interviews,the informants werebetween 23 and 61 years old, and they had resided in Finland for between three and 29 years. The level of education the informants had receivedbefore moving to Finland ranged from primary to university, whereas their level of education obtained in Finland ranged from integration training to university education. Within the framework of linguistic ethnography, Icollected different types of data through multi-siteethnographic fieldwork for aone-year period in the NGO. In addition, Iconducted interviews with the informants. In this paper,onlythe interview and observational data are reported. Narrative analysis is applied to the multilingual data accumulatedinfour different languages: Finnish, English, Russian, and Armenian. 4Languagelearning and maintenanceinthe workplace All the migrants participatinginthis studyweremultilingual, and they had different proficiencylevels in different languages. In the case of Finnish, the informants’proficiencylevels ranged from basic to advanced, and they learnt Finnish both within and outside formal educational settings. Based on the data analysis,the NGO as aworkplace provided the informants with opportunities to develop their Finnish languageskills. In theirnarratives, the informants repeatedlytalked about Finnish languagelearning at work, which is illustrated in the following quote: “Iwas learning Finnish every single dayfrom colleagues and visitors,from job-related activities, tasks and paperwork”(Hudi, trainee). Like Hudi, most of the other informants also recognised the importance of the workplace for learning Finnish. However,whether they could improvetheir written or oral skills or bothinFinnish dependedontheir type of employment. In general, the informants learnt Finnish by participating in various activities and events organised in the workplace. One of them is ABC-Basic Finnish languagelearning,provided to migrant learners, especiallytonewlyarrived, elderly, and illiterate migrants as well as to stay-at-homemothers. The informants wereinvolvedinthis activity as mediators and had an opportunitytoenhance their Finnish skills while helping with the interpretation or elaboration of what is said by migrant learners and Finnish volunteers actingasteachers. The homework club is another important activity in which the informants’Finnish languagelearning took place during the completion of youngmigrants’ homework for different school subjects. However,duringculturalevenings, the informantsdevelopednot onlyFinnish but also English skills by presenting Learning and maintaining languages in the workplace 331 Brought to you by | Jyväskylän Yliopisto University Authenticated Download Date | 3/29/17 6:37 AM and discussingthe history,culture, language, and religion of their homecountries. Similarly, ethno-cafés supported the informants in learning both Finnish and English while cooking traditional food together with Finns and migrants from different parts of the world. Almost all the informantsalsofound staff meetings very useful for developing their languageskills in Finnish, and some informantsmentioned thatthe meetingscould help them to overcome challenges related to understanding and communicatinginspoken Finnish. One of the informantssaid: “We usually had staff meetingsevery week in order to plan and organise activities with colleagues …It was good to be there, ’cause Ihad difficulties in suomen puhekieli [spoken Finnish], but in meetingsIcould learn puhekieli [spoken language] and even could use it outside of work”(Sara, intern). Such anarrative is common in the stories of migrantsand, in particular,interns’and trainees’stories.Additionally,another informant gave the following description: “Meetingsthat we had with authorities wereonlyinFinnish, but meetingswith partnerprojects or organisations weresometimes in Finnish and sometimes in English or both in Finnish and English …In thosemeetings Ipractised Finnish as well as English”(Fabian, employee).Asseen from the last two excerpts,the meetings with insiders supported the informants in improvingmainlyFinnish skills, whereas the meetings with outsiders enabled them to enhance both Finnish and English skills. In addition to languagelearning,the workplace considerably influenced the maintenanceofinformants’languages, especiallytheir home language. Forexample,itisillustratedinBela’snarrative: “At work Iuse also my mothertongue, Russian …At the beginning of my work, it was abit difficult to remember русские слова [‘Russianwords’]asafter moving to Finland IusedEnglish and then Finnish дома или сдрузьями [‘at homeorwith friends’]…Ithink Iwas graduallylosing my mother tongue before getting this job”(Bela, employee). Apart from the informants’stories,myobservational field notes reveal that the workplace also supported informantsinmaintaining their additional languages. One of the participant’sobservational field notes are presented here: One afternoon we were discussingdifferent countries’holidays in our Russian discussion group. The groupleader, Лаура [‘Laura’], was Russian and we, the participants,were both Finns and migrants.Laura was helpingustouse acorrect քերականական խոնարհում [‘grammatical conjugation’(Armenian)] and was givingashort explanation in Russian and/or Finnish. Duringthe conversation, Klarawho had amigrant background askedLaura to explain in English as well, if possible,because, she told, that she had only basic level in Finnish. Laurasmiled and replied “Well, it’sbetter for me to sayalso in English, Ican refresh my English and can keep it alive”(Laura, volunteer). 332 Sonya Sahradyan Brought to you by | Jyväskylän Yliopisto University Authenticated Download Date | 3/29/17 6:37 AM 5Conclusions In this article, Ihaveaddressed one main question related to the languagelearning and maintenance of migrant NGO practitioners in the workplace. The analysis reported abovesuggests that the workplace supported the informants in developing additional languages, such as Finnish, the languageofthe host society, and English. Also, it was found that the informants had an opportunity to preservetheir home and additional languages with the help of theirwork. Furthermore, the narratives show that languagelearning (seealsoTarnanen,Rynkänen, and Pöyhönen 2015) as well as languagemaintenance(seealso Rynkänen, Sahradyan, and Tarnanen2014) are situated, and they takeplace through social interaction and participation in different workplace settings. The studythus illustratesthatlanguagelearning and maintenance fosterthe informants’linguistic integration and social inclusion at work. In the light of these findings, the paper givesnew insights into migrants’workplace languagelearning and their languagemaintenance through work. Acknowledgements The studyispartofbiggerresearchprojects “Transforming Professional Integration”(principal investigator,Professor Sari Pöyhönen)(2011−2014 /http://in tegration.jyu.fi)and “Language andSuperdiversity: (Dis)identificationinSocial Media”(principal investigator ProfessorSirpa Leppänen)(2012–2016;https:// www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/kielet/tutkimus/hankkeet/lgsd),fundedbythe AcademyofFinland andimplemented at theUniversityofJyväskylä. Thepaper draws on theempirical data collectedbythe author forher doctoral dissertation,which is funded by the Kone Foundation and the Centre for Applied LanguageStudies, University of Jyväskylä. References Billett, Stephen. 2002. Workplacepedagogic practices:Participation and learning. Australian Vocational Education Review 9(1). 28–38. Integration Act. 2010. Act on the Promotion of ImmigrantIntegration 1386/2010. Ministry of Interior,Finland. Unofficial translation. Malloch, Margaret,Len Cairns, Karen Evans&Bridget N. O’Connor (eds.). 2011. 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