Toimijuutta toisella kielellä : kansainvälisten sairaanhoitajaopiskelijoiden ammatillinen suomen kielen taito ja sen kehittyminen työharjoitteluissa

This dissertation focuses on the development of the agency and professional Finnish language skills of international nursing students studying in an English-medium degree program in Finland. The study draws on sociocognitive and ecological perspectives to examine the social nature of language and its use. This ethnographic theoretical-methodological orientation helps to analyze both subjectively experienced and collectively emergent factors. This longitudinal, multidisciplinary, and multimethodological study examines how the professional language skills and agency of international nursing students develop during their practical training. More specifically, the focus is on the situated and experienced development. The focus is also on the interrelation of the key concepts: agency, professional language skills, positions and the resources of the environment. Relevant pedagogical issues are also discussed. The findings of the four substudies are reported in four research articles. The data of my substudies consist of media texts, as well as interviews with international nursing students, teachers, and hospital staff. Interaction data between the student and the mentors are also included. The data are analyzed using dialogical analysis of beliefs, narrative analysis, nexus analysis, and dialogical interaction analysis. The findings show that professional language skills are embodied, distributed, and stratified in time and space. Professional language skills are situational skills to perceive and use the affordances of the work environment. The development of professional language skills is seen as an expansion of the operational environment. However, weak labor market positions as well as positioning in interaction affect the students’ opportunities to exercise agency and promote professional Finnish language skills. Therefore, positions are closely linked to the development of agency and professional language skills. In order to support students’ second language agency, flexible study plans and guidance practices should be established. The study is a part of the project Finnish as a work language: a sociocognitive perspective to work-related language skills of immigrants (University of Jyväskylä).