Työssä opittua : työntekijän näkökulma ammatilliseen kieli- ja viestintätaitoonsa

Work-related language skills are usually investigated in the context of language education. In this paper, observations made by employees are in focus instead. The aim is to examine how labour migrants working in Finland and learning Finnish as their second language perceive the role of scaffolding received from others during workplace interactions. Two interviews are analyzed; one of the participants works in the fi eld of art education, the other is a medical doctor. The theoretical framework combines dialogical (Bakhtin 1986; Dufva & Alanen 2005) and socio-cultural (Lantolf & Thorne 2006) approaches to language learning. The results show that falling back on other languages or repetitions is a key means in generating interactional scaffolding at work, and not only fellow workers but also clients may act as significant scaffolding agents. Workplaces are observed to be dynamic and heteroglossic learning environments where linguistic processing is tightly intertwined with participation in activities.