Kieli tulee kielen päälle: kansainvälisten opiskelijoiden käsityksiä suomen kielen oppimisesta

Authors

• Maiju Partanen Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.70484/vakki.149128

Keywords:

dialogisuus, oppijan käsitykset, suomi toisena kielenä, kielenoppiminen

Abstract

The amount of international students is increasing in Finland. It is, however, often challenging for them to get a job in their field of education due to the lack of Finnish language skills. This paper focuses on the beliefs of African nursing students. Eight interviews are analysed to show how the students see the role of Finnish language and the challenges in learning it. Theoretically the study draws on the sociocognitive framework that combines dialogical (Bakhtin 1986) and socio-cultural (Lantolf & Thorne 2006) approaches to language learning. The dialogical analysis of learner beliefs (Aro 2009) regards both language and beliefs as dynamic and heteroglossic. The shared belief of the students is that the interactional support received from speakers of Finnish would develop their language learning the most. Nevertheless, it is challenging to find Finnish language communities or environments which would provide opportunities for using and learning the Finnish language.