Continuously developing and learning while teaching second language students. Four storied narratives of accomplished VET teachers

ABSTRACT

This article builds on studies that analyze how accomplished teachers in VET in Sweden undertake educational challenges and develop their teaching and support of second language learners. Two overarching research questions informed the study: How are educational challenges described by the teachers and what pedagogy and methods are they developing in their teaching practice, in order to face the described challenges? What enabling and constraining conditions for continuing professional learning can be identified? The results from four in-depth interviews with teachers make up the empirical body and provide a rich picture of how accomplished VET teachers are involved in continuous learning while developing their teaching practice. The final part is a comprehensive analysis, where the results are discussed with concepts from the theory of practice architectures.

KEYWORDS:

• VET teachers
• site-based learning
• knowledge-of-practice
• storied narrative
• practice architectures

Introduction

This article builds on studies that identify and analyze how teachers in vocational education and training (VET) in Sweden undertake educational challenges and develop their teaching and support of second language learners. Since the 1980s, the number of immigrants in Sweden has risen continuously, but 2015 marked a record with 160 000 refugees seeking asylum. Seventy thousand of these were under 18 years old. The latest statistics from the National Board of Education show that in 2017, 32% of the students in upper secondary school count as students with a foreign background (Skolverket, 2018, p. 81).¹ Many of the newly arrived are young people in their late teens and continue in adult education after their years in upper secondary school.

In the political arena in Sweden, and across political parties, VET has increasingly become regarded as a rapid path for immigrants and refugees to employment and integration. Similarly, vocational education and training are often regarded as a ‘practical’ educational path, suitable for learners with low educational backgrounds.

Findings from two fieldwork studies on teaching and learning of second language students in VET provide the background for this article. The first study was conducted in four upper secondary VET school sites in 2016, the second in five VET adult education centers in 2018. In these two studies, very different conditions for student learning and participation were identified (Henning Loeb, 2019; Henning Loeb et al., 2018) and the teachers expressed the challenges of teaching second language learners. Some gave examples of how these challenges were tackled and described how they reflected on their current practice and tried out new pedagogic strategies, and how they collaborated with VET colleagues and second language learning teachers. Some were involved in continuing professional development (CPD) programs arranged by the school or facilitated by the National Agency for Education.

In order to generate a deeper understanding of the ongoing site-based pedagogical work and learning processes that VET teachers are involved in, as they seek ways to improve the educational possibilities for second language learners, a follow-up study with in-depth interviews was conducted during 2018–2019. Two overarching research questions informed this study, and the results and analysis presented in this article: How are educational challenges described by the teachers and what pedagogy and methods are they developing in their teaching practice, in order to face the described challenges? What enabling and constraining conditions for continuing professional learning can be identified? The results from four in-depth interviews with accomplished teachers make up the empirical body for this article. These are organized as four storied narratives.

The term ‘accomplished teachers’ is borrowed from Shulman and Shulman who provide the following definition: ‘An accomplished teacher is a member of a professional community who is ready, willing, and able to teach and to learn from his or her teaching experience’ (Shulman & Shulman, 2004, p. 254). The research interest of investigating how accomplished VET teachers undertake the pedagogical challenges presented above and how they describe their site-based learning as they develop their teaching practice is motivated by the signature role played by teachers for student learning and achievement. This signature role is unanimously agreed upon in international research. For instance, comparative research evidence from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) affirms that ‘teacher quality’ is the single most important school variable influencing student achievement (OECD, 2006; cf. also Schleicher, 2018).

The quality of VET and its relation to quality teaching and professional development of its teachers has been examined and discussed by a range of researcher (e.g. Goodson, 2008; Harris, 2015; Smith & Yasukawa, 2017; Wheelahan & Moodie, 2011). The specific nature of vocational knowledge and the specific demands of VET teaching are pointed out, as well as the close relation between VET and the surrounding community in the world of work. Grollmann (2008) shows how VET in different countries is part of quite different institutional environments and VET policy environments. Also, pedagogical practices of VET teaching within nations are dependent on the ‘ecologies of practice’ of the industries and trades (Smith & Yasukawa, 2017). However, across the nations, the need for professional development in VET and the need to support VET teachers to develop their distinctive pedagogical knowledge are articulated, which can be summarized in the words of Harris (2015) when he writes ‘the quality of the VET system is only as good as its teachers and trainers’ (p. 30).

The complexity of learning the language of a vocation has been highlighted by VET researchers like Billett in Australia (e.g. Billett, 2011) or Sandwall in Sweden (Sandwall, 2013). Sandwall’s ethnographic study of adult second language students’ learning and interaction at their work placements in Swedish adult education, showed how the students had very limited opportunities to participate in interaction and language learning. Her research also explicated that when the students later in second language learning class were supposed to communicate about their work tasks and chores, this learning opportunity was constrained by the teachers’ limited knowledge about authentic language use and about conditions at work placements.

The important role of language in learning and the interrelationship between content and language have been pointed out by researchers in learning and literacy (e.g. Bloome, 2005; Cummins, 2003; Gibbons, 2006) for a number of years. This research has mainly focused on learning in general or academic subjects. However, a strand of research has focused on situated literacy and literacy events when learning in VET classes, workshops and workplace learning. Ivanic and colleagues (Ivanič et al., 2009), Black & Yasukawa (2012) and Paul (2016), and also Sandwall (2013) referred to above, give examples and discuss shortcomings for second language students in VET practices, but also illuminate how second language learning and vocational education can be integrated, and show models of VET teachers and second language teachers collaborating, as a vocational pedagogy. Yet, there is a gap in VET research focusing specifically on how VET teachers undertake their teaching of second language learners. The studies of accomplished VET teachers presented in this article address this issue and provides a rich picture through the use of four storied narratives.

Knowledge-of-practice, praxis and practice architectures

The concept ‘knowledge-of-practice’ has been critical while investigating how accomplished VET teachers develop their teaching for supporting second language learners. It was introduced by Cochran-Smith and Lytle in their overview of teacher learning (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). They distinguish three conceptualisations of knowledge in research into teacher learning: ‘knowledge-for-practice’, which involves building of formal knowledge, ‘knowledge-in-practice’, involving building of practical knowledge and ‘knowledge-of-practice’, which is connected to the tradition of critical pedagogy and John Dewey’s philosophy of educational inquiry. The conception of knowledge-of-practice,

is that teachers across the professional life span play a central and critical role in generating knowledge of practice by making their classrooms and schools sites for inquiry, connecting their work in schools to larger issues, and taking a critical perspective on the theory and research of others. (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 273)

The concept ‘teaching as praxis’ is closely connected to knowledge-of-practice, which Cochran-Smith and Lytle formulate as: ‘ … the idea that teaching involves a dialectical relationship between critical theorizing and action’ (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 291). Teaching as praxis presupposes agency and action, and views educational practice and practitioners ‘as makers and transformers of history, through individual and collective action’ (Kemmis et al., 2017, p. 250).

The theory of practice architectures and concepts from this theory have been used as an analytical resource for the results of this study. Drawing on this theory, any site of VET practice is prefigured and shaped by unique sets of practice architectures, composed of cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements present in or brought to the site (cf. Mahon et al., 2017). Inherently, VET practices are prefigured by the traditions and current practices of specific vocations and are also prefigured by national cultural-discursive regulations such as curriculum, syllabuses, qualification frameworks and assessment guidelines. It is important to point out that Sweden has a national curriculum for all forms of education in upper secondary school with three-year programs, including VET programs. The curriculum for these programs, including subject syllabi, is set by the Swedish National Agency for Education. VET in adult education is regulated in a similar way, however with shorter programs. The arrangements in Sweden can be compared with those of Australia, for example, where competency-based training models with training packages are the basis for VET.

VET in Sweden is publically funded but delegated to the municipalities and independent schools. The independent schools are allowed to make a profit and the municipalities have considerable power to make priorities, and there are large differences between municipalities with regard to educational costs. Thus, local material-economic arrangements such as allocation and provision enable and constrain VET practices and what it is possible to do in practice (e.g. buildings, schedules, equipment, salary, workload, etc.). Social-political arrangements enable and constrain particular kinds of relationships such as those among VET administrators and teachers, among teachers in VET schools, among teachers in schools and supervisors in workplaces, and between teachers and VET students. In regards to social-political arrangements, it is noteworthy to keep in mind that as the curriculum in Sweden is based on governance by objectives (cf. Lundahl, 2005) and not on detailed prescription, the enacted curriculum and local development in VET sites may be enabled, but also constrained, by collegial relations and possibilities of collaboration.

Crucial for the theory of practice architectures is the site-based aspect of practices and how sayings, doings, and relatings in a local practice are bundled together (cf. Mahon et al., 2017). Together with the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements that prefigure a site, sayings, doings and relatings shape what can be done. With this in mind, the results presented here also give insights into transformations in VET practices.

VET in Sweden

Upper secondary school begins at the age of 16. In Sweden VET has been integrated into upper secondary school since the 1970s, and since the early 1990s both vocational and academic upper secondary education have been organized as three-year programs. There are 12 VET programs, which can be attended as a school-based VET with 15 weeks of workplace learning, or as an apprenticeship alternative, where at least 50% of the three-year program is workplace learning.

There are eligibility requirements to both the vocational and academic programs. For students who do not match the eligibility requirements, there are so-called ‘introductory programs’. However, in VET, students from introductory programs can also participate in the regular programs in different ways. In 2016, 32% of students in upper secondary schools attended a VET program as a regular student or an introductory program student. During the last decade, an increasing number of vocational packages have been arranged in adult education. Targeted VET programs together with Swedish for adult immigrants are provided in all regions. Often these VET students in adult education have begun their education in Sweden with an introductory program in upper secondary school. Adult education is often organized around tendering based procurement in the municipalities or regions (cf. Fejes et al., 2016).

The current Swedish VET teacher education program was launched in 2011 and consists of 90 ECTS credits, which is equivalent to 1.5 years of full-time studies. Most VET teacher education programs are conducted as part-time studies. There are two requirements for admission: (1) a general university entrance requirement based on completed high-school studies, (2) specific competency-based requirements for vocational knowledge and skills in subjects matching the upper secondary vocational subjects in different areas. The percentage of qualified VET teachers has remained the same for the last ten years, and in 2017 only 62% of Swedish VET teachers had a teaching qualification. (SOU 2017:51, 2017, p. 236).

Research method and structure of the article

The teachers in the interviews were found by the help of a Facebook group call for VET teachers who were developing their VET pedagogy and practice with second language learners in mind. Additionally, emails were written to groups of VET teachers. Ten teachers replied. This article builds on in-depth interviews with four teachers, teaching in different VET programs, in different regions and in upper secondary school as well as adult education.

Life history studies as developed and outlined by Goodson (e.g. Goodson, 2008) have influenced the study. In life history studies it is important that the participants are provided a genuine possibility to tell about their stories of action over time and be part of the co-construction of what Goodson calls ‘a history of context’. The initial interviews lasted between 2 and 3 hours. The teachers were asked to tell about their path to their vocation, their trajectory to teaching and to the educational site where they currently teach. The research questions were presented. The method of life history and the interest of producing data into storied narratives were also explained. Teaching materials that the teachers provided, planning documents, photos and films were part of the data collection. After the first set of interviews, additional interviewing was carried out via phone or Skype. The teachers read relevant parts that had been transcribed and had possibilities of commenting.

Life history studies provide rich data material. All parts of the interviews were not transcribed, e.g. when the teachers gave information that was personal. The organizing of the research material was done in alignment with the research questions, i.e.: How are educational challenges described by the teachers and what pedagogy and methods are they developing in their teaching practice, in order to face the described challenges? What enabling and constraining conditions for continuing professional learning can be identified?

The configuration of these storied narratives has been informed by Polkinghorne’s writings on narrative analysis (Polkinghorne, 1995). Hereby, influences and conditions that have shaped (and shape) the sayings, doings and relatings of the teachers, and the arrangements that prefigure the practice of a site could be foregrounded. The teachers have read their respective storied narrative and given consent to the final version, written in English.

Four storied narratives

The results of this research are presented below as storied narratives. Following are the narratives of VET teachers Agneta, Benny, Cecelia and Diana.

Agneta – learning of and from her students

At the age of 12, when Agneta went with her mother on a charter trip, she decided that she was going to work with hotel management. At upper secondary school, she studied mainly languages. After upper secondary school, she worked in many different areas within hotel management, event planning and marketing, logistics, project management, and conference coordinating for 20 years. In the end, Agneta felt that the working hours were getting more and more tiresome to handle. It was her daughter who talked her into applying to VET teacher education, arguing that she was ‘very good with young people’.

Agneta arranged for a meeting with the head teacher of the hotel and tourism program in one of the bigger schools in the area, to get an idea of what teaching implied. This teacher encouraged her. As she started her part-time studies at the VET teacher education program, she was also offered a job as a teaching assistant at that school for a girl with autism. During that year, she also started filling in for teachers who were on sick-leave.

Agneta’s story about her site-based learning starts with the girl she was assisting. ‘I told her the day she took her exam that there is no single person that I have learnt so much from’. Agneta had to change her way of thinking in many different ways, which she says she has benefited from in all kinds of later teaching situations. She learned how she needed to be clear, and that she constantly had to reconsider how she could explain things in a different way. She also learnt from other teachers as she was assisting the young girl.

… especially a math teacher. She never gave up. She was strict, and the students had to behave. But she never gave up on trying to find a way to help the students learn their math. She would go out to the restaurant kitchen, find the equipment that she needed to explain division and converting units and so on.

In teacher education, a part of the course literature was on language-content relationships in school subjects. This provided her with an understanding of how second language learners need to be supported when learning the language of the trade. The two other most important things she gained from VET teacher education was knowledge about regulations and curriculum, and the importance of evaluating.

I keep the curriculum in mind all the time, and evaluate a lot together with my students. I have come to the conclusion that this is how we together summarize what has been learnt today in class. They need to get that focus, again and again. They are young when they start the first year. Then they need the structure, later they need to deepen their knowledge and get different perspectives. This needs to be built up, all the time. And I need to know what was missed out, or how to go on.

Agneta gives appreciation to the school principal. He has seen her qualities and seen that she ‘isn’t afraid of doing things differently’ than some other colleagues. Within courses such as ‘Service and reception’ and ‘Entrepreneurship’, she has been able to organize events and projects that students in different VET programs have been active in planning, organizing, and carrying out, such as a brunch invitation to the municipal administrators. ‘This was a lot of work, but was very appreciated by the students and many brunch-guests attended’.

When Agneta tells about the challenges with second language learners, she gives examples of how the teachers who work with different orientations in the apprenticeship track, where she teaches now, try to collaborate together in class. This way she can spend time with specific students and read with them, and give extra time for supporting them to better understand the structure of an instruction or a task, or to write a text. She stresses that this approach has become part of their regular teaching, in which the students need to talk and be active. She notes that this is the same for all students – but with second language learners, it is even more important. She also emphasizes how this specific group of students need more support, in order to be prepared in many different ways for their work placement. The critical part she feels that she needs to improve is in regards to language. Last semester she enrolled in a distance course at the university, with the subject Swedish as a second language. ‘I have come to understand how hard it is to learn Swedish. I need to be able to explain the language, so they can get better help from me’.

Benny – learning whilst fighting for his students

Benny attended the building and construction program in upper secondary school and his exam qualification was in bricklaying. After completing his qualification he worked in a construction firm but lost the job in the early 1990s during the economic crisis. After a number of different jobs and specialization courses, he was back in the field and worked for a middle-sized company. He had different positions and supervised apprentices, which he found rewarding and fun. After a few years, he started his own business. It thrived, he had employees, and the firm had many building assignments. However, Benny decided to sell – all the paperwork, the responsibilities he had for employees, together with his family situation caused too much stress. After working as an employee again for a while, he decided to apply to the VET teacher education program. His motive was that he had always enjoyed supervising and teaching apprentices during their work-placement and he was ready for a change.

Part of the VET teacher education program was a practicum (placement) period. Benny had his placement in the building and construction program in an upper secondary school in a nearby larger town. At the end of his first semester, a principal for the adult education unit came to visit and explained that the municipality was planning a combination package with ‘Building and Construction’ and ‘Swedish for immigrants’. Benny was asked if he was interested in organizing, administrating and teaching in this program, to which he agreed. He thought this was a fine challenge. Since his teenage years, he had classmates and friends with parents born abroad, or who were not born in Sweden themselves. His mother had worked in the social welfare sector for many years, and he was raised in a family where societal issues like integration was discussed. He knew that he was good at communicating with different people and from the years working with apprentices he knew he was good at explaining and modelling the skills of the trade. He was also well aware of the occurrence of racism in the trade, and thought that with his connections he could do a good job. He had many different experiences of organizing when working in his trade, and in VET teacher education he had acquired knowledge about curriculum, syllabus, goals, and knowledge requirements in courses.

Benny recounts this project with pride, but it is also a narrative of struggle and frustration. Seventeen adult immigrants attended the first year, after two years 14 finished, and most of them were employed. The second class has had similar results. The students had to pass the initial language training courses when they started the program. ‘They have been very keen on learning and many are very resourceful individuals’. Two teachers were involved: Benny with the VET subjects, and organizing work placements, and a teacher teaching Swedish as a second language. Part of the struggle has been to find work placements for the participants in the project. Benny tells about employers and managers who in different ways talk about the problems with apprentices that ‘can’t speak our language’ and who express xenophobic views, and how he contacted the building workers union. Together with a journalist a film was made with the purpose of showing the skills and capabilities of the refugees seeking jobs in the trade, and to challenge values in the trade. The film was shown at the national congress.

Benny’s frustration also related to the management of the municipality. Initially, the program was located in the same facilities as the program in the upper secondary school. However, this became complicated as the budgets for the upper secondary education program and the education package for the adult immigrants came from different sectors. As Benny explains, the different principals couldn’t solve how material and other resources should be financed.

They billed us for the material and equipment we used and it was a lot of bureaucracy. In the end, we were moved to the building we are now. The principal quit his job, another came along. Then he quit too …

Benny shows the facilities, points out the defects and tells how it took almost two years to get a fire alarm.

I have had to fight about all kinds of basic things. I brought my own equipment, so the students had the equipment they need so they could reach the goals of the syllabuses … This group of students have very little priority. I have been excluded from oversight of the budget. I have been troublesome and I spend too much energy trying to explain to administrators, who don’t know anything about the trade, and don’t want to understand the requirements of the curriculum.

In regards to his site-based learning, he compares the teaching of the group of adults with the young people he was teaching in upper secondary school, who were mainly of Swedish background.

One big difference is the attitude. I never have to tell them to shape up … There are some with problems and traumas but that is a different thing … Pedagogically, I have learned to prepare for very many different levels of knowledge and experiences, both regarding knowledge of building and knowledge of language. You can’t work with the regular text books. I have to work with instructions in all kinds of different ways, and be very creative.

Benny shows different examples of instructional resources he has produced, with construction drawings. He has also made instructional YouTube-films with captions of the crucial terms and phrases added. The films have since been used in the classes of Swedish as a second language. The latest group of students generally had a lower language level than the first two groups, which has forced him to be innovative in many ways. He gives the following example,

How do you explain ‘a cold bridge’ and for a person from a hot desert climate with little experience of building and with low educational background? … You have to have different approaches, think about what this student understands and doesn’t understand … Where do I begin in this case, where is the starting point, what can I hook on to? That kind of thinking is how this kind of pedagogy is developed.

At times, the teacher of Swedish as a second language and an Arabic speaking teaching assistant have been able to collaborate together in class. Benny explains how this gives the students more effective learning hours, they don’t need to wait, and the students’ learning can be individualized. Yet, this has been cut down, due to budget constraints. He refers to the national steering documents of adult education and its focus on individualized learning, and is very critical about the low priority these groups of students are given.

Cecilia – learning while reflecting on her own

In upper secondary school, Cecilia attended the humanities program, focusing on languages and literature. After a year of working in different jobs, she attended the leisure time pedagogy program at the university, to work with children and youngsters in educare and in after-school activity-centers. After completing her qualification she felt that she also wanted a teaching degree, and completed a teacher education degree for teaching at elementary school level.

For 12 years, Cecilia was a teacher in the Child and Recreation program in a large municipal upper secondary school. During these years, she also attended the VET teacher education program as part-time studies. Her main teaching was in the areas of pedagogy and recreation. The region had a number of recreational resorts and the upper secondary school had a close collaboration with these resorts. It was a popular program. However, after a national restructuring of upper secondary school VET in 2011 less students applied, because the program was no longer a track that allowed them to sit the exam to attend higher education studies. As very few students applied the following year, the program was closed. As Cecilia tells of this process she is clearly irritated by the reform of VET in 2011. The VET reform had the intention of attracting more students to VET programs, but instead, they lost the students who also wanted to keep the door open for further studies in higher education. Many years of building up the program with strong partnerships between the VET teachers of recreation and the resorts came to an end. After a break of a couple of years, the municipal school directorate decided to start the program again, but by then Cecilia had applied for and found her current job, in a larger city, in another region. When Cecilia recalls how this was managed, it is a narrative with critique of policy practice, illuminating how knowledge resources built on professional teacher collaboration and partnerships with trades can quickly evaporate.

Now Cecilia teaches a program with childhood and recreation in adult education. The program is shorter than in upper secondary school. There are different tracks, and one is oriented for students who are also taking the final courses in Swedish for immigrants. Cecilia is the only teacher of childhood and recreation subjects in the adult education center. She describes how the situation is very different from her previous work when she collaborated with other teachers in her subjects, and they could plan together, organize together and develop their practice together.

I am a team player, but now, being the only teacher with my subjects at the school, I have to do everything by myself, which is a very big difference. I have always been concerned that my teaching is of high quality … that the students get the most out of their time in education. Now this means that when there are changes or different emphasis in the syllabuses, like there has been in regards to sustainable development and outdoor pedagogy in the pre-school curriculum, I have to attend courses at a university or similar, in order to develop my knowledge, my ideas, my inspiration.

Cecilia talks about how her teaching and her teacher role have changed in different ways, depending on the different groups she has been teaching,

When you teach in upper secondary school, they are young, no prior experience of the field. When you teach adults who have been working for instance, as substitute caretakers, they have a lot of different experiences that you can use and connect to. They also know more of societal issues, have their own experiences of children and so on.

For Cecilia, site-based learning is a matter of professionalism. ‘Site-based learning is all about continuous reflection and being professional’, she says and continues:

I think a lot about how to make a good learning climate, and what benefits different groups and different students. With youngsters, I used the textbook more – had more structured and traditional teaching, made sure they had done their homework, prepared them for their work-place learning, picked up what they had experienced and learnt in work-place learning, and so on. When teaching adults, I learned that you need to arrange things differently. Longer group projects and continuous discussions. With those students, I have more become much more of a coach, moderating. With the adult immigrants, I have had to develop my teaching in other ways. They do not have the prior experiences, the knowledge of our culture. You need to back up more, think differently. Like when you work with the curriculum for pre-school, you need to talk about it and explain in different ways.’

Cecilia gives concrete examples of her teaching of adult immigrants about learning expectations for child-care in pre-school.

The curriculum for pre-school states that the child is active, an active learner. This means that children in pre-school centers in Sweden learn how to get dressed, learn how to take their food at the table, from when they are very small. This is a matter of learning – it is a strong perspective in the curriculum for pre-school. We talk about this all the time – “the learning child” is a concept … Then I have students who have been in their work-place learning and heard from their supervisors that they help the children too much. But that is their way of showing care. It is the way it is done in their culture. So then … I have to reflect and try out other ways of going about. I arrange role-plays and such activities, where we play out critical situations that have happened and discuss this and this and that, once again connected to key phrases and statements in the curriculum.

Another example of the changing of teaching strategies is the reading of texts. With the adult immigrants, Cecilia reads the text out loud with the students. They pause, she checks their comprehension, they are asked to retell the content. They ask and discuss the meaning of different words and expressions. ‘They need this kind of pedagogy, to succeed with their studies’. Cecilia developed this strategy, based on her own reflection and says:

I am sure there is a method called something, but I haven’t participated in courses or so regarding this. But next semester, the plan is that I am going to collaborate with a young man who has just completed his qualification in the teacher program of Swedish as a second language. I look forward to that, to collaborate with and get input from a colleague. I really hope it will work out.

Diana – learning while developing together with her colleagues

Diana’s trajectory towards teaching in VET has not been straightforward. In upper secondary school, Diana attended an esthetic program with the orientation of music. After this, she worked in restaurants for five years, and then in different positions at Volvo for 14 years. She started as a shift worker on the assembly line where the motors were put together. During these years, she had three children and continuously attended in-service training, broadening her qualifications. Eventually, she had the position of a team leader for an assembly department. In 2008, after her last maternity leave, many workers were laid off and she decided that it was time to look for something different. She applied for a job teaching automotive technology and was employed. Diana has been teaching in the same school for more than ten years, a technical school which has programs both in upper secondary school and adult education. Her main teaching has been in courses in adult education, but she has also been teaching in upper secondary school classes. During the initial years of teaching, she also took distance courses at the university on quality assurance, working environment, validation and adult learning.

In 2011, Diana attended the VET teacher program part-time and partly distance based, and completed her qualification in 2014. She did this with some other colleagues, and with encouragement from their principal who was concerned about having qualified teachers. At the time, the Swedish National Agency for Education provided special funding for schools that enabled unqualified VET teachers to attend VET teacher education. This meant that Diana and her colleagues had a 75% workload teaching, but with full salary, whilst studying 50%. She and her colleagues supported each other during their studies, and she emphasized that it was a very rewarding way of studying.

It was a lot with the theories and all the concepts, a lot of reading and assignments. We could support each other and we also had many good discussions. In the program, they worked in different groups. Some didn’t have any teaching experience but many worked as substitute teachers. We could compare how things were done in different schools, how the teaching was organized in different courses. We learned a lot, not only from the seminars at campus, the literature, the assignments and so on. I learned a lot from discussing with my colleagues who also took the program, and when discussing with the other students. And of course with my other colleagues who had been teaching for a long time.

One of the things that struck Diana was how the teachers in their school were able to collaborate. In their school, teachers teaching in the same programs had their workspaces in the same office or corridor.

We have always cooperated. Teachers in Maths, Swedish and Swedish as a second language have their office space among the VET teachers. When discussing with others in the teacher education program, we understood that this was not the case in many other schools. We who had these arrangements asked the others: So how do you cooperate? Well we don’t, was the answer … And for us, we can just turn our head and ask a colleague a question.

In Diana’s school, the number of VET packages for adults has increased over the last decade, and she has become more and more involved in teaching which combines the upper levels of Swedish as a second language with orientations of vehicle and transport. Two years after her completing her VET teacher education qualification her role changed and she was appointed to a position of coordinating three technical VET programs, which involves scheduling the classes and leading the pedagogical development in these programs. This coincided with a web-based national professional learning development (PLD) course that was provided by the National Agency for Education. Diana and her colleagues participated in this for one year, which involved a two-hour meeting every second week that was dedicated to pedagogical issues on improving the learning for the students learning the trade as they were still acquiring skills of Swedish. The material in the PLD included learning situations that were tested and discussed, instructions that the teachers developed together, how to give feedback and the trying out of alternative ways of assessment.

It has been very appreciated. We all saw that it was needed, we all struggle with finding strategies for teaching students who have learned Swedish recently, or who have low language skills. After the national PLD-program, we continued in a regional program. Both have been theory-driven, based on second language learning theories, like the models from Jim Cummins.

During the last few years, she has also taken Swedish as second language courses at the university, as she became more and more interested in this subject, and wanted to have the theoretical base for her teaching. She enjoys studying, but she failed four times before she passed the theory of grammar subject.

The current challenges that she describes as very difficult at their school are with some of the young adult students. Some do not have the capacity to concentrate on their studies due to post-traumatic stress, or little knowledge of the routines for attending school. Although the school has professional staff who can provide psychological support, health care and a special needs teacher, there are students who drop out or are discharged because of things such as low attendance, or on occasion, drug problems. Diana underlines that this last example is a more complex problem, which needs a different kind of solution than the pedagogic support for second language learners in VET that they are developing.

Comprehensive analysis

The storied narratives show how the teachers are engaged in different kinds of inquiry, in order to improve their teaching for these specific groups of students, and for their students to learn better. Although they all have profound knowledge within their vocational area, have a VET teacher education qualification, and years of teaching experience, they are all involved in altering and transforming their teaching, trying out different strategies based on the problems they encounter. They learn from their teaching whilst doing and by engaging in inquiry on the learning issues in their specific local site, as they go along. In different ways, but similarly, the storied narratives all illustrate how knowledge-of-practice grows and evolves.

The storied narratives illuminate how the teachers in different ways, but similarly, face new situations, related to site-based conditions and circumstances. These situations imply dilemmas and problem solving, and thus imply continuous learning experiences. Even though the empirical body is restricted to interviews with only four teachers, ample evidence is provided of how accomplished VET teachers continuously are involved in developing their teaching practice as praxis, in the sense that they act in the knowledge that ‘their actions will have good and ill consequences for which they have sole or shared responsibility, and who, in that knowledge, want to act for the good’ (Kemmis & Smith, 2008, p. 8). In different ways and in different circumstances, they are involved in creating conditions of possibility for learning, including their own learning despite challenging circumstances.

With the help of concepts from the theory of practice architectures described previously, it is possible to analyze the similarities and differences in these circumstances. The storied narratives illustrate how local VET settings are prefigured by different enabling and constraining conditions. The material-economic arrangements revealed from the storied narrative of Benny, where he has to bring his own equipment and has continuous arguments about the funding so that the students can reach the goals of the subject syllabi, is very different to the conditions of the others. The stories of Agneta and Diana show how the material-economic arrangements of their VET settings enable close teacher collaboration. They both point out how they, together with their colleagues, can support student learning in class. Here, it also becomes clear how different arrangements are bundled together. The material-economic arrangements that provide the possibility of having two teachers in the classroom secures social-political arrangements, not only enabling them to assist each other in class and support the students’ learning but also enabling them to learn from each other whilst ‘in action’. A contrast to these positive conditions of Agneta’s and Diana’s is manifested in the storied narrative of Cecilia’s, namely how she misses colleagues to collaborate with and learn from.

The practices of the four teachers all have the same cultural-discursive arrangements in regards to the regulatory national curriculum and subject syllabi of their VET programs. In similar ways, the teachers express their ambitions for supporting their students to achieve the goals stated in these. They all speak about the challenges they face, and how they have to change their teaching strategies and be creative in different ways. Importantly, this is accompanied by articulated views that their students possess resources, and that their students’ skills and language can be developed. The actions of Benny, when he contacts the worker’s union and gets involved in making a film in which he talks about the resources, abilities and capacities of his students, are a strong example of a teacher who uses his agency with the ambition to change (or at least challenge) the ‘deficit’-discourse within the trade.

Through the stories, we also get an understanding of how the site-based learning of VET teachers varies. Benny’s story is scarce in regards to formal continuing professional development, but illustrates a teacher who seeks new strategies, as he produces and tries out new learning material, like instructional YouTube-films. His situation is quite different from those of the colleagues described in Diana’s story, who share their offices and who every second week together participate in a national research-based PLD-program arranged as a collegial circle.

In Diana’s story, the PLD-program that she and her colleagues participate in is given great import. This way, the colleagues together get the opportunity of sharing and learning, in order to improve their practice. A program of that kind is a way of learning together with colleagues in the site. As has been shown by the stories of Agneta, Cecilia and Diana, the dilemmas and issues identified in practice have been the impetus for them to attend university-based continuing education on an individual basis. Agneta and Cecilia come to the conclusion that they need to develop deeper knowledge about second language learning. Cecilia identifies the need to extend her knowledge about sustainable development and outdoor pedagogy. This way she also gets ideas and inspiration when developing her teaching praxis at her school without colleagues in her subjects.

Concluding comment

The four teachers generously gave me their time for interviewing, and additional interviews. They gave me access to their work by providing me with teaching material and pictures from their practice. They were all very involved in their work and they also shared strong concerns in regards to conditions that were tough for them as teachers and their students. One common recurring distress was in regards to the time the students need in order to develop their vocational language and achieve the intended goals of the curriculum. This was expressed strongly by all four, regardless of the organisation where they worked. I have chosen not to provide information about whether their VET sites were part of a municipal provider or an independent school, and have not given information in which ways their education was tendered. Even though that could have been part of the analysis in regards to the research question related to enabling and constraining conditions for continuing professional learning, I have made the choice not to discuss that in regards to the respective storied narratives. It did not stick out crucial, in regards to their continuous professional learning, and as storied narratives like these may provide ways of identifying the teachers, I chose not to.

Acknowledgments

Avoiding identifying any of the authors prior to peer review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ingrid Henning Loeb

Ingrid Henning Loeb is associate professor at the Department of education, communication and learning, at the University of Gothenburg. Her research is on teaching and learning in VET in upper secondary school and in adult education. Her current specific interest is how teachers and organizations support second language students’ learning of VET.

Notes

1. The categorization applies if a person was born outside of Sweden or if both parents were born outside of Sweden.