‘Things should be explained so that the students understand them’: adolescent immigrant students’ perspectives on learning the language of schooling in Finland

ABSTRACT

This article explores the language learning experiences of four recently arrived adolescent plurilingual immigrant students who participated in additional structured linguistic support (SLS) in lower secondary education. The SLS was targeted at creating scaffolding for students who were learning both the language of schooling and the subject-specific content of Finnish basic education. This study applied an interpretative phenomenological approach. Data from interviews conducted twice during the study revealed two phenomenological themes at the core of the students’ language learning experiences in formal and informal contexts. The first theme suggests that schools constituted the most important inclusive environment for learning the language of the new home country; therefore, scaffolding for the students should be organized accordingly. The second theme revolves around the role of Finnish and other languages in plurilingual students’ linguistic repertoires. The findings of this study suggest some pedagogically relevant approaches for supporting students in learning the language of schooling, especially in lower secondary education.

KEYWORDS:

• L2 learning
• language of schooling
• plurilingualism
• scaffolding
• inclusion

Schools are becoming increasingly aware of the necessity to make sure that all children, regardless of background and first language, acquire a very good level of the language of schooling, if appropriate through special support measures. This supports equity and equal opportunities and reduces the risk of early school leaving.

— Council of the European Union 2019, 5

Inclusive education begins with the belief that education is a basic human right and the foundation for a just society. Thus, the aim of education is to eliminate the social exclusion that can result from attitudes toward race, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or migrant status. However, refugee students often face these inequities. Various scholars have examined learning problems among such students (e.g. Graham, Minhas, and Paxton 2016) and teachers’ perspectives on teaching immigrants (Ferfolja and Vickers 2010; Sinkkonen and Kyttälä 2014). This study contributes to this body of research by exploring school-age immigrant students’ experiences, focusing on language skills as a way to enhance inclusion. We investigated the experiences of four immigrant students learning the language of schooling in their new home country.

Immigrant students come from diverse backgrounds and have a wide range of proficiency levels in the language of schooling (Majhanovich and Deyrich 2017). Learning a new language is time-consuming, and achieving academic proficiency in the language of schooling is even more demanding (e.g. Cummins and Early 2015). However, this is seldom recognized in school practices (e.g. de Jong, Coulter, and Tsai 2020). Identifying students’ learning needs and supporting their language development are important tenets of inclusive education, as becoming proficient in the language skills required for academic tasks is considerably different from mastering such skills for out-of-school communicative practices (e.g. Lorenzo and Trujillo 2017; Schleppegrell 2001).

Although Finland, the context of this study, relies on preemptive support in all education, measures targeted at the simultaneous learning of language and content have received little attention. Considering educational success, Finland has been among the most unequal Western European countries for immigrant students (Borgna 2017; Zacheus, Kalalahti, and Varjo 2017). This is also echoed in recent PISA results (OECD, 2018), which show a large achievement gap between immigrant and native students in Finland (OECD, 2018); this can be explained partly by language gaps and the socioeconomic status of immigrant students’ families (Ahonen 2021). In education, students’ individual abilities are connected to a complex reality with opportunity structures, including language proficiency requirements and discrimination (Zacheus, Kalalahti, and Varjo 2017).

Although support models for teaching content and language simultaneously to immigrant students exist globally (Brinton and Snow 2017), studies on their use in small language areas, such as Finland, are lacking. Developing adequate literacy skills in adolescence is crucial for functioning in a text-based society (Sulkunen 2013), and in Finland, subject-content learning is primarily based on textual artifacts, such as textbooks (Moate 2021). The academic Finnish used in textbooks differs significantly from the Finnish spoken outside of the school context. Moreover, the distance between Finnish and other languages is often significant, which also affects language learning experiences (Borgonovi and Ferrara 2020).

This study, which focuses on students’ perspectives, discusses support for learning the language of schooling (i.e. the language of instruction that is explicitly connected to all learning in a country) (e.g. Lorenzo and Trujillo 2017). In particular, the focus is on recently arrived immigrant students who participated in structured linguistic support (SLS). SLS was targeted for scaffolding language learning (van Lier 2004), as an additional resource in lower secondary education. Henceforth, these students will be referred to as recently arrived Finnish language learners (RAFLLs). In this study, RAFLLs are defined as students who have lived in Finland less than five years. We aim to concentrate on documenting existing and finding new ways to help immigrant students expand their language repertoires as future assets.

After the sociocultural theoretical framework, including the inclusive (e.g. Ainscow 2020) and ecological (van Lier 2004) approaches behind SLS, are presented, the research design is described. Based on small-scale phenomenological inquiry (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009), our findings are presented and the study’s contributions to the development of meaningful ways of supporting RAFLLs in the Finnish educational system are discussed.

Inclusive education as a whole-system approach

Inclusion has several definitions that are grounded in different perspectives (Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson 2006); however, across all definitions, policies, practices, and values are important aspects of developing inclusion (Ainscow 2020). In this study, inclusion is seen as a principal approach to education and society and its importance to a whole-system educational approach is highlighted (Ainscow 2020).

According to sociocultural learning theory, developmental processes occur during participation in both informal and institutional settings (John-Steiner and Mahn 1996; Vygotsky 1978). Inclusion can be interpreted as a Vygotskian notion: schools should be specially designed settings wherein the entire staff is able to meet the needs of each child as an individual (e.g. Mäkinen and Mäkinen, 2011). Collaborative learning that is scaffolded by teachers, which is both central to Vygotsky’s notion and in line with the principles of inclusion, not only contributes to but is necessary for students’ development (e.g. Gibbons 2015).

Often, discussions on inclusive education have focused on the placement of students with special needs and meeting the social and academic requirements of these students (e.g. Mäkinen and Mäkinen, 2011; Göransson and Nilholm 2014). Although immigrant students may face linguistic difficulties because of cognitive challenges (Geva and Massey-Garrison 2013), the difference between these two is often difficult to define. Bearing this in mind, being a RAFLL should not be seen as equivalent to having learning difficulties. As suggested by Nippold (2004), a central component of language development among immigrant students is the attainment of literacy and learning the skills needed for successful communication in formal settings such as school and work.

The zone of proximal development and scaffolding

A focal feature of sociocultural learning is the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky 1978), which is ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (86). Vygotsky (1978) proposed that conscious awareness and voluntary attention emerge in the ZPD with adult assistance, and this helps students transform everyday concepts into higher or academic concepts (van Lier 2004). This notion is also connected to second and foreign language learning (e.g. Gibbons 2015; van Lier 2004; Walqui 2006): learners need to access language in a dialogical process as conscious and active social participants (van Lier 2004). As suggested by van Lier (2004), the ecological perspective in language development emphasizes meaningful participation in meaning-making activities for gaining learning experiences in the ZPD.

Furthermore, students need appropriate support at school. This support is referred to as scaffolding, which was originally defined as a support process to enable learners to carry out tasks that would otherwise be beyond their abilities (Wood, Bruner, and Ross 1976). In pedagogical contexts, the relatively stable supportive structures are referred to as pre-planned scaffolding, while the pedagogical, responsive actions are in-the-moment scaffolding (e.g. Symons 2021; Walqui 2006). The SLS program represents a form of pre-planned scaffolding that enables in-the-moment scaffolding during the lessons.

In language learning contexts, van Lier (1996, 2004) has suggested a scaffolding framework consisting of six conditions: continuity, contextual support, intersubjectivity, contingency, handover/takeover, and flow. Continuity makes repetition and variation possible, while contextual support enables exploration in a supportive environment. Intersubjectivity refers to mutual engagement and non-threatening participation. Contingency represents the varied pedagogical strategies that depend on learners’ needs in classroom interaction. The fifth condition, handover/takeover, assigns an increasing role to the learner as their skills and confidence grow. Finally, flow refers to a certain balance: participants are focused on a task and interaction is fruitful. This framework provided a theoretical perspective to reflect on the pedagogical scaffolding of the SLS program.

In scaffolding, students’ first languages (L1s) should be seen as resources for building thinking and literacy skills, regardless of the language of instruction (de Jong, Coulter, and Tsai 2020; García 2009; Little and Kirwan 2018). Furthermore, using multilingual pedagogies (in some contexts referred to as translanguaging, e.g. García 2009) encourages students to use all their linguistic resources. In linguistically diverse contexts, scaffolding both language and content is essential (Gibbons 2015; Symons 2021). In Finland, recent studies have indicated that students’ L1s are seldom considered in classroom activities, although teachers’ attitudes about multilingualism are mainly positive (e.g. Alisaari et al. 2019).

This study focuses on the scaffolding provided by the SLS teacher in contexts where the RAFLLs’ L1s were distant from the language of schooling in Finland. We use the term scaffolding throughout, emphasizing the SLS teacher’s responsibility for pedagogical actions in the classroom, creating opportunities for the students to meaningfully engage in learning the language of schooling, and the subject content.

Combining content and language in education

Globally, educators have been creating ways to support students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds for decades (e.g. García and Flores 2012). Content-based instruction (CBI), which includes various models for teaching language and content simultaneously, such as theme-based, sheltered, and adjunct models (e.g. Nunan 2017), is also an umbrella term for all approaches that combine language and content learning (Brinton and Snow 2017). Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is often seen as CBI’s European counterpart (Snow 2017). However, although CBI and CLIL have many commonalities, CLIL is connected to learning a foreign language, not an L2 as the language of schooling (Dalton-Puffer 2011).

Although languages in the Finnish educational system have been studied in various contexts and from several perspectives and CBI support models have been developed in different parts of the country in accordance with the National Core Curriculum (Finnish National Board of Education, 2014), research on CBI in Finnish basic education is scarce (Harju-Autti and Sinkkonen, 2020). Given recent evidence of the benefits of integrated approaches to language teaching and learning, developing inclusivity and plurilingual literacy is even more essential (Cummins and Early 2015; García and Flores 2012; Little and Kirwan 2018).

In this study, we listened to students’ voices and focused on their experiences concerning language learning in their new home country to develop targeted scaffolding strategies. The study was guided by the following research question: What kinds of experiences do RAFLLs have concerning learning the majority language in Finland after having participated in SLS?

Methodology

This study utilized an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA; Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009), emphasizing participants’ lived experiences of learning the language of schooling in their new home country. IPA focuses on participants’ experiential claims and concerns by inviting them to share their stories, thoughts, and feelings about the target phenomenon. With IPA, what people say is connected to their thoughts and emotional responses (Larkin, Watts, and Clifton 2006; Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009).

Study context

This study was conducted in a school for basic education of approximately 600 students in a large city in Southern Finland. In the school, the language of instruction was Finnish, and about 35 percent of students had an immigrant background. Throughout the country, compulsory schooling is provided either in Finnish or in Swedish in a single-structure system (grades 1–9) called basic education (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2020). At the primary level (grades 1–6), most of the teaching is provided by a class teacher. In lower secondary education (grades 7–9), subjects are taught by subject-matter teachers who have majored in the subject they teach and minored in pedagogical studies. At the lower secondary level, which is the context of this study, both the teachers and the groups of students change many times throughout the day.

In Finland, newly arrived immigrant students are usually placed in a class for preparatory education (prep-ed) for a year (Finnish National Board of Education, 2015). After this, they generally attend regular classes in basic education. For studying Finnish, a curriculum of Finnish as a second language and literature (FSLL) is offered.

In the National Core Curriculum, FSLL has its own objectives and content (Finnish National Board of Education, 2014): the focus is on the Finnish language, including grammar, vocabulary, registers, and literature. Depending on grade level, students have three to four 45-minute lessons of Finnish as a first or second language and literature per week. In addition, all students receive mandatory lessons in Swedish and English. Classes in students’ L1s are offered in some municipalities, but language selection depends on the resources at the local level. L1 lessons for immigrant students’ languages are organized outside of regular lesson plans and are not mandatory.

Language plays a significant role in both language-related subjects and subject-specific content. Therefore, teaching language across the curriculum is necessary to create awareness of the specific ways language is used in subjects such as mathematics, science, and social studies (Cummins and Early 2015). In Finland, the National Core Curriculum (Finnish National Board of Education, 2014) requires language awareness in all teaching and school culture, and it explicitly states that ‘all teachers are language teachers of the subject(s) they teach’ (Finnish National Board of Education, 2014, p. 28). Furthermore, the curriculum notes that ‘[e]ducation supports the pupils’ development as versatile and skillful users of language, both in their mother tongue and in other languages. They are encouraged to use even limited language skills to interact and express themselves’ (Finnish National Board of Education, 2014, p. 166). However, the reality of Finnish basic education is that content teachers and school administrators lack knowledge about language acquisition and the active role of language in teaching and learning, as, unlike their language-teaching counterparts, they receive limited formal guidance on such topics during pre-service or in-service training (e.g. Alisaari et al. 2019; Harju-Autti and Sinkkonen, 2020).

Structured linguistic support

In the school of this study, SLS was designed as a support measure in addition to FSLL for students (starting at age 13) in lower secondary education who had arrived in Finland at around 12 years of age and had already participated in prep-ed. The program was developed by a multi-professional team that included a language educator (the SLS teacher), subject teachers, special education teachers, and school administrators from one Finnish school community (Harju-Autti et al., 2018). As learners age, support for learning a new language becomes increasingly important (Borgonovi and Ferrara 2020; Nunan 2017). Furthermore, when students reach the age of 13, their education shifts from a class-teacher system to a subject-teacher system, reducing the contact between teachers and students from over 20 lessons a week to between one and five lessons a week (Harju-Autti and Sinkkonen, 2020).

The pedagogical approach utilized in SLS was based on sociocultural language learning and multilingual pedagogies, especially the strategy of teaching language and subject-specific content simultaneously (e.g. García and Flores 2012, 243–244; Symons 2021). The aim was to provide students with learning experiences within their ZPDs. SLS was given in math, science, English, and social science for students who had resided in Finland for just over a year (Harju-Autti and Sinkkonen, 2020). The support provided by the SLS teacher consisted of ten lessons a week, either with the subject teacher and the SLS teacher co-teaching in the same classroom or with smaller groups in separate classrooms, that were organized within the regular lesson plan of thirty lessons per week. In addition to reinforcing the students’ academic and linguistic skills, the aim of the small-group lessons was to foster an encouraging learning environment and enhance students’ engagement with school-related topics.

In SLS, pedagogical activities were aimed at making the content comprehensible for the RAFLLs via scaffolding (van Lier 1996, 2004). Multimodal approaches were used, and the students were encouraged to utilize their full linguistic repertoires by, for instance, using web-based bilingual dictionaries to augment their comprehension of subject-specific topics and to enhance plurilingual literacy. As the RAFLLs received the same learning materials as their classmates, the core concepts were chosen carefully, with the help of subject matter teachers, to align with the curriculum. Teacher collaboration represented a form of pre-planned scaffolding that was complemented with in-the-moment scaffolding during SLS (see, Symons 2021; Walqui 2006). During SLS, the teacher scaffolded both language access and content (van Lier 1996; Walqui 2006) with techniques often used in foreign language education: reading out loud, repetition, singing, and playing games.

Study participants

The four participants in this study—Tahir, Adila, Samira, and Isaac (pseudonyms)—moved to Finland in the early 2010s as refugees at approximately 12 years of age. After a year of prep-ed, they entered regular lower secondary education and participated in SLS in grades 7–9.

Tahir and Samira came from the Middle East, while Isaac and Adila came from sub-Saharan Africa. As they had fled conflict zones, their histories differed significantly from those of most students in lower secondary education in Finland. They had experienced interrupted education before moving to Finland for a variety of factors, such as living in a refugee camp or moving from one country to another.

The four participants spoke four different L1s, all of which were significantly different from Finnish: the linguistic distance was wide (Borgonovi and Ferrara 2020). Some of them had learned two or more languages before moving to Finland. For example, Isaac spoke English fluently, and the other three had studied some English before moving to Finland. Isaac and Adila used the Latin alphabet in their L1s, whereas Tahir and Samira used the Dari, Aramaic, Arabic, and Turkish alphabets. In lower secondary education in Finland, Tahir and Samira had been able to attend lessons in which a language close to their L1 was taught. In secondary education, L1 classes were not available to any of the study participants.

Ethics

The study was carried out according to the ethical principles of research in Finland (Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK 2019) throughout the project. The participants represented a vulnerable population: immigrant adolescents. Their guardians gave oral permission for the participants, who were minors at the time of the first interview, to participate in the study. The participants could withdraw from the entire process whenever they wanted. The authors were aware of the power hierarchy between the first author, who conducted the interviews, and the participants, and this was carefully reflected upon throughout.

Data collection

The data for this study were collected retrospectively in two rounds of semi-structured interviews after the participants had completed their basic education. The invitation was sent to all five students who had participated in SLS, four of whom accepted. They were contacted with an informal invitation from the first author, who had previously worked with the participants. The participants were interviewed twice to determine whether they were still actively studying and how their language skills had developed. The first round of interviews took place during their first semester in secondary education (fall 2017), and the second round took place in the summer before they started their final year in secondary education (summer 2019).

The interviews were conducted in Finnish by the first author. The language skills of the participants were carefully considered during the interviews: questions were posed simply, and enough time was provided for the participants to answer thoroughly. If needed, the interviewer rephrased the questions. At the time of the interviews, the participants were in secondary education, three at the vocational upper secondary level, and one in general upper secondary school.

The first interviews were conducted either in the first author’s office at the university or at a vocational college near the city center. The focus of the first interview was to discuss the participants’ backgrounds, educational history, L1(s), attitudes toward learning, needs for support in learning in the Finnish education system, and plans for the future.

The second round of interviews was conducted either in the first author’s office, outside at a park in the city center, or near the participants’ homes. For these interviews, the participants were asked to reflect before arriving on the times they felt they had learned Finnish quickly, their feelings about belonging, how their friends had supported them, and circumstances in which they felt they did not have adequate skills in Finnish; their future plans were also discussed.

All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim (nonverbal sounds, such as sighs and coughs, were omitted), which yielded 14,000 words. The interviews of each participant were put together to generate four datasets, which were analyzed as individual entities. The data excerpts used in this article were translated from Finnish into English by the first author. A limitation of this study could be the participants’ desire to give socially acceptable answers during the interviews. This was considered in the analysis.

Data analysis

The core lenses of the analysis were insightful reflection and meaning making. The interpretative dialogical technique (van Manen 1990) allowed us to reflect on the participants’ individual expressions within the larger scope of the conversation. The analysis was conducted using an iterative and inductive research strategy (Kirppendorff 2013), with no single prescriptive approach. Overall, the analysis consisted of reflection on preconceptions and processes, after which a close analysis of the participants’ claims, concerns, understandings, and language use was conducted.

The findings reported here underwent four iterative phases: close reading, organizing, categorizing, and summarizing. First, transcripts were examined thoroughly several times to achieve overall familiarity and establish the basic units for organizing the data. ATLAS.ti was used as a tool to add highlights to the dataset as well as memos for building topics and themes. A basic unit was determined to be either a longer description of a participant’s lived experience or a brief notional expression. Thereafter, the units were divided into topics that included similar notions expressed by the participants. The data analysis proceeded until two phenomenological themes, which had some overlap, emerged: (1) Learning the language of schooling in Finland and (2) the role of Finnish, as well as other languages, in RAFLLs’ linguistic repertoires. For example, the analysis unit ‘I have never studied history in my previous home country’ represented the topic of ‘previous school experiences’ and was further interpreted as an expression of finding both the subject and the language challenging. This topic was placed under the first theme. An example of the data analysis process is shown in Table 1. In the findings, the students’ voices are further reflected on using Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of ZPD and van Lier’s (1996, 2004) principles of scaffolding in language classes to gain new perspectives on scaffolding for RAFFLs.

Table 1. An overview of the analysis unit examples and topics related to the emerged themes

Unit examples	Topic	Theme
I have never studied history in my previous home country.	Previous learning experiences	Learning the language of schooling in Finland
My first language cannot be studied in Finland.	First language(s)
The teacher explained things so that everyone of us understood.	Teacher scaffolding
We could always ask for help [in SLS] because the group was so small.	Group size
You should collaborate with people who help you if you have any questions.	Collaboration at school	The role of Finnish and other languages
We speak English during free time.	Language with friends
With friends, I speak a different kind of Finnish.	Language and hobbies
We speak many languages at home.	Languages at home
I was able to help Arabic speaking customers, and my boss [a Finn] was very happy.	Plurilingualism as an asset
If I stay in Finland and study here, I have to speak fluent Finnish.	The language of the surrounding society

Findings

The findings, presented here according to the themes that emerged, shed light on RAFLLs’ perspectives on language learning in their new home country. To illustrate the findings, direct quotes from the pseudonymized participants have been included.

Scaffolding learning with SLS

Overall, the participants appreciated the pre-planned and in-the-moment scaffolding (see, Symons 2021; Walqui 2006) offered through SLS. All of them indicated features specific to SLS they considered beneficial for learning, such as continuity, contextual support, and intersubjectivity (van Lier 1996, 2004). For example, Tahir described the contextual support provided in SLS:

With SLS, you study a subject, and you especially study how it would be easier to understand that subject.

Samira described the importance of joint discussion as a form of intersubjectivity:

We would discuss the topics and, as we discussed them, I learned to understand them, and it was not that I would read something and try to understand it, but we talked with each other, the students, and the teacher, so it helps you remember.

Samira’s thoughts reinforce the importance of contextual support (see, van Lier 1996, 2004), where exploration is encouraged in a safe, supportive environment. Overall, the participants reflected on intersubjectivity in a non-threatening environment, as emphasized by van Lier (1996, 2004): topics were discussed so students could understand the focal points of subject-specific content. All the participants connected the importance of SLS to learning subject-specific content in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and history; biology and geography were also mentioned.

The participants, who at the time of the interviews had not lived in Finland for more than a couple of years, reported that they needed adequate time and space in the learning environment. This indicates that teachers play a crucial role in providing sufficient multimodal cues to create continuity for students to learn both the language and the content (van Lier 1996, 2004). Consequently, learners should not be left without scaffolding too early, although according to van Lier (2004), dismantling the scaffolding during handover/takeover is an important part of the process.

Scaffolding in a small group was considered beneficial by the participants. As Tahir pointed out:

We could always ask for help [in SLS] because the group was so small, and nobody had to feel ashamed about asking questions.

Other students’ interviews also revealed that, with regard to student-teacher relationships, SLS provided them with a safe environment in which they could ask questions in a supportive community; indeed, learning is easier without excessive anxiety. In a smaller group, they got to know each other well, which reinforced the intersubjectivity of learning (see, van Lier 2004). In addition, being grouped according to language competencies was considered beneficial for building contingency in classroom interactions (see, van Lier 1996, 2004). This notion appeared when Samira referred to occasions when students who had lived in Finland for longer periods joined SLS. According to Samira, students who were more skillful in Finnish disturbed the small group symmetry, harming the classroom interaction and flow (see, van Lier 2004; Walqui 2006).

The participants also reported challenges in learning topics that were new to them. Samira had never had the opportunity to study history in her home country; both the subject and its language were new for her. From a teaching perspective, creating learning experiences in the ZPD (Vygotsky 1978) requires recognizing students’ prior knowledge and experiences concerning both language and content. Furthermore, learning and development happen in socially and culturally shaped contexts; Tahir explained that trying to learn something that neither he nor his relatives had experienced felt difficult:

In my home, we have never discussed what happened in Finland in the 1930s¹ … Those who speak Finnish as their first language are connected to the topic more closely; they may not be able to explain it to anyone else, but they understand. But it is important for me to understand history and know what has happened in Finnish history.

Tahir’s comment reveals the importance of being familiar with a topic, which is relevant not only for developing linguistic and content knowledge but also for building a personal connection to the topic via contextual support (see, van Lier 2004). On an individual level, a student’s ZPD is dependent on both their previous experiences and current opportunities. It reaches back into the past and creates a frame for the present, making future development and learning possible. If the connection or a necessary framework is missing, scaffolding, for example in the form of multimodal cues, is needed.

Schools are focal communities in which language learners can develop as users of the language of their new home country (Nippold 2004; Schleppegrell 2013). Communication with friends and teachers was considered beneficial:

[It’s important to] be with people who help you anytime if you have to ask for something, and if you don’t have the guts to ask the teacher, you can ask your friends. (Isaac)

At first, everything felt difficult, but when I got to know some peers at school, everything felt easier. (Adila)

The participants in this study were encouraged to use their L1 as a tool for learning Finnish. Moreover, Samira reported of having helped other students with the same linguistic background learn Finnish; she used her plurilingual skills as scaffolding for her peers (see, Walqui 2006).

The role of Finnish in RAFLLs’ linguistic repertoires

The participants emphasized the differences between communicative practices during school and free time (see, Schleppegrell 2001). In addition to learning Finnish for studying, the participants thought it was important to learn Finnish to form social relationships, engage in hobbies, and go to work. Interestingly, they reported more diverse language learning experiences in out-of-school contexts. For many, attending organized free-time activities, such as sports, was a way of making friends, as some reported having little interaction with their Finnish-speaking classmates during their free time outside of school. For Tahir and Isaac, sports activities were important for practicing Finnish, whereas Adila and Samira reported that they preferred to hang out with friends:

With friends, I use more Finnish because in the lessons, the focus is more on the topics that we study, but with friends, we talk about everything … but the language I use with friends is different from the language I need at school; it is like another form of Finnish. (Samira)

Samira’s thoughts reflect the diversity of registers in Finnish. At school, the aim is to learn the registers that differ from the spoken language used outside of educational settings (Schleppegrell 2013). Moreover, spoken Finnish (in any register) differs remarkably from written Finnish (Lehtonen 2011). For teachers, developing contingency between these registers, for instance by discussing the differences in detail, is important (van Lier 2004). In SLS, these discussions represented contextual support and intersubjectivity (see, van Lier 2004), which help develop students’ language skills within their individual ZPDs.

In addition to Finnish and their L1s, English was an important language for the participants. Tahir was the only participant who reported not using English; he focused on using Finnish in his hobbies and at work:

If there were customers speaking my L1, we could speak that, but in most situations, we would probably use Finnish because the words now come to mind more quickly in Finnish.

The other three participants said that practicing English was important to them, mostly because they found Finnish less useful outside of Finland. However, all participants agreed that if they were to stay in Finland, their proficiency in Finnish would be essential:

Hey, listen. If you go abroad, there’s no one who speaks Finnish! [laughter] But in all countries they speak English and they can guide you, but if you speak Finnish, you’ll be totally lost without knowing anybody. (Adila)

I am motivated to learn Finnish because I live here … but I’d rather study English now because it’s fun and useful. (Samira)

Samira reported often using English for communicating with Finnish-speaking friends. For Isaac, for whom English was an L1, the language choice was playful:

If people address me in English, I respond in Finnish, and if they speak Finnish, I respond in English … it depends on the age of the other person—if they are elderly, then I continue in Finnish … people are positively surprised when I continue in Finnish.

Echoing Isaac’s experiences of plurilingual confidence in social encounters, Samira reported helping her workplace manager by serving customers in Arabic. Moreover, all the participants spoke highly of their ability to speak several languages with their relatives. Although the emphasis was not on Finnish during family time, Finnish was one of the languages used. Finnish was also seen as the most important language for being included in Finnish society and strengthening a sense of belonging to the school community, which is in line with the holistic approach to inclusion (Ainscow 2020). To conclude, plurilingual abilities were praised by all four participants. As summarized by Tahir, ‘There are no cons, just pros’.

Concluding discussion

The findings of this study shed light on RAFLLs’ language learning experiences in a new home country with a specific support program (SLS). The findings highlight the importance of understanding the role of the ZPD (Vygotsky 1978) as a basis for all learning, and scaffolding as the main action for supporting students’ learning within their ZPDs (van Lier 2004). Although RAFLLs generally attend preparatory education for one year and have FSLL instruction after that in basic education, additional linguistic support in the form of a pre-planned scaffolding program is needed across the curriculum for an extended period of time.

Schools constitute the most important source of support for students in a new home country (Gibbons 2015; Nippold 2004; Schleppegrell 2013). Thus, the formation of meaningful methods and approaches targeted at learning the language of schooling should be based on the sociocultural premise that learning and language development occur in a supportive atmosphere (van Lier 2004) and with an inclusive approach (Ainscow 2020). The findings of this study highlight the need for developing long-term research-based approaches that bring content and language closer together, focusing on multilingual pedagogies with a CBI approach. As such, SLS provides a prototype for further development. The findings also emphasize the importance of understanding RAFLLs’ needs and providing them with adequate pre-planned scaffolding that enables responsive, in-the-moment scaffolding (see, Symons 2021; Walqui 2006).

The findings support the importance of providing students with learning experiences within their ZPD by scaffolding both language and content (see, Gibbons 2015; Schleppegrell 2013). Furthermore, the findings indicate that valuing students’ plurilingual skills and using students’ L1s in pedagogically meaningful ways is essential (e.g. García and Flores 2012; Little and Kirwan 2018). Echoing the participants’ voices, this is best executed in small teaching groups where the teacher can focus on scaffolding to strengthen students’ relationship with the language and content in a safe environment and use the content for learning language—and vice versa.

It has been pointed out that immigrant students are overrepresented in special education classes in Finland (Sinkkonen et al. 2011). RAFLLs’ language proficiency levels may hinder the process of identifying other learning difficulties (Geva and Massey-Garrison 2013), but being a language learner is not equivalent to having learning difficulties. The SLS program aimed at reinforcing RAFLLs’ possibilities for developing their skills in the language of schooling and their subject content knowledge, which in turn helped them participate fully in mainstream classrooms (see, Ainscow 2020). Based on this study, developing Finnish education to be more inclusive for students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds requires a large systematic change, both in Finnish teacher education and in the schools themselves, to create opportunities for meaningful participation for RAFLLs in the text-based education system.

Learning English as a lingua franca was found to provide the students with a tool for global communication. However, Finnish was considered the most important language for building a future in Finland. Therefore, developing the education system into an encouraging platform for building meaningful possibilities for communication in different languages is essential (see, Little and Kirwan 2018).

Despite the study’s limited data, its understanding of learners’ perspectives offers useful insight on how to develop pedagogical approaches to scaffold RAFLLs learning in lower secondary education. Most educational development programs in Finland are project-based, and the future of SLS depends on research project funding. While more work in this field is still needed, this study is a first step in a greater conversation in Finland about supporting RAFLLs after their year of prep-ed with a CBI approach.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Nancy L. Commins (Clinical Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado, Denver, USA) and Dr. Reginald D’Silva (Associate Professor of Teaching, University of British Columbia, Canada), as well as the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raisa Harju-Autti

Raisa Harju-Autti, MA, is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Finland.

Marita Mäkinen

Marita Mäkinen, PhD, is a professor of teacher education at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Finland.

Kaisu Rättyä

Kaisu Rättyä, PhD, is a docent of literary education and university lecturer at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Finland.

Notes

1 The 1930s in Finland was a decade of depression and strong political turbulence, including World War II, which started in 1939.