Language teachers’ accounts of challenges in two European settings of integration training

European Policy Discourse on Integration Training and the Need for Research

Second language teachers in both Finland and Germany work within goals communicated in documents such as The Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion for the Years 2021–2027 (European Commission (EC), 2020b), which outlines strategies for European integration services, including education. Within the specific scope of language education, The Common European Framework for Reference for Languages set out by the Council of Europe (2001) defines the target skill levels for second language learning (B1, independent language user) and has significantly shaped language education in the past decade (Latomaa et al., 2013; Tarnanen and Huhta, 2008). The topical European rhetoric of skills development (e.g. EC, 2020c, 2020d; see also OECD, 2019, 2020) implies broader societal goals for Finnish and German integration education. This includes successful transitions into working life and a skills match (e.g. Calmfors and Sánchez Gassen, 2019: 12; Sarvimäki and Hämäläinen, 2016) as a response to a need for a qualified workforce in an aging population (Bach and Wittenberg, 2017: 44). On a national level, implementation of integration training is steered by curricular documents by the Finnish National Agency of Education (FNAE) and the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI). The pedagogical culture guided by The National Core Curriculum for Integration Training for Adult Migrants (Finnish National Agency of Education (FNAE), 2012) has been regarded as one of the strengths of Finnish integration training (e.g. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in Finland (MEAE), 2013: 13–14). Currently, the curriculum holds a legal status (Pöyhönen and Tarnanen, 2015: 112), and its renewed version will orient the development of Finnish integration training (Ronkainen and Suni, 2019: 79). The German Core Curriculum (Ger. Rahmencurriculum) primarily targets the development of language tests, course books, and language courses, and only secondarily the work of second language teachers (BMI/Kaufmann, 2016: 5). In addition to skills development, however, integration is a multi-level and multi-actor process (Könönen and Himanen, 2019: 61–62) that should also be approached ethically, as an opportunity to foster a sense of belonging and participation in public and social spaces (Brücker, 2020; Foroutan, 2019: 79).

Overall, research is needed on the effects of different types of language training on language skills and labor market outcomes, especially in the Nordic countries (Calmfors and Sánchez Gassen, 2019: 32; see also Saukkonen, 2020: 28). Despite this gap, studies on integration education specifically are still few in Finland, and knowledge of different aspects of integration is far from complete, even in Germany (Berliner Institut fur empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (BIM), 2020). The present contribution seeks to deepen the understanding of these local, European, and global problematics, contextualizing in practical settings but influencing integration outcomes. In conceptual terms, by revealing challenges in social practice that represent historical and geographical variation (Schatzki, 2010: 51), the study seeks to understand how people, based on their ways of experiencing, handle problems, situations, and the world—and do so in more or less efficient ways (Marton and Booth, 1997: 111–117). The efficiency discourse is both coinciding and problematic. For teachers supervising the quality and implementation of effective practices (Penalva, 2019), instructional success enhances well-being at work and in the classroom. However, teaching fast for fast integration in a responsible role for national productivity implies stress (e.g. Kurki et al., 2018; Lindberg and Sandwall, 2007). The adult educator’s role as an economic subject (Heinemann, 2017) challenges the teacher’s sense of autonomy (see Fejes et al., 2016). Research and debate need to tackle the working life of not only migrants but also their teachers.

Teachers’ Work in European Integration Language Education

Research on second language education as part of integration training that concentrates specifically on the language teacher’s work in Europe is still modest. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to approach the matter from a broad comparative perspective. Existing Finnish studies scrutinize second language teachers in increasingly business-oriented integration training (Kurki et al., 2018; Montonen and Lappalainen, 2017; see also Ruuska, 2020). The work of second language teachers in this setting is considered crucial, challenging the idea of independent language learning in workplaces (Pöyhönen et al., 2009; Ronkainen and Suni, 2019; see also Rasilainen, 2016). Second language teaching should acknowledge adult learners’ varying life situations rather than focus on their cultural and linguistic differences (Kärkkäinen, 2017). Teachers’ support is also central to extra-curricular matters, such as in helping students to build social networks (Kokkonen et al., 2019). In a German setting of integration training, research on second language teachers discusses a similar change of focus from humanistic to more mechanical direction in adult second language education, due to pressure from state-assigned goals (Heinemann, 2017, 2018; see also Gargova, 2017). Teachers face conflicting professional roles and create coping strategies (Becker, 2014). Closely related research in the Swedish context describes a transformative effect of second language instruction for both students and teachers and calls for more opportunities for teachers to influence at the local and national levels (Colliander, 2018, 2019; see also Öbrink Hobzová, 2021).

In the present work, the insight into teachers’ working life is built in an analysis of institutional language (Säljö, 1997). We approach discourse as a “productive and regulative practice with material effects” (Brunila, 2011: 424). In comparing two case settings, we depart from the idea of perceiving similar processes, but also consider differences revealed by comparison (see Lahelma and Gordon, 2010: 126). Conceptually, our aim is to open new zones of looking beyond physical boundaries, within a space delimited by frontiers of meaning (Nóvoa and Yariv-Mashal, 2003: 436–437). We ask: What are the qualitatively different ways in which second language teachers experience challenges in their daily work in Finland and Germany? Consequently: How do the accounts differ between the two national contexts? What are the implications for a European integration education framework?

Adult Second Language Education in Finland and Germany

Recent dynamics in the two European settings of integration training, Finland and Germany, are similar, but their volumes are different. After the peak of ca. 32,500 asylum applications to Finland in 2015, the number of applications dropped to ca. 4550 in 2019 (Finnish Immigration Service, 2020). The share of residents with migrant backgrounds, ca. 8% in 2019 (Statistics Finland, 2020), is the lowest in the Nordic countries (Calmfors and Sánchez Gassen, 2019: 10), a rough third of Germany’s 26% (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2020). Russian stands out as the most common foreign language, followed by Estonian, Arabic, English, and Somali in Finland (Statistics Finland, 2020). In financial terms, integration training has been funded by the state yearly with ca. 82 million euros (National Audit Office of Finland (NAOF), 2018: 11), declining to an estimated 60 million euros in 2020 (Saukkonen, 2020: 114). Completion rates in integration training have increased steadily since 2013 (NAOF, 2018: 13), yet the target language level is often not achieved (e.g. Huhta et al., 2017), remaining at 35% (Audit Committee, 2019). In 2014–2016, the waiting time for Finnish integration training decreased by half. Among key Finnish priorities is to make integration services more mandatory, especially language training (Audit Committee, 2019). In Finland, local integration programs link more tightly with cities’ own strategies than national alignments. The model may not be considered clearly centralist or centrally steered, as evidence lacks in proving that municipalities would actually follow or even seek to follow state-defined choices and implement such policies locally, or that state authorities would strongly steer local integration in a certain direction. (Saukkonen, 2020: 101–102.)

In a decentralized steering model in Germany, the Federal Ministry steers the implementation of policies, but federal states may choose on differing or rather new policies. Also in Germany, some cities have had more active practice of migration policy than federal states (Saukkonen, 2020: 103). A central goal for Germany is to deliver integration courses during the asylum process (e.g. Bach et al., 2017: 58). Since 2015, over 1 million individuals have completed German integration training (Foroutan, 2020), based on immigration policy focusing on fast and sustainable integration of the newly arrived into the labor market (Kosyakova and Sirries, 2017). Research reveals that target language skills influence this transition positively (Bach et al., 2017: 8). Also in Germany, Russian is the most common foreign language spoken, together with Turkish, Polish, and Kurdish (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2019). For 2019, a total reserve of ca. 720 million euros was allocated for integration training (Federal Ministry of Interior of Germany (BMI), 2019). In contrast to the Finnish tendency, German completion rates have decreased in the past 5 years (Deutscher Bundestag, 2019), corresponding to a ca. 50% achievement of the target language in the past years (Federal Office of Migration and Refugees, 2020a: 16). Also, waiting times have almost doubled since 2016 (Deutscher Bundestag, 2019; NAOF, 2018).

The sharp increase of participants to second language education in Germany led to an increased need for a teaching workforce and modifications to their qualification requirements, such as literacy courses (see BAMF, 2019). Societal conditions challenging participants’ settling, such as housing or children’s daycare, intervened in second language instruction. Increased demand for education tightened competition among education providers in both settings, also at the expense of developing collaboration (see Karinen, 2013) and discussing the quality of second language teaching. In both non-anglophone settings, the target languages are formerly less or completely unknown for the participants, with implications for learning progress. Due to little migration to Finland, the professional field of second language teaching is still rather new (e.g. Ruuska, 2020: 24). Development of integration efforts is largely project-based and lacks a longer-term perspective (see Saukkonen, 2020: 104–111; Rasilainen, 2016: 44–45). Research and information on different aspects of Finnish integration services are still dispersed and require nationwide structure and support (Karinen, 2020: 222), especially to inform teacher education in collaboration between national universities (see Pöyhönen et al., 2009: 40).

Categories of Description: Challenges of Teachers’ Work in Finland

A shared key concept to describe all three main categories of the Finnish data is “perceptions” of the practice: language education, teachers’ work, and adult learning. At the time of Finnish data collection in 2016, record volumes of new integration training participants were anticipated, resulting in plans for changes in the organization of integration language education.

Category 3: Perceptions of adult education

Moving from societal and profession-specific perspectives to classroom practices, the third category evolves from challenges pertinent to teaching interaction and preferences. Specifically, problematics of adult education are raised: how is second language education organized as part of integration training, and how does the adult learner profile affect the instruction?

Priorities in language education

Coinciding with the 2016 interviews, a substantial cut in classroom language instruction was about to take effect in Finnish integration training. Aspects related to priorities in implementing second language education emerge in the accounts.

Contact teaching is extremely important. To weaker learners, simply teacher-led instruction is very important, as they do not possess such independent learning abilities. [. . .] Every student needs interaction with the teacher, at every level of the Finnish language.

First, the role of contact teaching is discussed. Its value is underscored from an interaction perspective for students of all skill levels. Language teachers’ support for learning is important from both a skills and a social perspective.

For many, the teacher is the only Finnish person with whom they have daily or closer contact.

Related to the significance of formal teacher-led language instruction for adults—and challenges due to cuts in it—teachers are also at the core of identifying priorities for language instruction contentwise.

Written language skills are needed. We live in a society where one must demonstrate a skill, and the skill must be demonstrated in the local language.

Another relevant angle to challenges in the category is linked with choices in conducting the instruction.

My method is that we operate at a phrase level, right from the beginning. We pay less attention to morphological details; those come along with the phrase context then. This has caused problems. [. . .] Students come from very conservative teaching cultures.

Teachers’ priorities may not correspond to learners’ expectations. This requires acknowledging the potentially differing perspectives on language skills and teaching—in our terms, of differing perceptions of adult learning. Differing priorities may alternatively present challenges perceived from the teachers’ perspective toward the learners, manifesting in attitudes or aptitudes toward language learning.

The problem often is that the students are not themselves aware of the learning process. They don’t realize why they are here in the course, or they think that it’s enough to sit here in class and the teacher teaches. [. . .] This applies quite the same to both very weak and academic students.

Challenges characterized as priorities in the implementation underscore the expertise of the teacher in charge of the courses. The category, however, also exposes the subjectivity of the learner in assessing the meaningfulness of methods. Also significant is the learner’s personal effort, or “priority,” in the endeavor. Both teachers’ preferences and priorities and students’ responsibility in learning lead to further aspects of challenges related to perceptions of adult education.

Dynamics in classroom relations

In continuation of the discussion on prioritizing methods in instruction, problematics due to differing skill levels of adult learners emerge in the accounts:

As we don’t have skill-level groups, we have people here who are highly qualified and with little to none educational background.

Another angle to differentiation reveals the role of group-internal relations:

If the atmosphere in the course is good, quite many activities are possible. Often, however, there are groupings. That makes different group and pair work more difficult. And then there is simply racism among migrants. That too complicates matters. That is something that is less talked about.

Problematics in the differentiation of teaching may not only depend on teachers’ didactic choices but might also be associated with interpersonal relations among students. Finally, within the scope of perceived challenges in adult education, the task of assessment is raised:

Assessment is, I feel, terribly difficult. I do give feedback: great, great, excellent! But to give feedback to a student who doesn’t much come to classes and leaves early, or doesn’t do homework [. . .] really difficult, as we are all adults and there are many everyday scenarios.

In the context of adult education in an integration setting, the pressure for teachers lies in the role of assessment, especially as it affects students’ transitions to further studies and employment.

The final excerpt summarizes the core problematic across all the above accounts. In the institutional setting of second language education, the challenge circles around external and internal frictions: what is expected from teaching (and teachers) and what is expected from learning (and learners). Both actors—teachers and students—enter the “common space of education” from their particular perspective with unique skill sets, attitudes, and motivations. Within learning interaction, each aspires to a goal. For some, the goal is less clear with altering motivations; for others, it is more clearly in sight. All involved work under conditions and perspectives that affect their reaching their goal. Characteristics of the identified challenges (categories) are described in a summarizing outcome space in Table 2.

Table 2. The outcome space Finland.

Table 2. The outcome space Finland.

The Outcome Space: Finland

In Table 2, aspects of the identified categories are presented in relation to other categories. The numbering in the horizontal axis reflects the chronological order in which the categories of challenges merged as the analysis progressed. The vertical axis presents a hierarchical flow from abstract to more concrete: from aspects of the organization of the education to questions of its delivery, mainly related to the teacher practitioner.

Category 1 builds upon a direct relationship between a teacher and an employing educational organization, and further indirectly with external administrative actors. Teachers’ accounts in the category strongly reflect the boundary conditions shaping their daily work. The current state of work is compared temporally, as before and now. The accounts are characterized by confidence in one’s own competence, resonating with extensive professional experience.

Category 2 raises a teacher-internal view on teaching a second language for adults. The birth and development of the professional field are critically examined from a retrospective angle within the profession. The corresponding political and economic climate plays a pivotal role in the accounts of informants, who also, in this case, may be characterized as rather professionally confident and experienced.

Category 3 of accounts is characterized by choices to be made in the daily teaching practice. Challenges derive from both inside and outside classroom activity. The focus is on teacher and learner interaction, including questions on group size and learner profile. The reflection departs from the current moment with reference to the future, with the voice of both experienced and novice teachers.

Categories of Description: Challenges of Teachers’ Work in Germany

At the time of the interviews, toward the end of 2017, a record increase in the participant volumes of 2015 had materialized. The change had resulted in pressure to quickly employ teachers, implicating “fast” teacher training, to produce needed competence according to the Federal Ministry’s standards. Competition among existing and completely new education providers set the framework for the activity. The accounts of teachers describe challenges that, for us, present as prerequisites and psychological factors relevant to practice.

The Outcome Space: Germany

Table 3 presents characteristics of the above-described categories in the classification of characteristics, followed by a summary.

Table 3. The outcome space Germany.

Category 1 culminates in challenges from the outside, deriving from boundary conditions affecting teaching. At the core of the problem is the relationship between teachers and the higher administration setting the goals for education. The temporal focus lies in the present; both the politico-economic climate and the volume and profile of learners are significantly relevant. The practitioners’ sense of ability is limited.

Category 2 reflects both external and internal challenges in instruction. Problematics involve the relationship between teacher and learner and focus on cognitive processes of learning. The political and economic climate is significant in the form of directions received by teachers and affecting learning. Teachers perceive limited professional capability and wish for supplementary professional training. The group size and migration profile of learners clearly affect the delivery of education.

Category 3 is characterized as both external and internal. The current political and economic climate is relevant, indirectly influencing practitioners’ sense of ability. Challenges in teacher-learner interaction also highlight the role of group size in a qualitative sense, underscoring the profile of learners. Relevant work experience and a need for in-service training are significant in responding to felt or anticipated sense of incapability.

Comparison Between the Two National Contexts

To begin with broader terms, challenges in Finland express a worry about maintaining existing good practices in the future, whereas colleagues in Germany struggle with more immediate problem solving in their present environment. In both contexts, challenges derive largely from classroom external factors: in Finland predominantly from administration, in Germany, from students’ personal issues. The unrealistic if not impossible requirements for language teaching identified in both settings emerge in Finland as issues of professional pride and appreciation at the level of the system, and in Germany as immediate practical pressure in enabling learning.

A sense of compromised teacherhood in Finland materializes in a semantic space and coincides with prior research on Finnish integration training (Montonen and Lappalainen, 2017). Teachers in Finland ask not to cut but to develop contact teaching. In Germany, instead of anticipating changes, teachers reflect on a current sense of loneliness under too demanding goals, especially with slower language learners. In Finland, classroom interaction as a social space is described primarily through its benefits for learning, and in Germany as a space for helping the participants, also with extra-curricular matters. Competition among education providers affects both countries. It is criticized strongly in Finland, but its implications for pedagogical priorities are discussed more in Germany, also in the literature (Heinemann, 2018; see also Kurki et al., 2018). The role of learning materials identified in our analysis and prior research in Germany (Becker, 2014: 146; Gargova, 2017: 258) is not present in Finland, though recognized in the literature (Pöyhönen and Tarnanen, 2015: 114). Assessment taxes teachers’ pedagogical preferences, especially in Germany, although test preparations also guide the practice in Finland. Official language tests are recognized as a stress factor in research, as the results determine crucial matters for participants, such as state financial aid, citizenship applications, and decisions for the length of stay (Heinemann, 2018).

The intensity of the student-teacher relationship is identified in Finland, yet the counseling role of the language teacher—even if accepted—emerges more in Germany (see Becker, 2014: 141–161). In discussing the relationship, teachers in Finland raise adult students’ own conscious effort toward learning, while colleagues in Germany describe conflicts. Conflicts derive from teachers’ bureaucratic responsibilities, such as strict recording of attendance, leading to disciplinary actions (Heinemann, 2018), as expressed in Germany. Also, mistaken or over-scaled expectations toward the role and work assignments of the professionals (Castañeda et al., 2018: 144) or the impact of language learning in an integration setting (see Saukkonen, 2020: 18–19) create friction in the second language classroom and challenge the learning effort requested in Finland. For the empathizing professional, the influence of societal phenomena and political decision-making in work increases compassion stress and has consequences for occupational well-being (Castañeda et al., 2018: 144). Teachers try to support students’ learning and foster their well-being but have difficulties in tracking their progress or predicting futures (Becker, 2014; Colliander, 2019: 152–155). This balancing act is accentuated in our findings in Germany, to the extent of affecting teachers’ future career plans.

Implications for a European Integration Education Framework

The present study concludes with European implications. Our recommendations tackle the specific perspective of language education as part of integration training from the experiential perspective of second language teachers. In our interviews, Finnish teachers described a missed momentum in making tacit knowledge explicit for higher administration at the expense of their role in developing the field. Today, to respond to the increasingly common European problematics (see EC, 2020b), we cannot afford to miss hearing what it means to “to take care of the matter” with suddenly peaked volumes and subsequent societal issues, as in Germany. The experience is valuable for fellow teaching professionals but crucially also for the administration. Understanding the multidimensional role of second language teachers within the broader information system of integration services is required for better calibration of expectations and objectives for the work. Stronger multi-stakeholder collaboration among European actors (see European Integration Network, 2021) and exchange of knowledge appreciating the teacher perspective would positively also influence teachers’ professional identity (see EC, 2020a: 11; EC, 2020b: 24).

In discussing implementation priorities, Finnish teachers stress the importance of written language skills, while German colleagues describe generation-wide consequences of guest workers’ limited language education. For future development, we perceive a critical need to defend formal second language education as a forum for developing grammatically correct language skills. Instead of course books, the use of available time should be optimized by differentiating teaching (see Pöyhönen et al., 2009: 44). To accommodate environments, methods, and materials for this purpose, the possibilities of modern technological infrastructures should be considered. Within teacher-led contact learning, interactive language-lab functionalities and increased visuality offer opportunities for more focused group work and individual oral practice to address different learning styles and needs, as well as phonological training. Digital content further offers increased flexibility and multimodality for differentiation, especially when developed by applying expertise to adult language learning and learning difficulties (see EC, 2020b: 22). Such expertise should also inform the development of assessment in collaboration with labor administration (see also Rasilainen, 2016: 47–57).

From a psychological and skills-development angle, in-service training offers a setting for peer support (see Obrink Hobzova, 2021) and tackles, for example, the raised classroom management issues in adult education (see also EC, 2020a: 18–19). Teachers’ sense of loneliness could be addressed in mentoring programs. These would benefit new teachers (Heikkinen et al., 2018), but also the growing freelance workforce (Montonen and Lappalainen, 2017). Personalized efforts may not resonate with all, but rather seeing change in conditions delimiting possibilities of action (see Simola, 2020). Organizations should share external pressure with individual teachers working under “fear of reclamation” (see Becker, 2014). Evaluation of teachers’ performance should acknowledge the impact of labor market conditions on the “outcome” (Table 2). Learners’ slow transitions from integration training to the labor market do not equal second language teachers’ weak performance (see also Saukkonen, 2020: 12–18). Consulting rather than inspecting interventions to educational organizations would inform reform work about conditions that restrict daily teaching activity (see Simola, 2020), in addition to recruiting language teaching experience in the administration. Improvements, such as freelance teachers’ remuneration (BAMF, 2020b), would further demonstrate appreciation of the profession (see, EC, 2020a: 9). Investing in this educational profession implies supporting participation and a sense of belonging, even transformation of individuals and communities beyond generations (see Colliander, 2019).

Reporting an “experienced reality” always implies limitations for a study, as it is based on the participants’ choice of expression and the degree of sharing (Säljö, 1994, 1997). Our position in conceptualizing an educational problem thus differs from participants’ role in fulfilling a professional task (see Kraft and Conroy, 2011: 386) within complex integration services in two different societies in flux. Explicating efficient practices in such a dynamic framework is not easy (Penalva, 2019), but the discourse is needed, as it has material effects (Brunila, 2011). A simulation model on the labor-market integration of refugees promises substantial returns for investments in language education (Bach et al., 2017: 54–58). High-caliber second language education will also benefit work-based migration. Both Finland and Germany need systematic large-scale empirical studies and longitudinal designs to measure the effectiveness of integration services (BIM, 2020; NAOF, 2018: 7). In any setting of the European practice, consequent improvements will be designed, documented, implemented, and ultimately experienced by people. To better understand people—complex as systems and societies—accounts of teacher experience are fundamental.