For a teacher, an interim change of work place from formal education to liberal education denotes different challenges, a break in routines, independence and freedom to work. If the interim site is somehow familiar to the researching teacher, it does not take long for him/
her to get acquainted with. When the two research environments have both similarities and differences, as was the case here concerning adult students and their oral English communication studies and the teacher’s role, the research generates what is applicable and useful in both, and opens up new viewpoints and activates development. It seems that the research activities should begin in the interim research site because it provides a good start for researching. One term in such an institute is sufficiently long. A drawback in an interim institute is that there may be limited discussion with local colleagues.
Research implications and further research for the promotion of the proficiency of oral English communication, especially among adults
The course level was announced as A2–B1 but students had interpreted it in many ways.
They had also had many reasons other than the level for choosing this oral English course.
As a result, the students’ English level and the speed of their promotion of oral English varied widely. Nevertheless, the course had to serve its participants so that everyone’s oral English communication would be improved despite their different skills. The research results imply that a study climate that is friendly, positive and supportive gives everyone fairly equal opportunities to everyone for participation in English, thanks to a wide variety of tasks, freedom in speaking and groups of changing sizes and memberships. Most people retained strong motivation to the end of the course and moved from individual learning to individuals as learners in their social environment (see Järvinen 2012, 237).
People come to an English course also because they are afraid of speaking. It is important that they start speaking even if they are afraid of it. The course must encourage people towards this goal. If they do not overcome their fear of speaking, the course may make them more afraid and lose their motivation. A course with a good atmosphere can invite people to converse on their learning, tell about their problems in their learning and about their understandings and assess the learning, which took place for them here. Through these, students become aware of their learning and of themselves as English users, which is important for people who mainly study on their own. Study guidance would be an excellent opportunity for students who study on their own, but people in liberal education may not welcome such guidance. Here the course interviews developed into conversations about learning on the students’ own initiative and showed the usefulness of the interviews as an opportunity for such conversations. Self-assessment from the viewpoint of continuing learning took place. However, not everyone was interested in these and did not find them important. Someone who comes in order to speak does not necessarily get interested in self-assessment and in learning to learn. The explanation of what learning strategies are and conversation on one’s learning strategies can awaken the interest in learning to learn.
Grammar is another topic where opinions and needs differ. Some people know all that is necessary, some others very little. For these and for many other reasons, course conversations on issues like these are both important and useful. The course length of 45h is suitable in a group like this where the participants’ skills differ widely.
Especially liberal but also formal vocational education can benefit from this research in the development of their language programmes, particularly concerning oral English communication, and find ideas for increasing conversation in such programmes. One particular challenge for oral English courses today is that even at these course levels, people also wish vocational English because they use it at work. However, it is a very wide field to cover. For students who enter the UAS through vocational education, this kind of oral English course could be an opportunity for recalling their English, for speaking and for encouragement. This could be helpful for them especially if they have had only few
opportunities for conversation in English. Even though people hear and listen to English, they need opportunities for speaking. It is an issue of identity and identity development.
This research was conducted already in 2004. To describe the command of English among adults in Finland at the time, I cited the results of the Adult Education Survey conducted by Statistics in Finland in 2006 (see Pohjanpää, Niemi & Ruuskanen 2008, 15;
see the first subsection in Part I). The most recent, corresponding survey was conducted in 2012 (see Niemi, Ruuskanen & Seppänen 2014). This research revealed that in the space of eight years, especially the number of people aged 35–44 and 45–54 who have reached the level of independent user, B1-B2, had increased in Finland. When all the levels are considered together, it shows that the amount of people achieving the independent users’
level in English has increased in Finland. Three in ten adults considered themselves as independent users of English but the table shows that there are still many Finns for whom a course like this is still useful.
However, it is obvious that to serve people equally well now and in future, raising the level of a course like this could be a topical issue. It is also worth noticing that the adult education surveys take into account reception, production, constructions and vocabulary and do not refer only to oral English proficiency.
Implications for the independently organised promotion of the teacher’s professional development
In Wenger’s words, “through engagement, competence can become so transparent, locally ingrained, and socially efficacious that it becomes insular: nothing else, no other viewpoint, can even register, let alone create a disturbance or discontinuity that would spur the history of practice onward. In this way, a community of practice can become an obstacle to learning by entrapping us in its very power to sustain our identity.” (Wenger 1998, 175.) Wenger describes utter stagnation but his words suggest that changes are important for learning even when there is sufficient proficiency. Starting research on the teacher’s professional development by leaving a long trodden track for a while for another working environment is rewarding, for example when about ten years of the teacher’s career are left. Even if the change is only a matter of one term, changing one’s place of work and crossing institutional borders from one adult institution to another, in particular among adults, can provide a good point of departure for the continuation of the teacher’s professional development in his/her permanent work. It seems that the benefit comes both from what these two have in common and what is different. However, it is necessary that the researcher can properly attend to the demands of both institutes.
A self-directed research project and its implementation, the possibility to focus on a personally interesting research target demanding attention and research, such as adults and their oral English communication, can have a long-term and broad impact and provide
inspiration. A flexible, not closely predefined research frame suits a teacher’s professional development because it allows new developments on the way. After many years in full-time work, a research period and part-time working is welcome. Such a period gives distance from routines but still enriches and develops the work at the permanent place of work.
When the work is not full-time, it leaves time for self-development, studies and for the analysis of one’s work and provides the impulse for scientific work and for the study of field specific literature. A hermeneutic study obliges the researcher to explore and present his or her initial prejudgement, which gives the research a clear point of departure. Seeing the development as a hermeneutic circle of understanding and not a straight path to knowledge supports the research process. Here the scarce opportunities for discussion with colleagues in liberal education were a drawback, which I could make up for at the UAS after the visit.
In contrast, the students in the other institute – not my own – were a great resource for teacher development. They were different. They had a great capacity for reflection and discussion, they were motivated to study and aware of their learning and needs, which grew during the course. Their lived experience, individuality, stories of language that they told to their teacher taught her much. Among other things, this made me notice such stories as a UAS teacher and listen to them. Good cooperation between the students and the teacher also took the form of offering criticism and proposing better alternatives concerning the course. All of these enriched the teacher’s experience. Furthermore, differences make the teacher more aware of what takes place in a familiar institute.
Carrying out research on the teacher’s professional development does not demand very extensive life changes. Even so, a self-developed project on the teacher’s professional development with a scientific basis updates the teacher’s knowledge of her field and makes the last ten years as a teacher inspiring and rewarding.
Recommendations for further research
An oral English course like this one, based on conversation, could be developed especially with regard to immigrants’ needs and implemented for exploration of the participants’
experiences of such a course and how it has served them and perhaps also teacher development. The idea of this conversational course could be applied to their Finnish studies and its impact explored. Another theme could be “Immigrants and native Finns studying together on an English course”. On this English course there were at least three immigrants but only one of them continued to the end of the course.
Another rewarding theme to be researched could be “Fighting and overcoming non-learning. Language students as narrators”. This English course revealed that foreign language students meet with many difficulties in their studies and have fears but try to overcome them and do not give up. Finding reasons for non-learning helps the students and also promotes the teacher’s professional development. Because language study groups often consist of people whose skills are different, “Research on the existing differences in level
between course members and on the means of alleviating the possible negative influence of these differences on the study group” would be a rewarding and revealing research study. As a long-time teacher of English at the UAS, I find such research useful which explores UAS students as users of English in working life, how they have benefited from the UAS English studies and how they use English later at their work. This would also benefit the language teachers at the UAS.
REFERENCES
(The list of music played on the course during the text reading and as background music is located after References in Appendix 13.)
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