Language needs analysis in Finland

As the scope of this study is limited to Finland, it is meaningful to look into some of the previous language needs analysis studies conducted specifically in Finland. Furthermore, as the present study is limited to professional English and work contexts, the previous studies examined in this section will be focused on that domain as well. The results of the most relevant previous studies have already been presented in section 2.2, as that section covers the themes of English use in Finnish working life. This section focuses on exploring the language needs studies from a methodological point of view, examining how they can be placed into the theoretical framework of van Hest and Oud-de-Glas (1990). The previous studies in the field will thus help position the current study in the theoretical framework, as well as to identify a viable academic niche and thus establishing motivations and points of interests for the current study.

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Huhta (2010: 36–37) writes about the history and implications of language needs analysis in Finland and according to her, language needs analyses have been prevalent in Finland from the 1970s onward. They have previously been conducted for many different purposes, as discussed in section 2.3, by many different institutions and instigators, such as independent companies that want to assess and enhance the language skills of their employees,

universities and universities of applied sciences that wish to develop their language teaching to match the future use and needs of languages in the students’ respective fields, and

government funded projects that aim to assess the language situation on a larger scale and possibly develop national guidelines and curricula (Huhta 2010: 39). Huhta (ibid.) points out that the current trend among language needs analysis research is a shift in the objective of needs: whereas many studies conducted in the last century focus on the objective of need in different languages, the focus has shifted more towards the need in different language skills and situations of language use. For instance, one of her own recent empirical studies on language needs analysis focuses on the objective of different situations and skills rather than the priority of different languages (Huhta et al. 2006).

When it comes to the agency of language needs studies, both user-focused needs analyses and requirer-focused needs analyses have been conducted in Finland. Studies where the informants are the employees working in a certain field using the language represent the user-focused group of studies: Räisänen (2014), for instance, studies the English language competences of Finnish engineers from the user point of view by interviewing the engineers about their language use and perceptions and observing their language use at work. The study of Leppänen et al. (2009) is not a language needs analysis by definition, as it does not explicitly examine language needs, but rather investigates language use from a broader perspective. However, the study can be utilized as a user-focused point of reference for the present study, as both studies look at the language use of Finns, even if the aims of the studies differ. Another example of a user-focused language needs analysis is the study of Kuosa (2020), in which she examines the Swedish language need of Finnish lawyers.

The studies where the informants are the employers, executives or in-service trainers working in a certain field represent the require-focused group of studies, as they have an idea of the

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different tasks or situations requiring language skills in their company. For example, Huhta (2010) examines the effects and uses of language needs analysis to company stakeholders.

Airola (2004) focuses on the corporate language needs in North Karelia, and surveys and interviews the employers in the region. In addition, it should be noted that many of the studies draw from both user and requirer perspectives to achieve a more complete picture of language needs. Lax (2007), for instance, explores the needs for Swedish in a regional study that focuses on Kokkola. The study draws from the user focused language needs analysis, as she uses the interviews of employees from different fields as her methodological approach.

However, Lax (2007) also includes a smaller requirer-focused approach to her study by interviewing a few informants that were responsible for the in-service training of the

organizations in Kokkola. Huhta (1999) studies the language needs in Finnish professional and work contexts. Her study, similarly to Lax’s (2007), has both user- and requirer-focused

aspects, but the main target group and largest group of informants of the study were the employees using the language, who answered a questionnaire about language needs in work contexts, thus making it a more user-focused study. Furthermore, Lehtonen and Karjalainen (2008) focus on the language needs of graduating students in the working life. They use both user- and requirer-focused approaches as well, by employing mixed methods in their study with surveying the graduates with a questionnaire and then interviewing the employers, focusing on the issues that arise from the graduate questionnaire. The present study uses employers and executives as informants and is thus a requirer-focused language needs analysis. They can provide a better perspective of the language needs of a company in general, which better matches the aims of the study, rather than the personal views offered by a single employee of a certain company.

When looked at from the point of view of the object of language needs, various previous studies using language needs analysis in Finland focus on comparing the needs for different languages in certain fields (see Huhta 2010; Airola 2004; Lehtonen & Karjalainen 2008) as previously mentioned. All of the studies in question reach the same conclusion that English is undisputedly the most important and needed foreign language in the work environment, regardless of field or occupation. Therefore, this study takes a different approach and focuses mostly on the English language and its implications and language needs in the work context.

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Regarding the objective of language needs, the present study focuses on the language needs for different aspects of English language skills and different situations in which English is needed. A few of the previously mentioned studies already look into this either from the perspective of English (Räisänen 2014), Swedish (Lax 2007) or all languages (Huhta 1999, Leppänen et al. 2009, Airola 2004). As the different situations for English use in a work context were addressed in the section 2.2, the more specific results of these key language needs studies can be found in that section as well.

Some of the previous language needs analysis studies in Finland have a regional approach.

One of these is the report on corporate language needs in Northern Karelia (Airola 2004), which was discussed in greater detail in section 2.2. It was actually conducted in the same region as the present study, thus offering possibilities for comparing the results in a regional setting. Moreover, most of the discussed relevant and significant previous research in the field (Airola 2004, Huhta 1999) is possibly a little outdated, having been published over a decade ago, thus leaving plenty of room for new research on the topic.