Internationalization of Finnish higher education — is language an issue?

Abstract

Finland is among the countries with the highest amount of English-taught programmes in higher education in Europe (Wächter and Maiworm 2008). This article analyses, how the higher education language situation of a small country with a marginal majority language (Finnish) and an official bilingual status (Finnish and Swedish) has historically developed from the setting of "drawing the line" between Finland and Sweden or Finland and Russia (Harle and Moisio 2000) in the 19th century and the early 20th century (nationalism), towards drawing the line between Finnish/Swedish and English in the late 20th century (globalization). It then continues to present a case of foreign language (in practice English) programmes in higher education as an example of the globalization development in Finnish higher education. The data for the article consists of the internationalization strategies for Finnish higher education, The Finnish International Study Programme Database, and introductory texts from four universities' and four polytechnics' International BA and MA programmes.

English-Medium Instruction in European Higher Education

“…Intensive language study and the acquisition of skills required for working in an international cultural environment will be an integral part of the preparatory training of all members of the teaching staff at institutions of higher education (Internationalisation Strategy 2006 Indeed, out of the 6,124 words in the paper, "English" appears only three times, whereas "foreign language(s)" is mentioned nineteen times. Saarinen (2012) has found similar results regarding the Finnish context, and I shall return to this question in the discussion section below.…”

“…This may be the only way to make subjects taught in foreign languages other than English more popular, as the higher cognitive demand of university contents seems to make students reluctant to join these courses, which leads to the pre-eminence of English as the only foreign language at universities such as the UBC. Although the internationalisation of higher education institutions should inherently imply the spread of multilingualism, current experiences (Bocanegra-Valle 2013; Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2013a;Llurda, Cots, and Armengol 2013;Saarinen 2012; indicate that this is not the case.…”

“…This could be why the use of the more imprecise label 'foreign languages' instead of named languages (and in particular English) is favoured. However, not unlike Saarinen's (2012) interpretation of it, there are many other reasons that come to mind for understanding this preference. Firstly, using such a label is a means of fostering flexibility and variability in the HE context.…”

“…Policymakers, if only implicitly, seem conscious of it. Nevertheless, adopting more specific and more clearly defined policies at that level would be helpful in order to avoid the paradox that internationalisation forces seem to pose (Risager 2012, Saarinen 2012 and to prevent this from driving the system towards language homogeneity, rather than plurality. On seeing the question more optimistically, this might lead to an increased variability and an enhanced degree of plurilingualism among HE students and staff, with richer and more heterogeneous language repertoires.…”

“…A content analysis of Estonian HE policy documents was conducted with an emphasis on: (1) those documents containing relevant goals and measures related to language(s) and the internationalisation of HE; and (2) an analysis of the "position of languages" in them (Saarinen 2012). According to Kroos (2013: 32), Hogwood and Gunn (1981) set apart different kinds of (i) policy studies and (ii) policy analyses.…”