What is it about?
Cleaning is a typical entry-level job for newly arrived immigrants due to flexible language requirements and labor shortages in the field, and many of the migrant employees would like to move on to work that would meet their education. Therefore, it is important to explore the language learning opportunities in these entry-level jobs. This study explores what opportunities and constraints there are for a migrant working as cleaner in Finland to learn Finnish in his cleaning job.
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Why is it important?
The study indicates that cleaning work might offer only occasional opportunities for interaction in the workplace. Therefore, the opportunities for language learning in cleaning work may be rather limited, and cleaning may be a dead-end job for migrants.
Perspectives
This study uses an ethnographic case study approach to explore opportunities for language learning in cleaning work. Also the constraints hindering learning are considered.
Maiju Strömmer
Jyvaskylan Yliopisto
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Affordances and constraints: Second language learning in cleaning work, Multilingua, January 2016, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/multi-2014-0113.
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