Multilingualism and the role of German in studying at Finnish universities from the viewpoint of students

Abstract

In most academic disciplines, German has lost ground – just as many other foreign languages other than English. Especially in scientific publishing, English has become the most important language (Skudlik 1990, Wilson 2002). In addition, the aim of internationalisation in higher education is to increase the number of international degree programmes in “foreign” languages for undergraduate and MA students, and in practice this foreign language is today English (Ammon & McConnell 2002, Wächter 2008).

The aim of our study was to examine the impact of this development of English becoming the dominating lingua franca in academia on the use of different languages in studying at Finnish universities. We were particularly interested in the attitudes of students toward multilingualism for study purposes. Because German has traditionally played an important role in Finland (Hiedanniemi 1980, Piri 2001), our main emphasis was on the questions of how widespread the knowledge of German still was among students, and how they judged the role of German in their disciplines. In addition, we assumed that in the times of increasing student mobility – with Germany as the most popular target country for Finnish students – oral skills in the target language were of crucial importance in making such an exchange a fruitful experience. Therefore, we claim that special attention should be paid to the preparation of students for the communicative challenges at the target university already in their home country. Another aim of our study was, consequently, to examine what type of proficiencies such preparation for studying in a German-speaking country should focus on. For this purpose, students were asked to evaluate their skills in German, and those who had participated in an exchange programme at a German-speaking university were asked about their motives for choosing the host country as well as for their experiences and possible culture-bound differences in communicative study practices compared to Finland. Our research questions for the study at hand were:

1. What is the role of multilingualism in studying at Finnish universities? 2. What is the role of German in studying at Finnish universities? 3. What are the challenges for native speakers of Finnish in German oral communication? 4. What differences were observed in discursive practices of the German-speaking countries and Finland?

Our study is part of the project German as a vehicular language in Finland that focuses on the role of German in academic and business contexts. The present study is part of the first project phase in which surveys among students and staff at universities as well as in enterprises in Finland are conducted to examine attitudes toward multilingualism and the role of German. In the second phase, audio-visual recordings of authentic situations are planned to gather empirically verified insights into the variety of oral communicative practices in different disciplines, branches, and genres. The results of the project aim to contribute to the development of new pedagogical concepts that may help to further the motivation to learn languages other than English. We also hope that they will provide stimuli for national and international political debates on the role of different languages.

Our survey was sent to over 20 000 students in May 2008 as an onlinequestionnaire. Within three weeks, we received 3516 answers (response rate 17.3 %). The questionnaire consisted mainly of closed questions with possibilities for open comments. In this study, we can only present some of the results. Our emphasis was on the closed questions, and open comments were used only to illuminate the quantitative results. The results show that the majority of the students (83 %) judged multilingualism as important or very important. However, because multilingualism was not more closely defined one can assume that for many students it meant using English in addition to their mother tongue. This assumption is supported by the fact that two thirds of the respondents had “at least some” knowledge of German but it was used by only a third of them for study purposes whereas English was used by almost everyone (“mostly – seldom”). Considering the status of Swedish (which was used “mostly – seldom” by about 57 %) as the second domestic language in Finland, German is still the second most important foreign language at Finnish universities but the majority of the students (53 %) regarded the knowledge of German as of minor or no importance in their disciplines.

At German-speaking universities, German was still the main language of studying, and especially oral skills were judged to be of greater importance than in Finland. Finnish students used oral German especially often in semi- and unofficial situations such as for organising study-related affairs or in conversations with students and staff of the host university. Also in actual study situations (such as lectures or seminars) the importance of oral skills was considered great. These results imply the need for preparing exchange students for their stay in a German-speaking country, especially with regard to oral skills. This preparation should also focus on culturebound discursive strategies because expressing opinions was judged as being more commonly expected in German-speaking countries and their communicative culture regarded as more aggressive than that in Finland.

The data collected in our survey can be characterised as off-site data, and the results reflect the perceptions of students. Only an analysis of on-site data, i. e. recordings of authentic study situations, would offer possibilities for finding out what these perceptions are possibly based on. The compilation of a corresponding openaccess corpus for oral study situations is being planned.

Our study shows clearly that the use of foreign languages other than English is rather uncommon in studying at Finnish universities. Even though the use of one lingua franca has many advantages one must ask whether the current development toward the use of a single foreign language at Finnish universities is desirable and what advantages a more multilingual practice would have to offer. At least in the past, scientific cooperation over language borders has proved highly fruitful. If academic multilingualism is to be promoted, possible ways to achieve this goal have also to be considered. Among the reasons for the dominance of English in academic contexts are also, undoubtedly, diminishing possibilities to choose foreign languages to study at Finnish schools and the decreasing number of learners of foreign languages (other than English), which mutually depend on each other. Compared to the EU average, German as a foreign language is studied relatively more frequently in Finland but while the number of learners is increasing in the EU average, it keeps on decreasing in Finland.

Learning different foreign languages should, in our opinion, be started as early as possible to provide a solid foundation for dealing with academic contents at the university. At least elementary language skills that two thirds of the respondents in our study mentioned of having obviously do not motivate them to use the language for study purposes. Universities and other institutions of higher education should, for their part, promote multilingualism more actively, and award students and staff who possess versatile language skills and also use these languages for study and professional purposes.

It is in any case gratifying that Finnish exchange students mentioned as their main reason for the choice of a German-speaking host country their wish to learn better German. This confirms our previous results (Ylönen 2006) and is in line with a survey conducted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMWF 2008) according to which improving German language skills was mentioned as the main reason for studying in Germany. In view of the international promotion of the role of German, the tendency observable at German universities to increasingly offer Englishspeaking degree programmes appears counterproductive. Universities and other institutions of higher education in German-speaking countries should be aware of this in their aspirations for internationalisation.