International Conference: language education for sustainable development

Dr. Micha Fleiner is a research assistant at the University of Bremen, Faculty 10: Linguistics and Literary Studies (FB 10).

Daase, A. & Fleiner, M. (2024). Integriertes Fach- und Sprachlernen in der Pflegeausbildung als Beitrag zur Fachkräftesicherung und gesellschaftlichen Teilhabe. bwp@ Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik online Spezial HT2023: Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung 2023, 1–18. https://www.bwpat.de/ht2023/daase_fleiner_ht2023.pdf
Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning. Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom (2. Aufl.). Heinemann.
Reckwitz, A. (2003). Grundelemente einer Theorie sozialer Praktiken. Eine sozialtheoretische
Perspektive. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 32(4), 282–301.

Strengthening the linguistic participation of – increasingly international – trainees plays a key role in nursing education in the migration society. Trainees – especially with recent migration experiences – are confronted with communicative challenges in nursing school and practice. Additive approaches to language support are detrimental to participation as they have an exclusionary effect. Instead, it is necessary to develop linguistic participation in an integrative contextually embedded way with the involvement of all stakeholders. The interdisciplinary research and development project Strengthening Linguistic Participation in Nursing Education (STePs) – Nursing School and Practice as a Learning Opportunity (10/2022–09/2025) pursues this aim by creating a linguistically supportive environment at both learning sites (school and workplace) based on the principle of scaffolding (Gibbons 2015).
Methodologically, a combination of document analyses, observations, audiographies and group discussions (reconstructive-qualitative paradigm) is used to gain insights into the linguistic needs and to reconstruct social practices (Reckwitz 2003) that hinder and support linguistic participation.
Although first results show that learning sites (school and workplace) in nursing education offer opportunities for linguistically supportive teaching and practical guidance, these are not yet being taken into account. This is seen as one reason for trainee dropouts and prevents or at least severely restricts the young peopleʼs participation in society (Daase/Fleiner 2024: 1). On the one hand, these first results illustrate the need for training programs for teachers and practice guides. On the other hand, they show that linguistically supportive teaching can be integrated into existing didactic concepts in nursing education.
To ensure the mutual transfer of findings, the next step is to develop concepts for strengthening linguistic participation with the aim of implementing such concepts in further training measures for nursing teachers and practice guides. In this way, the STePs Project contributes to the transformation of nursing education and thus to sustainable development.