MODERN TRENDS IN FINNISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IN SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN FINLAND

Abstract

Secondary vocational education in many countries of the world is important foundation for the development of the national economy, as well as the education and upbringing of the younger generation to train highly qualified specialists and responsible citizens. Since 2018, Finland has been implementing a reform of the secondary vocational education system, aimed at increasing the time spent by students in the workplace, as well as developing individual training plans and recognizing previously acquired competencies. An important part of vocational education is the development of communication and interaction skills, which is enshrined in the Finnish Vocational Education Act. The combination of developing professional and social skills during training is one of the urgent tasks of modern secondary vocational education. At the same time, in recent years there has been a large percentage of migrants who came to Finland who want to get a working specialty, many of whom do not speak Finnish well enough. In this regard, the content of educational programs and textbooks in the Finnish language is changing, the emphasis is on parsing vocabulary from professional situations, complex texts of fiction disappear for analysis from textbooks in Finnish. Finnish teachers are encouraged to teach with linguistic characteristics of students and to encourage the use of their mother tongue in the classroom. Some Finnish researchers and teachers are positive about this trend, but the majority expresses concern about the appropriateness of such an approach. The author of the article briefly reviews the development of the theory and methodology of teaching and upbringing in teaching the Finnish language in secondary vocational education in recent years.