THE LEARNER DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
学習者ディベロップメント研究部会誌

ISSN: 2433-5401
https://ldjournal.ld-sig.org

The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turnfor Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations
Authors: Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila
Title: Reflections on Co-Teaching Multilingual University-Level Language andCommunication Courses
Date of publication online: 2021
Author contact: <riittaNkelly@jyu.fi> & <jussi.j.jussila@jyu.fi>

Published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Learner Development Special Interest Group, Tokyo
http://ld-sig.org/
Copyright 2021 each respective author

The APA citation reference for this paper is:
Kelly, R., & Jussila, J. (2021). Reflections on co-teaching multilingual university-level
language and communication courses. In A. Barfield, O. Cusen, Y. Imamura, & R. Kelly(Eds.), The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turn for
Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations (pp. 57-73). Tokyo: The
Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner Development Special Interest
Group.

Articles are published in the Learner Development Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution
License (CC BY), of which CC BY 4.0 is the most recent version. Under this agreement, authors grant users
the right to unrestricted dissemination and re-use of the work. They ask only that proper attribution
is given to the work.

NARRATIVE ACCOUNT--, The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland <riitta.m.kelly@jyu.fi>, The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland <jussi.j.jussila@jyu.fi>
I

I

N

2020
-

-

-

S
I

11

S

このナラティブ・アカウントでは，フィンランドのユヴァスキュラ大学において高等教育レベルの多言語及びコミュニケーションコースを共同で教えたを振り返る。フィンラン語とスウェーデン語はどちらもフィンランドの公用語であり，また，多くの学生は学校教育の中で英語を学ぶ。現在，ユバスキュラ大学ではこれら3つの言語は一つの多言語コースで教えられている。このコースは，現象ベースの多言語コースにとして共同で計画され，アカデミックリテラシーや多言語インターアクション，リサーチコミュニケーションといった分野を含む。実際には「学生は一つのモデュールで，学術的な論文を英語でみ，要約をフィンランド語で書き，プレゼンテーションやグループディスカッションを
スウェーデン語で行うことがある」 (Jalkanen & Nikula, 2020, p. 119) 。本稿では，まずこれらのコースの導入に至った 緯を振り返り，コースの計画，共同授業そして多言語的なアカデミックコースの構築に携わった筆者らのを，話的なアプローチを通じてリフレクションを行う。
Tässä narratiivisessa kuvauksessa tarkastelemme kokemuksiamme yliopistotason monikielisten viestintä- ja kieliopintojen
opettamisesta useamman opettajan yhteisillä opintojaksoilla Jyväskylän yliopistossa. Suomen viralliset kielet ovat suomi ja
ruotsi, ja useimmat oppivat englantia ensimmäisenä vieraana kielenä koulussa. Jyväskylän yliopiston viestintä- ja
kieliopinnoissa nämä kolme kieltä sisältyvät samaan monikieliseen opintojaksoon. Opintojaksot suunnitellaan yhdessä
ilmiöpohjaisiksi monikielisiksi opintojaksoiksi, joita ovat esim. akateemisen lukutaidon, monikielisen vuorovaikutuksen ja
tutkimusviestinnän opintojaksot. Käytännössä “...opiskelijat saattavat lukea akateemisia tekstejä englanniksi, kirjoittaa niistä
tiivistelmän suomeksi ja pitää esitelmän tai keskustella ryhmissä ruotsiksi saman moduulin aikana” (Jalkanen & Nikula 2020, p.
119). Tarkastelemme näiden opintojaksojen aloittamisen taustaa ja pohdimme dialogisesti yhteistyötä monikielisten
akateemisten kurssien suunnittelussa, yhdessä opettamisessa ja kehittämisessä.

Keywords
co-teaching, university teaching, multilingual teaching, language repertoires, narrative account
共同授業，高等教育，多言語教育，言語レパートリー，ナラティブ・アカウント
yhteisopetus, yliopisto-opetus, monikielinen opetus, kielirepertuaarit, narratiivinen kertomus

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

57

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

It is my first day co-teaching in a multilingual classroom. I feel a little nervous, since I am notsure I remember very well when it is my turn to speak or how the whole situation is going to workwith three teachers. The speech communication teacher starts the session in Finnish. I introduce
myself briefly in English, and the course continues again in Finnish. When it’s my turn, I use
English again to talk about academic literacies. The students do not even look surprised when thelanguage changes, and they present their views fluently in English. After we are done, the written
communication teacher continues in Finnish. We continue the same way through the wholesession. Other teachers pitch in if they have something helpful to add and I do the same for them.

This initial episode describes our feelings during our first class of teaching a restructured
communication and language course, and in this narrative account we, Riitta Kelly
and Jussi Jussila, ill continue the story by reflecting on our e periences of this ne
ay of planning and teaching university-level communication and language courses for
the Bachelor s level students in the University of Jyv skyl , inland. e both ork in theCentre for Multilingual Academic Communication (Movi), hich arranges discipline-specificcommunication and language courses for students of all faculties, as well as exchange
students language courses and support courses open to all students. Riitta has been orking
in Movi since 2002, teaching mainly discipline-specific English courses for students ofall faculties, e change students courses, and support courses. Jussi started as a Japaneseteacher in Movi in 201 , teaching basic courses in Japanese, and more recently he has also
been teaching English for students from various faculties. This new way of teaching, where
teachers of di erent languages cooperate to plan and teach the same course, occasionallyco-teaching in the same class, as both e citing and challenging for both of us.
In this narrative account e focus on our reflections on hat e have e perienced in taking
part in planning and teaching these courses, focusing on multilingualism and its role in theprocess. Our purpose in writing a narrative account is to gain a better understanding of theplanning and teaching of these courses. In our reflection, e ill share our pu les and draout questions raised by this novel way of arranging courses.

The Context and the New “UVK” System
Given that the new system of restructured communication and language courses, (in Finnish
uusiutuvat viestint - ja kieliopinnot, U K for short) di ers in many ays in comparison tothe old one, in order to make our narrative account easier to understand, we will begin witha short introduction to the institutional background and present some reasons as to why thechange was seen as necessary.
The University of Jyv skyl is located in Central inland and it has si faculties and some
1 ,000 students (University of Jyv skyl , n.d.). Each degree at the University of Jyv skyl
includes compulsory language studies following the requirements set by the faculty. Most of
the time these studies include courses in speech communication and written communicationin Finnish (a national language), studies in Swedish (a national language), and in one foreign
language at least, hich often is English. These degree-specific courses are taught by Movi.
Each faculty has its o n language re uirements: There are di erences both in the amountof courses and the languages re uired. or e ample, students from the Jyv skyl School ofBusiness and Economics (JSBE) study Finnish, Swedish, and two foreign languages, andstudents from the Faculty of Mathematics take Finnish, Swedish, and one foreign language(The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication, 2021a; 2021b). English is the mostpopular first foreign language. Other options include German, rench, Spanish, Russian andJapanese, among others. Depending on the student s major, there are -20 language-related

58

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) credits included in the degree.
Currently there are t o di erent systems in force: the language-specific course system herelanguages are taught in separate courses, and the new system of restructured communicationand language courses. In the UVK system, one course can include several languages dependingon the focus of the course. Our new students follow the new system, whilst those students
ho are at the later stage of their studies finish their communication and language studies bytaking language-specific courses.
The di erences bet een the restructured communication and language courses (U K)
and language-specific courses are substantial. Even though e both had previous teachingexperience, it took us a while to get a coherent picture of how the new UVK courses should berun. So, let us continue by explaining the basic principles of the new system.
Teaching English as ell as other languages for academic purposes is a demanding task.
It is important to take into account the general level of English that the students are likely
to have (in Finland B2 in CEFR), and to consider the best ways to teach them the necessarycontent. Thinking about the current situation, Jalkanen and Nikula (2020) have observedthat instead of learning languages separately, the emphasis has moved “to approaching
language as a means of participation in disciplinary knowledge production and literacy
practices” (p. 114). Thus, language and communication teaching also needs to change toreflect the changing needs of university students. Taalas and Laakso (201 ) consider e pertisein the light of recent research, pointing out that “expertise is seen as relational referringto the capacity to work with other practitioners in transdisciplinary contexts that are often
multilingual, multicultural and multimodal. One feature common to all these contexts is thatthey are in constant transition.” In their view, developing the capabilities and competencesthat enable students to cope and work in changing contexts is of vital importance.
The guiding principle of the ne system is not to o er the students a course in a foreign
language but to help them to work within a “study module, in which communication andlanguage studies are integrated with major and minor subject studies, supporting them andenhancing students academic skills (The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication,n.d.). The goal is thus to create courses, hich consist of phenomenon-based courses(academic literacy, multilingual interaction, research communication) where several
languages (Finnish, English, Swedish, etc.) are used based on the objectives of the degree”(The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication, n.d.). Symeonidis and Schwarz(201 ) summari e phenomenon-based teaching as something that invites us to break theboundaries of traditional subject teaching and move toward interdisciplinary explorations ofphenomena” (p. 43). Jalkanen (2017) notes that dynamic multilingualism is a key elementin the process. In practice, an English teacher will teach some part of the content throughEnglish whilst a Swedish teacher would teach another part through Swedish, and the Finnish
teacher in Finnish. Occasionally the classes can be shared so that there may be for example
three teachers present, and then each of them would use the language they normally use forteaching. However, the teachers can also switch between languages themselves.
In an interview (personal communication, January 29, 2021) that Riitta carried out with
Peppi Taalas, the director of Movi, Taalas stated that the course renewal process was started
in 2013, hen it as noticed that the communication and language studies o ered to students
were not necessarily the best match in relation to their studies and future professions. Taalas
further e plained that it as di cult for students to get to the courses hen they needed
them, because the groups were full, and if they got into the course but missed classes, it
as hard to keep up. The courses lasted
eeks so it as di cult to see the students
progress. Also, it as also not clear to the teachers of di erent languages hat other teachers
were teaching, and thus some course contents overlapped.
Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

59

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

In our interview, Taalas summarized the goals of the UVK system as follows:
moving from isolated languages to multilingual repertoires
moving a ay from aeek module structure into a 3-year timeline

better alignment with subject studies
discipline-specific needs and literacies
development of 21st century skills, employability, global citizenship skills (collaboration,
creativity, digital literacy, multiculturalism, agency…) embedded in the modes ofworking and made visible in the learning outcomes and assessment.
To start to achieve these goals, all the compulsory discipline-specific Bachelor s levelcommunication and language courses were combined into a continuum where teachers of
di erent languages orked together to plan and carry out courses that ere targeted to meetthe students needs at the right time. Taalas and Laakso (201 ) summari e the neayof thinking in this process: The development ork aimed at bringing together di erent
languages, as well as combining content and language expertise in the curriculum design.”
Representatives of Movi (then Language Centre), subject departments, and faculties planned
the courses in close cooperation, and the development work was carried out in stages so that
all of the university s si faculties ere included in the ne system by 2020.
In the same interview Taalas (2021) observes that the pedagogical design is based on
iggins and McTighe s (2005) back ard design, here first the desired results are identified,then acceptable evidence is determined and finally learning e periences and instructions
are planned. She explains that the theoretical framework behind the new courses is basedon three core elements: language and literacy (e.g., Blackledge & Creese, 201 Piller, 201 ),expertise and learning (e.g., Edwards, 2011), and educational change (e.g., Fullan, 2001, 2011;
Hargreaves, 2003).
To be specific, planning as undertaken a year before a particular course as intended torun, to give participants enough time to consider the content carefully. The first stage in theplanning with each faculty involved members of the respective faculty, the Movi pedagogicalleadership, and senior Movi teachers. Taking into account the faculty s ishes, a team ofMovi teachers next planned the content of the course, including the allocation of hours per
language so as best to benefit the students of the major subject in uestion. The decisions
were based on how many credit units in total each faculty had reserved for language studies
and the relation of di erent languages in the previous model of language studies. Eventually,collaborative decisions were made after discussions on what were the best pedagogical choices
for each team.
In practice, the teachers of di erent languages looked at the course from a skills-based
perspective and considered together which language would be best to teach a particular topic.
This meant, for e ample, that in the first session of the course the students might meet an
English teacher and a Finnish speech communication teacher, but in the second session theymight meet a S edish teacher instead. During the first session all the teachers, as ell as
the overall course concept, were introduced to the students. Then, throughout the course,
di erent teachers ould teach their individual parts, sometimes co-teaching hen that
seemed a good choice.
The first pilot courses for the ne system ere started in 201 , and the last ere launchedin the autumn of 2020. Most faculties have three courses in three consecutive years: The
first-year course focuses on academic literacies, the second-year course on multilingualinteraction, and the third-year course concentrates on research communication.

60

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

Table 1. Example Music and Arts Course ScheduleLearner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

61

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

To give a concrete e ample of hat our U K teaching looks like, let us briefly introduce
a course schedule for the first-year students in music and arts. This includes the generalthemes discussed in di erent sessions, but not detailed task instructions or deadlines. Rather,it gives an understanding of the overall course progression. In the last column in Table 1, it ispossible to see which teachers are responsible for which sessions.
There are various ways of organizing a course schedule, and this particular course includes
t o 0-minute sessions per eek. On the left hand side you can see hich session is inquestion and next to it, the focus of the session. The main tasks in this course include aconcept analysis written in Finnish and a group presentation in English. The concept analysis
is based on several articles in English and one in Swedish. The group presentation is basedon one of the articles in English, and students are asked to summarize the main points of thetext and include their own critical points of view. On the right hand side of Table 1 you can
see the teachers and the languages present in the class.
Now that we have described how the new UVK system works, we will position ourselves asplanners and teachers of these courses in the context of narrative inquiry.

Teachers as Narrators in a Multilingual Context of Change
or both of us, co-teaching in a multilingual team as a ne e perience. Our first U K course
as Academic Literacies for students from the Jyv skyl School of Business and Economics(JSBE) in 201 /201 . In addition, Jussi has since taken part in planning and teaching theAcademic Literacies course for IT students, and Riitta has been teaching in Academic
Literacies and Multilingual Interaction for Psychology students, as well as planning andteaching Academic Literacies and Multilingual Interaction for Music and IT students. Our
narrative account is based on our experiences of working with these courses.
Co-teaching ith teachers of di erent languages o ers various points of vie to discuss.
hen searching for a research topic, Pitk nen- uhta (201 ) points out that team ork,cross-fertili ation (in the sense of ne ideas being born from une pected combinations), andself-reflection are useful angles to research a topic. Team ork and cross-fertili ation are an
integral part of teaching U K courses, hilst self-reflection is important hen considering
the teaching process and its outcome. Pitk nen- uhta (201 ) also emphasises that, in an
increasingly multilingual environment, classroom practices and multilingualism in relation tolearning materials should be considered. Given that teaching university-level communicationand language courses including multiple languages by teachers who are originally teachers of
di erent languages is a relatively ne concept, e anted to consider our first impressions of
this type of teaching and see ho our understanding and vie s have developed over the firstyears of teaching.
riting a narrative account o ers us opportunities for self-reflection and here e ant toconsider questions such as how do we work as a team, why are we using a certain language ina certain context, who gets to teach what, why, and in which language, how much individual
freedom each teacher has, and ho to motivate students to use di erent languages in class.
Our reflection includes only our perspectives as teachers although e ould have liked toinclude student voices, we do not have the permission to share student feedback here.
Narrative inquiry seemed like a suitable approach for considering our views on the new
way of teaching communication and language. According to Clandinin and Connelly (2000),
narrative inquiry focuses on experiences in the sense that it is trying to understand and makemeaning of e periences. They also mention that reflection is a central tool in maintaining
an educative sense of criti ue and gro th (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 7) about
one s e perience. As teachers, e ant to benefit from reflection in order to gain a clearer

62

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

understanding of what we do and why we do it. However, Pavlenko (2007) warns us against
treating accounts as facts (p. 1 ), and thus e ould also like to point out that the topics
discussed describe our understanding and interpretation of the teaching situations. The points
e discuss reflect our vie s alone and cannot be used to generali e the issues further.
In our riting, e see connections to De ey s concepts of situation, continuity, andinteraction that Clandinin and Connelly (2000) highlight in their discussion of a threedimensional narrative inquiry space. For them, the term situation has to do with place;continuation includes past, present, and future; and interaction encompasses that which is
personal and social. As Clandinin and Connelly (2000) point out, any inquiry can be seen
through four dimensions: inward and outward, and backward and forward. Inward has to dowith feelings, hopes and moral disposition, whereas outward relates to the environment, andbackward and forward have to do with the temporal constructions of past, present and future.
These all play a role in our interpretation here.
Even though narratives can be ritten (e.g., Barcelos, 200 ), oral (e.g., Cotterall, 200 ),visual (e.g., Kalaja et al., 200 ), or geared to ards users of visual languages (Kelly, 200 ), forus writing is the form of communication that comes most naturally, and that is why we chose
to use writing as the medium of communication. In this text we write dialogically, taking
turns to reflect on the topics that e see as meaningful in relation to our U K teaching. Our
aim in riting a narrative account is to gain a better understanding through joint reflectionof how planning and teaching a multilingual course with a complicated structure works,
and see hat kind of pu les e come across hilst riting. ollo ing Barkhui en s (201 )categorization, our joint text can be seen as an autobiographical case study, but since there
are two of us, our text includes multiple narratives. Barkhuizen (2014) furthermore points outthat narrative inquiry has often brought into consideration the themes of identity, context,
and a ect. Given that our narratives only cover a relatively short period of time and are notintrospective in the sense of identity search, our focus is mainly on the teaching environmentand our ay of orking there on e perience and conte t.

Reflections on Our Initial Teaching Experiences: What is Going on Here?
e t, e continue ith a reflective dialogue about our initial e periences of teaching these
new multilingual courses.
Riitta: My first impressions of teaching students of Jyv skyl School of Business andEconomics (JSBE) were a little confused. I had no previous experience of teaching
multilingual courses ith teachers of four di erent subjects, and I as not uite surewhat was going on. It felt a little bit like jumping onto a moving train, and try as theymight, the other teachers did not have enough time to explain the whole concept toa newcomer. In the end this situation led to long conversations with various people
responsible for the project. It was challenging getting an understanding of the big
picture. The materials I was using had been prepared by another teacher, and thatmade the jump both easier and more di cult easier, because I did not have toprepare my o n materials but also more di cult, because I had to adjust my ay ofteaching to a di erent mindset. I had been used to having more time to get to kno
the students, play games, have free discussions about di erent topics and to be able
to do all this in English. Hence, I was also surprised how little English there wasincluded in the course I had got used to orking ith a certain amount of hours
in English only, and now the hours allotted to the course had to be shared between
teachers of other languages as well.
Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

63

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

Jussi:

ommunication ourses

Similarly, it took me a while to understand the idea of the new system, but once I
understood hat it as about I immediately thought that it seemed e cient anduseful from the student s perspective, having recently graduated from the university
myself. I felt that I personally ould have benefited more from this system, and I
was happy to be a part of this change. To give an example, when I was a student, I
postponed my compulsory S edish course until the very last moment, and finallycompleting it as di cult as I had not properly studied S edish in years. Also, hen
I started writing my thesis, I felt that I was still lacking in many important areas
related to the research process and especially academic writing. The courses that I was
no teaching in the U K system seemed to better support the students path throughtheir studies, as they o ered timely support in many areas at once, for e ample,
Swedish, English, and academic reading and writing skills.
rom a teacher s perspective, the courses and materials seemed thoroughly planned,
having been designed by a group of teachers from di erent language groups. I as
also happy to learn from my colleagues outside of my own language group, some ofwhom I had not even properly talked with before. On the other hand, having three ormore teachers teaching a relatively short course meant having fewer hours together
with the students for each teacher. The overall feeling for me in the beginning wasthus a bit fragmented, as I felt that I was only responsible for my own small part, andI had the feeling of not knowing my students as well as on the traditional courses.
However, this was partly due to my lack of experience at the time, as gaining moreexperience in planning and teaching the courses, and seeing the same students in notjust one, but two courses, has already helped to resolve the issue a little.

Multilingualism in Practice
We both have direct experiences of multilingualism in our lives and education. We continue
by e ploring our vie s on using di erent languages in the classroom and provide e amples ofour experiences.
Riitta: Multilingualism is something that has come naturally for me, since there haveal ays been several languages in use in my family. My parents shared language is
Finnish sign language, but they always used Finnish with us children. My husband
is English so our own family is multilingual as well. Given that I have got used toswitching languages all the time in my personal life, changing languages in theclassroom has not been a problem for me as such. The traditional courses havebeen monolingual in English, but no the situation has become more fle ible, so it
is accepted that students use Finnish or other languages in class. Trying to gain aholistic understanding of how the students view the multilingual teaching schemeand the quick change of languages in the class is not so simple, since we see them
only for a little hile and then it is the other teachers turn to teach them. Since mostof our students come from a monolingual innish-speaking background, it ould beinteresting to hear how this works in practice for them.
Jussi:

64

I have also always seen multilingualism as a part of natural communication, possibly
because I come from a bilingual area in Finland, where I got used to hearing andseeing Swedish and Finnish mixed daily. In class, I have never seen a student visibly
surprised by teachers switching languages. The students quickly get the idea andnaturally s itch from innish to English and back hen needed. o ever, I don t
know if this happens as readily with Swedish, as I have not yet taught a class with
Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

teachers teaching in Swedish. It seems to me that this type of teaching and studying
resembles real-life situations more than forcing everyone to stick to one language ina ay that seemed unnatural in earlier English-only classes. In certain situations, thestudents are still required to use, for example, Swedish or English to pass their course
assignments, but situations like discussions, asking questions, and preparing for
assignments, often tend to become more multilingual.
Riitta: I think it is interesting that you highlight the naturalness of multilingual
communication, and that gives you a good starting point as a teacher to be a partof a multilingual classroom. Another point to consider is which languages we use
in the class ourselves. I lecture in English, but maybe because of my multilingual
background, I tend to reply to them in the same language they have used to ask me aquestion. If I am teaching something complicated like how to work the library system,
then I will always do that in Finnish because I think it is unreasonable to expect thestudents to use that kind of vocabulary in English whilst navigating a complicatedlibrary system at the same time. The point is in learning a skill and not getting
hampered by di culties ith the language.
When we have had more than one teacher in class, we have not actually decided on alanguage policy beforehand. The Finnish teachers have used Finnish and I have used
English in lecturing, but both of us have used Finnish when answering questions in
Finnish. When it comes to Finnish teachers I have worked with in these courses, there
has been quite a lot of variation as to whether they have wanted to use Finnish only orwhether they have ventured out to use other languages as well.
Jussi:

That is an interesting point to mention, as I am used to something else. In a class
where I act as an English teacher, I usually answer in English when I am asked aquestion in Finnish. I think that mostly the students are able to understand myanswer even when they are not able to ask the question in English. However, I too
have switched to Finnish when I have clearly felt that the individual student does notunderstand me, and it is in the situation more important to understand what I am
saying than to practice using English. Sometimes in situations where I want to discuss
an assignment with a student or a group in private, I have also used Finnish insteadof English, as I have felt that the students have been able to discuss in a more relaxedatmosphere, and so get a little deeper in their reflections.
To further comment on the language policies in class, a Finnish speechcommunication teacher once taught an entire lesson with me in English
spontaneously, only mixing Finnish in with some key words and phrases. This waswithout us agreeing on anything about the languages used in class. I thought that it
was a great way of demonstrating to the students the way languages can be used tocommunicate and encouraging the students to do the same.

Planning in Multilingual Teams
As we mentioned earlier, planning in multilingual teams is a major part of the process ofdeveloping each course. Planning together can get quite complicated in comparison to one
person planning and teaching a monolingual course. e t, e ill share our reflections about
this aspect of our work.

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

65

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

Riitta: Being part of a planning team has helped me a lot in getting an understanding of
the big picture. It has also made it easier for me to see the common elements. Even
though I enjoy planning by myself, I have noticed that with others it is both more
fun and more challenging, especially if we do not all share the same vision about
the course. o ever, the teachers personal preferences may cause complications if,
for example, two teachers of the same language have the same session to teach todi erent groups but don t agree on hen the materials need to be ready.
Jussi:For me too, it has been a useful experience to develop ideas in a team of teachers fromdi erent fields. Immediate feedback is given and the ideas are developed and refined
further together. I believe that being a ne teacher had a positive e ect on my vieof the process, as I also got the opportunity to learn from many experienced teachers,
hich is something that I anted to do in the first place.

Riitta: It has been really fruitful to talk about things together ith teachers of di erent
languages. We have been able to look at what it is that a student needs to know andfigure out hich language is the best to use in teaching it: the focus should be on thestudents and their needs, not on what the teachers want to teach. Working together
with other teachers has sharpened this focus.
Also, some of our teams are genuinely multilingual so that there are other mothertongues at play besides Finnish and Swedish, and that has given us a chance to see
how we as teachers work in a multilingual meeting situation.
Jussi:

To continue thinking about the multilingual teacher teams, at some point we werealso tasked to consciously decide ho to use di erent languages in planning andworking within the teams. Even before this, I thought that the teams were naturallyable to use a combination of English and Finnish in the meetings to make surethat everyone was able to participate regardless of their language skills. Also, after
spending meeting after meeting in multilingual teams where most teachers switchfrom Finnish to English and back when needed, it seems only natural that we now
o er the same possibility to the students.
The natural conse uence, and at least at first, a do nside, of having several teachersplan and teach the courses is that much more time and e ort has to be spent on
meetings, planning and scheduling, when compared to traditional teaching. Still, after
seeing the benefits of having professionals from several language groups planning thecourses together, to me it feels like something that we should be doing. After using agreat amount of time on planning and improving the courses with other teachers andhearing their feedback and ideas, the idea of completely independent planning seems
more prone to problems for me.

Riitta: Yes, I agree that planning and scheduling has been time-consuming. If you have 3 or
4 teachers in the same course, having more groups means that you might have to add
another four teachers, and trying to get scheduling done with eight people who all
have their di erent teaching responsibilities can get uite complicated uite uickly.
Trying to follo the departments
ishes for scheduling hilst keeping the amount ofteachers in each teaching team reasonable can become a challenging balancing act.
The autumn of 2020 has been particularly complicated as CO ID-1 has meant thatmost of the planning has had to be carried out in Zoom, and that has brought extra
complications to the process. Even though a lot of time has been saved because wehave not needed to travel anywhere to meet, the amount of Zoom sessions per day inaddition to our teaching has made it quite tiring at times.

66

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

The Next Steps
In our continuing dialogue we evaluate our experiences until now, as well as consider whatorks and hat needs to be developed further. e first look at the current situation, then theplanning, and finally discuss future scenarios.
Riitta: I have a better understanding of the current situation, but I am not sure this isgoing smoothly just yet. I no kno ho to run the course, but to have an in-depth
understanding of why certain things are taught in a particular way takes some thinking.
Teaching using another teacher s materials (such as slides) is challenging, both interms of the time that I can spend on a certain task and also in terms of explaining thebackground of the task for the students. However, teaching the same module for thesecond time has certainly helped me to get a better idea of how long things take and what
the students can get out of a particular task. We are meant to use the same core tasks
in each course, but making some small changes, for example in smaller tasks, has got
things to work out more smoothly. If I could start this type of teaching all over again,
hat I ould do di erently is to try to get a clear understanding of the big picture first.
Jussi:In my experience, the courses are useful for the students, but in fact they can seem
clearer for the students than for the teachers in the beginning. The students seemed
to catch the ideas faster than I did when I started teaching the courses. I supposethat this was because the students had been taught by many teachers on the course,
probably giving the students a clearer picture of the course as a whole. Having taught
and worked on these courses more now, I too have a better idea of not only what I
am doing, but also what other teachers are doing, both on the course and in generalat the university. Getting to know all three courses in the UVK curriculum has also
helped me in understanding the big picture of the system. To summarize, I think thatfor a new teacher the system might require some time to get used to, whereas for the
students this is not an issue at all.

Riitta: If I think about planning from the point of view of what works and what needs to be
developed, in my vie it has been a orded enough time so that e really can carry out
discussions on what we are teaching and why. This is of course something that we dowhen we plan new curricula, but our vision needs to be sharper when planning in a team,and we need to have solid reasons why we are doing something in a certain language.
Occasionally it is not quite clear whose responsibility certain tasks related toplanning are, and having several new UVK courses starting at the same time meansthat the sheer number of meetings is high. o the administration has clarified
roles for di erent members of the teams, so that some teachers take on more
responsibility for planning, pedagogical development, and administrative duties, andalso get compensated for it. We now have one or two teachers in each course whose
responsibility it is to help with the administration and keep an eye on the roles thatcolleagues play in di erent course teams, so the system is no
orking in a moreorganized manner.
Jussi:In addition to having resources for planning, having teachers from not only the
English team, but also speech communication, written communication, Swedish,Japanese, German, and so on, in the planning team has been helpful when coming
up ith and refining ideas and pedagogy. Being able to rely on several individuals
and personalities has been, in my experience, perhaps one of the most useful tools
in designing courses. I have had to question my own methods and ways of thinking
often, and have been o ered support and ideas that I had not thought of before.
Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

67

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

Riitta: If I think about moving to the future, and what works and what needs to be developedin the UVK system, then I think this is a question that should also be given to thestudents to answer. Despite shared learning outcomes, individually planned courses
can have uite a lot of di erent elements. Since in UK courses the idea is to use
common materials, that means that students in di erent groups of the same course
will receive the same information. For students who study the same major subject, thecourses are more standardised, but to the teachers who teach in many teams, but are
not part of a planning team, it is not necessarily clear where the language coverage
di erences bet een courses come from.
I miss getting to know the students better, but I have not found a solution to thatyet. Not being able to meet them constantly makes it harder to remember them
individually. Grading has become easier in the sense that now all the courses are pass/
fail instead of the old system, where we gave numbers on a scale of 1–5. Even thoughstudents sometimes miss numbered grades, I would keep the pass/fail system because
we are trying to teach them skills which can be further honed and do not need to bemastered perfectly yet.
Jussi:The UVK courses are constantly developed based on feedback from the teachers,
students, and faculties. The teams that I have been a part of have all held regularmeetings before and after the courses to develop them further, which I see as positive.
In my opinion, having several e perts plan and teach together can support students
learning processes by o ering them di erent perspectives on the course content. The
teachers will at times, whether intentionally or not, partly overlap with each other intheir teaching, hich I think can also benefit the students.
Nevertheless, for me, losing certain individual freedom as a teacher to make choices
has taken some time to get used to, as I have had to get used to following the samecontent, timetable, and using shared materials with other teachers. However, I thinkthat the issue for me as mostly in understanding hich parts of the course are fi ed
and which parts can still be done in an individual way.
Also, in my experience, having two to four teachers teach a course can result in someteachers feeling more distant from the students, as there is a limited amount of timeto spend with them, especially compared to a regular course with only one teacher.
Perhaps this issue is something that we will need to focus on more in the future.

To summarize, it has been interesting to notice during this process of discussing our
teaching that on the whole, after our initial experiences with the system, we both felt
similarly about how it works and what kind of things we believe could be developed further.
Despite the di erences in our age and teaching e perience, e both shared roughly the same
viewpoint when it comes to UVK teaching. We both see planning as an important part ofthe development work that should be given adequate time. Considering that there are fewer
hours per teacher in comparison to the traditional course system, we have also noticed that
we do not get to know the students as well as we have been used to. We noticed some slight
di erences, too. or e ample, for Jussi it took a little longer to get used to the idea of using
similar teaching materials. He was also more likely to navigate through them in his own
individual manner. When it came to planning, though, Riitta had been more used to planningon her own, whereas for Jussi planning as a part of a team was how he started teaching.

Revisiting our Story in Terms of Narrative Inquiry
As Clandinin and Connelly (2000) have pointed out, any inquiry can be seen through four
dimensions. These are inward and outward, and backward and forward: Inward has to do with

68

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

feelings, hopes, and moral disposition, whereas outward relates to the environment, andbackward and forward have to do with the temporal constructions of past, present, and future.
Next, we will summarize our experiences based on these four perspectives.

InwardRiitta: Personally, I feel there is hope on the hori on. The first years have taught me a lot
about this way of teaching and helped me to see what works and what does not.
Jussi:The only way is forward, and I think that the change towards a more multilingual
approach to teaching and studying will take us a step forward and point us to new
directions. Change will often present new kinds of problems on the way, but I believe
it is a necessary part of the process.

OutwardRiitta: The environment for this type of working is supportive and inclusive, especially for
those who are part of the planning team. The structures of planning and teaching arestill developing, in response to changing circumstances. I like it that planning is an
ongoing process, and that we discuss and change things where needed, based on thestudent and teacher feedback.
Jussi:The environment is more challenging as one has to continuously negotiate with otherteachers about most content and pedagogy concerning the courses. On the other hand,the support from peers can also be reassuring and helpful, as there is no fear of being
left alone to deal with the challenges and decisions that each course involves.
Both planning and teaching the courses seem to be becoming more multilingual,as teachers of di erent languages are orking together more than before. To me
it seems that this has, and will, probably change the attitudes and ways of using
languages for both the teachers and the students to ards a more fle ible use of their
linguistic repertoires.

Backward
Riitta: We could learn a lot about the experiences of other teaching and planning teams. Even
though not everything that other teams have done can be repeated, becoming moreaware of their ways of working and what has worked well for them could provide foodfor thought for our teams as ell (and hopefully prevent us from re-inventing thewheel).
Jussi:

I also believe that generally improving methods of sharing experiences, ideas, andpractical matters such as assignment types between language groups and teachers
more e ciently and openly ill improve the uality of teaching overall in ourorganisation.

ForwardRiitta: Looking for ard, hat is helpful is that the structures are so fluid. There is room tothink and rethink the teaching situations in terms of the needs of the students. The
situation ith CO ID-1 has brought ne challenges, as teachers need to be preparedfor di erent ays of organi ing teaching, including making online options available
for students. This has also had an e ect on shared planning, as ell as on course
Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

69

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

content. Doing some things takes more time online, and may cause some elements tobe left out.

Jussi: The work done this far in the UVK is a great basis for improvement and further change
in the future, especially as more and more teachers are now joining the courses
and their planning teams. As constant development of the courses and pedagogy is
encouraged and embedded in the system, I am positive that the courses will support
students needs even better in the future.

Representing and Exploring Our Practices in This Narrative AccountWorking on this narrative account has helped us to discuss issues and understand both
ourselves and each other better as teachers. It has given us an opportunity to process di erent
puzzles in a dialogical manner, which would not have been so easy to do in a traditional
research article. Even though the teachers of the course have discussion sessions after thecourses have been run, they tend to be based on factual information and what needs to bedone ne t, and there is very little time for personal professional reflection. riting thisnarrative account has forced us to stop and consider di erent issues from our o n individual
points of view. Our writing process has proved to be multilingual, too, in that we havewritten everything in English since the beginning, but then discussed the points together
in Finnish. The four dimensions suggested by Clandinin and Connelly (2000) proved to be
helpful in assessing the situation, and the new ideas from considering those dimensions
could be taken into account when planning the courses further. We fully understand thatthese considerations reflect the vie s of t o teachers only. e also see it as important thatstudents voices could be represented in order to get a more comprehensive picture of ho
the U K courses ork. o ever, looking at our first e periences of co-teaching multilingual
communication and language courses, we could sum up our views as follows:
Riitta: On the whole, I would say that there are several opportunities included in the system,
but it s up to teachers to make sure they are reali ed. o ever, instead of claimingthat too many cooks spoil the broth, I would say that there is every opportunity forthe situation being uite the opposite instead of too many cooks spoiling the broth, I
would say the more, the merrier!
Jussi: The courses take place at the right time in the students undergraduate studies andthey aim to support their academic needs, tailored to each faculty. In my opinion
then, this change, ho ever potentially time-consuming and challenging at first forteachers, ill benefit both students and teachers.
The process of writing the narrative account has also provided us with new questions,issues, and puzzles to consider, some of which are:Should we discuss and have a joint language policy in the classroom for teachers forpedagogical reasonso could e find a good compromise hen it comes to arranging scheduling so thate take into account the departments
ishes but manage to keep the number ofteachers in each teaching team sensibleo most departments prefer very similar
teaching times, which causes overlap, and the need for new teachers grows.
e do not get to kno

70

the students as

ell as in a language-specific course, because

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

there are fe er sessions per teacher. In a language-specific course e might see thestudents once or twice a week, whereas in a UVK course we might have several weeks in
between seeing the students.
How could we better take into account those students who need extra support in classand ho could e better spot them Given that the students have less contact ith anindividual teacher, it is easy for the teacher to overlook those students who do not ask
for help by themselves.
Even though we may not yet have answers to the previous questions, we would like toconclude our narrative account ith the follo ing reflections:
Jussi:

riting the narrative account has given me a chance to stop and reflect on
multilingualism, and provided a theoretical framework within which to further
consider various issues related to it. Writing has helped me to see the value andpurpose of multilingual elements in our teaching that I have been doing for years,
but have never properly looked at from a theoretical perspective before. I have also
been able to describe and analyze certain issues in the current system and understandwhere in practice it is possible for me to improve. In the end, writing a narrative
account has been a comfortable way to explore the issues for me, as I have been able
to use my o n voice and dialogue to reflect on the issues.

Riitta:or me, too, the most di cult, but at the same time also the most useful part has
been that I have been forced to stop and think about what it is that I am doing andhy. Especially during this study year marked by CO ID-1 , the focus of various
meetings with other teachers has been on how to get things done. Writing thisnarrative account has given me a perspective to what we are doing as teachers, and it
has helped me to consider various points in teaching and planning. The analysis has
similarly provided me with a framework and a place to locate myself on the map. At
the same time it has highlighted to me ho much this type of teaching isand verymuch should be a ork in progress, developing over time.

Author Bios
Riitta Kelly teaches English at the Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication (Movi),and is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at the University of Jyv skyl . er current
research interests include university students learner beliefs, Japanese e change students
linguistic repertoires, and topics in educational technology.
Riitta Kelly opettaa englantia Monikielisen akateemisen viestinn n keskuksessa (Movi)
Jyv skyl n yliopistossa, jossa h n on my s soveltavan kielitieteen jatko-opiskelija.
nentutkimusintresseihins kuuluvat yliopisto-opiskelijoiden oppimisk sitykset, japanilaisten
vaihto-opiskelijoiden kielirepertuaarit sek koulutusteknologiaan liittyv t aiheet.
Jussi Jussila teaches Japanese at the Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication (Movi)and English and Japanese at Centria University of Applied Sciences. His current researchinterests are internationality in higher education and digital teaching methods.
Jussi Jussila opettaa japania Monikielisen akateemisen viestinn n keskuksessa (Movi)
sek englantia ja japania Centria ammattikorkeakoulussa.
nen t m nhetkiset
tutkimusintressins ovat kansainv lisyys korkeakouluopinnoissa ja digitaaliset
opetusmetodit.

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

71

Re ections on o Teaching Multilingual University evel anguage an

ommunication ourses

Review ProcessThis paper as open-revie ed by Katherine Thornton, Simla Course, and Tim Ash ell.
(Contributors have the option of open or blind review.)

References
Barcelos, A. M. . (200 ). Learning English: Students beliefs and e periences in Bra il. In P.
Kalaja, V. Menezes, & A. M. F. Barcelos (Eds.), Narratives of learning and teaching EFL (pp.
35). Palgrave Macmillan.
Barkhuizen, G., Benson, P., & Chik, A. (2014). Narrative inquiry in language teaching and learning
research. Routledge.
Blackledge, A., & Creese, A. (Eds.). (2014). Heteroglossia as practice and pedagogy. Springer.
The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication. (2021a, January 11). UVK (Uusiutuvat
viestint - ja kieliopinnot) tutkintovaatimukset 2020 2023 Degree regulations of therestructured communication and language studies in 2020–2023]. https://movi.jyu.fi/fi/
ohjeita/tutkintovaatimukset/jsbe/uvk
The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication. (2021b, January 11). UVK (Uusiutuvat
viestint - ja kieliopinnot) tutkintovaatimukset 2020 2023 Degree regulations of therestructured communication and language studies in 2020–2023]. https://movi.jyu.fi/fi/
ohjeita/tutkintovaatimukset/matlu/uvk
The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication. (n.d.). U K - Restructured
communication and language studies. https://movi.jyu.fi/en/development/uvk
Clandinin, J. D., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative
research. Jossey-Bass.
Cotterall, S. (200 ). Passion and persistence: Learning English in Akita. In P. Kalaja, .
Menezes, & A. M. F. Barcelos (Eds.), Narratives of learning and teaching EFL (pp. 113–127).
Palgrave Macmillan.
Edwards, A. (2011). Building common knowledge at the boundaries between professional
practices: Relational agency and relational expertise in systems of distributed expertise.
International Journal of Educational Research, 50(1), 33–39. https://doi.org/10.101 /j.
ijer.2011.04.007
Fullan, M. (2011). Change leader: Learning to do what matters most. Jossey-Bass.
Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change (3rd ed ). Teachers College Press &Routledge Falmer.
Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society: Education in the knowledge society. Open
University Press.
Jalkanen, J. (2017). Monikielist pedagogiikkaa yliopiston viestint - ja kieliopinnoissa[Multilingual pedagogy in the university communication and language studies]. Kieli,
koulutus ja yhteiskunta, 8(5). https://.kieliverkosto.fi/fi/journals/kieli-koulutusja-yhteiskunta-lokakuu-2017-2/monikielista-pedagogiikkaa-yliopiston-viestinta-jakieliopinnoissa
Jalkanen, J., & Nikula, T. (2020). Redesigning the curriculum to develop multilingual
academic literacies: An analysis of language conceptualizations. In M. Kuteeva, K.
Kaufhold, & N. Hynninen (Eds.), Language perceptions and practices in multilingual universities(pp. 113–135). [Ebook]. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kalaja, P., Alanen R., & Dufva, . (200 ). Self-portraits of E L learners: innish students
draw and tell. In P. Kalaja, V. Menezes, & A. M. F. Barcelos (Eds.), Narratives of learning andteaching EFL (pp. 1
1 ). Palgrave Macmillan.

72

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Riitta Kelly & Jussi Jussila

Kelly, R. (200 ). Seeing English through signing eyes: innish sign language users vie s on
Learning English. In J. Kalliokoski, T. ikko, S. Pyh niemi, & S. Shore (Eds.), Puheen ja
kirjoituksen moninaisuus – Variationsrikedom i tal och skrift = The diversity of speech and writing(pp. 1). A inLA yearbook 200 (Suomen soveltavan kielitieteen yhdistyksen julkaisuja
7). https://journal.fi/afinlavk/article/vie / 000
Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied
Linguistics, 28(2), 1 3 1 .
Piller, I. (201 ). Linguistic diversity and social justice: An introduction to applied sociolinguistics.
Oxford University Press.
Pitk nen- uhta, A. (201 ). Multilingualism in (foreign) language teaching and learning. In
G. Barkhuizen (Ed.), Qualitative research topics in language teacher education (pp. 137 1 ).
Routledge.
Symeonidis, ., & Sch ar , J. . (201 ). Phenomenon-based teaching and learning throughthe pedagogical lenses of phenomenology: The recent curriculum reform in Finland. Forum
Oseiatowe, 28(2), 31–47.
Taalas, P., & Laakso, M-L. (201 , ebruary 1 ). Rethinking language and communication
skills in curriculum development. European University Association. Expert Voices. https://eua.eu/resources/e pert-voices/ :re-thinking-language-and-communication-skills-incurriculum-development.html
University of Jyv skyl . (n.d.) Introduction and key figures. Retrieved June 13, 2021, fromhttps://.jyu.fi/en/university/introduction-and-key-figures
Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Association for Supervision &Curriculum Development.

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

73