Due to rapid population ageing, the demand for care workers is a topic of growing importance in the European Union and around the world. In many European countries, a prominent role in meeting the care needs of the older population has been played by migrant workers (Anderson 2012). Many of them are women from Eastern European countries employed as live-in caregivers in private households or as nurses and care assistants in institutional care settings. Migrant care workers tend to have very limited knowledge of their host country's dominant language upon arrival (Haider 2009; Wolny 2016), and therefore need to adapt not only to the new workplace practices and cultural environment but also have to learn a new language. Given the importance of face-to-face interactions and interpersonal relationships in care settings (Walsh & Shutes 2012), it is of particular interest to examine the work-related language learning and use in the context of care migration. This topic, however, has received relatively little linguistic attention to date.
The present study aims to explore how migrant care workers present their work-related language learning experiences and how they position themselves and are positioned by others in their stories. Additionally, the study focuses on the interrelationship between workplace-oriented language learning and occupational development as well as on migrant caregivers' reflections on the role of communication and linguistic competence in the aged care contexts.
To achieve these research objectives, semi-structured in-depth interviews with migrant care workers have been conducted. The study focuses on migrant workers from Ukraine who are employed as live-in care workers, care assistants or nurses in various care settings in Germany, Austria and Italy. The interviews have been conducted in the research subjects' L1, namely in Ukrainian, to enable the interviewees to recount their experiences more freely and in great depth.
Preliminary findings show that Ukrainian care workers, who work in private households, have limited opportunities to practice their host country's dominant language outside the workplace. As regards language learning and occupational development, live-in care workers tend to be particularly motivated to invest in their language learning if they aspire to find employment in institutional care settings.
References
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Haider, Barbara. 2009. "'Später dann, wo ich Stärke und Sprache [hatte], dann hab ich
nachg'fragt...' – Eine kritische Erhebung sprachlicher Bedürfnisse von nostrifizierten Gesundheits- und Krankenschwestern/-pflegern in Österreich". In Peuschel, Kristina; Pietzuch, Jan P. (eds.), Kaleidoskop der jungen DaF-/DaZ-Forschung: Dokumentation zur zweiten Nachwuchstagung des Fachverbandes Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 27-49.
Walsh, Kieran; Shutes, Isabel. 2012. "Care relationships, quality of care and migrant workers
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Wolny, Matthias. 2016. "Mehrsprachigkeit moldawischer Migranten in Italien: Repertoires,
Sprachgebrauch, transnationale Kommunikation". In Ptashnyk, Stefaniya; Beckert, Ronny; Wolf-Farré, Patrick; Wolny, Matthias (eds.), Gegenwärtige Sprachkontakte im Kontext der Migration. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 261-286.
