Guidance as an Interactional Accomplishment Practice-based Learning within the Swiss VET System

Abstract

This chapter analyses how apprentices in the Swiss VET system receive practical instruction within training companies and how they are being supported and guided by experts in the workplace. It does so by paying special attention to verbal and nonverbal interaction between experts and apprentices, exploring the hypothesis that a fine-grained analysis focused on language-in-interaction could profitably inform the conditions in which learning arises from a practice-based training model. The chapter commences with a brief overview of the main issues and problems challenging initial vocational education in Switzerland. It then identifies and illustrates four distinct interactional configurations through which guidance progresses in the workplace: as spontaneously provided, explicitly requested, collectively distributed, or implicitly denied. This empirical and interactional approach, based on audio-video data analysis, contributes to a reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of a practice-based training model as it is implemented in the Swiss apprenticeship system.