Voicing the challenges faced by an innovative teacher community

This research draws on sociocultural theories of learning and activity theory to explore the challenges faced by an innovative community of teachers in Central Finland. The aim of the teacher community was to develop a stream of foreign‐language (FL)‐mediated teaching and learning in the locality from kindergarten to upper secondary level. To achieve this goal, the teachers needed to form coherent groups within the member schools, as well as between the schools. The aim of this research is to give voice to the challenges identified by the teachers and in so doing give voice to the teacher community itself. Recognising the voice of this community also contributes to a broader conceptualisation of teachers and teaching both within and beyond the classroom. The data were gathered during a number of community activities and thematically analysed to identify recurring challenges the participants identified and encountered. The challenges became manifest in both the talk and activities of the community. The positive teacher responses to the community highlighted the value of this kind of interaction for often isolated teacher practitioners. The wealth of data also produced through these activities suggests that further exploration and development of teacher activity outside of the classroom would be a worthwhile endeavour.