In Norway, all subjects in vocational education and training (VET) must be passed in order to obtain a certificate of apprenticeship (Opplæringsforskrifta, 2024, § 9-48). Among these subjects is English, a subject in which students are expected to have a high level of English competence, based on ten years of learning English in primary school. These expectations are also placed on newly arrived students who have not learned English before coming to Norway. In other words, there is a lack of specific policy to meet the unique needs of students who do not have a background from the Norwegian school system. In this article, we shed light on the clash between English proficiency requirements in Norwegian vocational education programs and the life experiences of newly arrived students. More specifically, we examine how VET as a particular configuration of time and space, a chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981), interacts with the English subject and can lead to schizochronotopic experiences (Hadži-Muhamedović, 2018) for the newcomers and their teachers – experiences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The article is based on linguistic ethnographic fieldwork investigating the transition from combination classes to vocational education programs for newly arrived students. The empirical material consists of field notes and interview transcripts. The analysis shows that English is perceived as a significant barrier in the education for many of the newly arrived students, and that schizochronotopic tensions characterize both students’ and teachers’ experiences with the subject. We conclude that English needs to be developed into a more differentiated subject that not only reflects Norwegian chrononormativity, but that can also accommodate and take into account all students in VET, regardless of background. ©2025 Author(s).
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