Producing work ready graduates has been a priority for universities admitting international students. This has motivated tertiary institutes to incorporate the required capabilities into teaching and learning so that they address the changing demands of workplace needs.
This paper drawing on a community of practice perspective (Lave and Wenger, 1991) shies away from the linear conceptualization of capability which regard capability as commodity and argues that capability should be understood as a dynamic social construct. Using a narrative inquiry methodology, 120 narrative frames were collected from international students with English as an additional language in three different undergraduate programs in a New Zealand tertiary institute. The students in this study produced stories by reflecting on and sharing their experiences about their developing capabilities in their new academic contexts, their perceptions about what makes them employable in the New Zealand workplace context, and what they think they could do in the future with the capabilities they learned during the process (Barkhuizen, 2011, p.422).
The analysis of findings showed the involvement of three axes (1) the construction of new L2 identities by the students in relation to the new educational environment provided by New Zealand tertiary institute's social and cultural space; (2) the international students’ construction of (embryonic) work-ready professional identities; and (3) the role played by the tertiary institute’s social and cultural space in joining those two identities.
The paper further extends the community of practice perspective by looking at ways students engage with the expected capabilities to become work ready. Yet, drawing on Lefebvre’s concept of social space (Lefebvre, 1991), the paper critically engages with Lave and Wenger’s concept by spatializing the community of practice perspective. Finally, the paper stresses that the social and cultural aspects of any kind of learning space must be taken into account when analysing students’ engagement with the learning of capabilities and the identity changes that may come along with such experience.
