| 1. |
- Bigestans, Aina, 1953-
(författare)
-
Utmaningar och möjligheter för utländska lärare som återinträder i yrkeslivet i svensk skola
- 2015
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral dissertation investigates the challenges “foreign teachers” experience in the encounter with the Swedish school and the possibilities they have to manage challenges and to establish their legitimacy. The participants of this study were newly employed in the pre-school, the primary school and the secondary school.The material includes interviews with 21 teachers and complementing observations at the workplaces of five of these teachers. Principals and colleagues have also been interviewed as well as administrators and teacher educators of supplementary teacher training programs.The shift of language of instruction was reported as causing challenges and demanded time and energy from the teachers in preparing the lessons. Here the teachers mentioned knowledge and correct use of the subject specific vocabulary and the ability to use everyday language in the process of building a bridge to the language of the subjects. Difficulties in the interaction with colleagues and parents were reported; when being positioned as less competent due to their second language speaker status. Some examples also reveal that everyday interaction demands knowledge of social practices that are not always familiar to these teachers.The value of individual assets (e.g. professional experience, profound subject knowledge and multilingualism) is enhanced when school principals recognize the resources of these teachers and make use of them in the communities of practice at school.In using activity theory, difficulties in the interaction with students or problems with questioning parents could be analyzed with regard to communities of practice, rule systems or division of labor in the activities of the school.This thesis emphasizes the importance of a critical discussion of existing norms, values and hierarchies in local school contexts if schools in Sweden in general are to be seen as learning and working contexts for teachers as well as students of all backgrounds.
|
|
| 2. |
- Rydell, Maria, 1980-
(författare)
-
Constructions of Language Competence : Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Assessing Second Language Interactions in Basic Adult Education
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The current thesis is concerned with constructions and perceptions of what it means to be ‘a competent language user’ in the context of a language programme in basic Swedish called Swedish for Immigrants (SFI). A particular focus is given to the testing and assessment of oral interaction. The prevailing communicative approach to language teaching and testing makes it relevant to investigations of both language use and reflections on communicative experiences. The thesis is based on three studies. Drawing on insights from linguistic anthropology, multimodal interaction analysis, phenomenology and social theory, the three studies address different sociolinguistic perspectives on language testing and assessment. Whereas Studies I and II investigate paired speaking tests in the final national exam in SFI as a speech event, Study III builds upon focus group discussions with SFI participants with the aim of exploring the participants’ reflections on communicative experiences. Drawing on linguistic anthropological performance theory, Study I makes the case that the paired speaking tests can be analysed as staged institutionalized performances that put speaking and ideologies on display. Study I draws on an analysis of sequences in the test data where the participants expressed beliefs on language learning, language use and language competence. One important resource for the test takers to maintain the discussion in front of the examiners was to draw on dominant discourses on language and integration, such as stating the importance of learning Swedish, speaking only Swedish, attempting to find Swedish friends and taking responsibility for one’s learning, making testing practices an important site for the reproduction of such discourse. The orientation to being ‘a competent language user’ was performed by indexing other images of being ‘a good student’ and ‘a good immigrant’. Study II takes an interactional practice in the paired speaking tests, word searching sequences, as its starting point. Word searches tap into two aspects of communicative language testing: vocabulary knowledge and the ability to negotiate meaning and solve interactional problems. The test takers drew on different embodied semiotic resources to negotiate participation and meaning or to display an avoidance to participating in the fellow test taker’s word search. Overall, the participants prioritized the progressivity of talk over lexical precision. By avoiding using languages other than Swedish during the test, the test takers sustained and constructed a monolingual orientation to language competence. Study III discusses how the SFI participants’ lived experience of language constituted their understanding of what it means to be ‘a competent language user’. Accordingly, the participants’ comments primarily constructed a view of competence as made relevant through and being shaped in social interactions, making language competence a primarily relational construct. Corroborating the relational construction of language competence was the importance given to language assessments, both those made by others and internalized self-assessments. In the focus group discussions, overall, being ‘a competent language user’ was oriented to as a desired, but yet unstable and vulnerable subject position. Taken together, the three studies address ideological, embodied, emotional and relational perspectives on language and language competence. By contrast, language testing practices are built upon a view of language competence as an individual and objective ability that can be measured. The main conclusions drawn in the thesis are that testing and assessment practices constitute a social practice where perceptions and constructions of language competence are constructed and regimented metapragmatically as well as interactionally. Furthermore, embodied experiences of language assessment made in institutional and everyday practices make competence a powerful concept influencing L2 users’ self-perception and agency.
|
|
| 3. |
- Staaf, Patricia, 1963-
(författare)
-
Som man frågar får man svar : Andraspråksstudenter möter lärares krav i hemtentor
- 2015
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Avhandlingens övergripande syfte är att bidra till förståelsen av hur studenter med svenska som andraspråk möter de krav på språkanvändning som formuleras i lärandemål och i skriftliga examinationer. Avhandlingens forskningsfrågor rör dels vilka språkfunktioner och skribentroller som efterfrågas i hemtentor under första årets högskoleutbildning, dels vilka språkliga strategier studenter med svenska som andraspråk använder för att möta de krav som ställs. En delfråga är om dessa skiljer sig från de strategier som används av studenter med svenska som första språk. Materialet utgörs av fyra hemtentor och omfattar dels uppgiftsinstruktioner och tentamensfrågor, dels skriftliga provsvar på dessa frågor skrivna av 19 andraspråksstudenter och 12 förstaspråksstudenter. Av dessa har 5 andraspråksstudenters texter valts ut för näranalys.Analysen av språkfunktioner i både uppgiftsinstruktioner och provsvar relateras till Blooms reviderade taxonomi och de skribentroller som efterfrågas i uppgifterna, liksom de skribentroller studenterna intar i sina provsvar har undersökts utifrån Hoods identifierade skribentroller (voice roles): iakttagare, utredare och kritiker. I analysen kombineras Hoods skribentroller med Ivaničs uttryck för identitet i skrift; dessa är självbiografiskt jag, diskursivt jag och skribentjag. Genom att kombinera skribentroller och identitetsuttryck kan interimsspråksdrag förklaras med att efterfrågade roller intas i en annan identitet än förväntat, vilket resulterar i ytterligare skribentroller. Utöver Hoods roller identifieras i mitt material även rollerna inlärare, upplevare och debattör. De två första är interimspråksroller som visar att studenten är medveten om diskursiva krav men ännu inte har strategier att göra det som förväntas. Debattören är en skribentroll som snarare efterfrågas i argumenterande texter på gymnasialnivå än på akademisk.Av analysen framgår att frågeformuleringarna ibland leder studenten fel, eftersom de ännu inte erövrat innebörden av språkfunktioner som att resonera och diskutera inom den akademiska diskursen. Frågeformuleringar tolkas därför alltför bokstavligt. Analysen visar dock att andraspråksstudenternas språkanvändning är funktionell i den bemärkelsen att studenterna oftast möter kraven för betyget godkänd. Däremot når de inte de högre betygen i samma utsträckning som förstaspråksstudenterna. Skillnaden kan förklaras med graden av genreanpassning och andraspråksstudenternas avsaknad av strategier för att språkligt demonstrera förmågan att inta de roller och tillämpa de språkfunktioner som är förknippad med de högre nivåerna i Blooms taxonomi. Skillnaden mellan nybörjarstudenter och studenter med tidigare erfarenhet av högskolestudier är dock större än skillnaden mellan förstaspråksstudenter respektive andraspråksstudenter Resultaten diskuteras i relation till högskolornas uppdrag om breddad rekrytering och utbildningspolitiska diskurser.
|
|
