Fagdidaktisk makeover. Om utviklingen av en integrert studiedesign i engelsk didaktikk i lærerutdanningen

ProTed utvikler integrerte studiedesign som ivaretar lærerstudentenes profesjonslæring i lærerutdanningen. I dette kapitlet viser vi hvordan man kan jobbe med integrasjon innad i et fag, ved å presentere arbeidet med en revitalisering av fagplanen for engelsk didaktikk ved Universitetet i Oslo (UiO). Målet med et slikt utviklingsarbeid, hvor integrasjon er et grunnleggende prinsipp, er å kunne tilby et fag som virker sammenhengende og relevant for lærerstudenter, og som dermed bidrar til å utdanne profesjonelle engelsklærere. Integrasjonen i dette utviklingsarbeidet er både vertikal og horisontal. Den vertikale dimensjonen handler om hele studieløpet, hvor vi integrerer overordnede temaer i lærerutdanningen med hovedområdene i Kunnskapsløftets læreplan i engelsk. Den horisontale dimensjonen handler om den enkelte undervisningsøkten, hvor vi i større grad enn tidligere supplerer tradisjonelle akademiske arbeidsformer med studentaktive arbeidsformer på universitetet, og kombinerer universitetsundervisningen med klasseromspraksis. Med dette bidrar vi med en modell for design av fagplaner som kan brukes i andre fagdidaktiske fag og ved andre lærerutdanningsinstitusjoner

How teachers teach and readers read. Developing reading comprehension in English in Norwegian upper secondary school

This thesis investigates practices of how teachers teach and readers read involved in developing reading comprehension in English in Norwegian upper secondary school. It is an article-based thesis comprising three articles and an extended abstract. The latter includes a review of reading research, theoretical framing, methods and research design, and a summary and discussion of the three articles. The general theoretical and conceptual framing of this thesis is that reading instruction and reading comprehension in Norwegian upper secondary school take place within a sociocultural environment. Therefore, the thesis draws primarily on Vygotskian thinking on the importance of the active learner and the teacher who supports such learners, the use of reading comprehension strategies as tools for learning, and reading proficiency as an externalisation of reading comprehension. This theoretical framing is integrated with reading theories and reading comprehension research. Methodologically, the thesis uses a mixed methods approach to study the qualitative and quantitative aspects of practices involved in developing reading comprehension in English as a second language (L2). Article I is a qualitative study which investigated reading instruction, reading strategies, and metacognitive awareness among teachers. It examined how English teachers and those who taught in the first language (L1) reported to include reading comprehension strategies in their instruction, and how they made their tacit knowledge of such instruction explicit after participating in a teacher professional development (TPD) course. The findings showed a change in how the teachers described their teaching over time. A small repertoire of reading strategies was identified, along with how and why these were used in the reading instructions. Article II is another qualitative study of reading instruction, reading strategies, and metacognitive awareness, this time among teachers and their students. This study investigated how L2 teachers taught reading comprehension strategies in their instruction one year after the TPD course, how their students used the strategies offered to them, and how the students reflected on their strategy use. Classroom observation showed that reading strategies were not only taught by the teachers and used by the students; interestingly, strategy use seemed to have a personal purpose for the students in vocational programmes, but not for the students in general programmes. Moreover, while the teachers in vocational programmes demonstrated a gradual release of responsibility for strategy use to their students, the teachers in general programmes did not. Article III is a large-scale quantitative study that investigated reading proficiency within and across English L2 and Norwegian L1 across a national sample of upper secondary school students, including a number of those in Article II. The results of this study support the view that girls read better than boys and that students in general studies read better than vocational students. However, while the gender effect was relatively smaller for the L2 than the L1, the study programme effect was relatively larger for the L2 than the L1. This study also found that, while vocational students were in majority among the poor readers, only half of them were poor readers in both languages; the others were poor readers in one language and proficient readers in the other. Contrary to expectations, among the latter was a group of boys in both study programmes who were proficient readers in the L2, while being poor readers in the L1. A final finding was that, in the sample as a whole, 49% of the explained variance in the students’ reading proficiency in English L2 was accounted for by a combination of gender, study programme, and L1 reading proficiency. Based on the findings in the three articles, the main contribution of this thesis is increased knowledge about how teachers teach and readers read when developing reading comprehension in English in Norwegian upper secondary school. The findings show that reading proficiency in the L2 is closely related to reading proficiency in the L1 and study programme, although this is not a linear relationship for all students. The findings further show that reading strategies can be valuable learning tools that help readers develop their L2 comprehension, and that the teachers do indeed teach such strategies. Nevertheless, the findings also suggest little reason to claim that reading strategies are effective when taught in isolation. Instead, they have to be explicitly taught by the teachers, and then used individually and independently by the students seeing personal purposes to do so

The complexity of second language reading: Investigating the L1-L2 relationship

This article contributes to the field of reading assessment in English as a second language (L2). Few reading studies have been carried out at the upper secondary school level, and the present study provides insight into upper secondary school students’ L2 reading proficiency. It examines whether such proficiency can be explained by reading proficiency in Norwegian as their first language (L1). The analysis uses data from two national reading tests, comprising a large sample of 16-year-old students (N=10,331), and it is the first time reading across these languages has been investigated at this level. The results show a significant and meaningful relationship between students’ reading proficiency in the two languages. The results also reveal marked reading differences in reading proficiency in the two languages among poor readers

Digital skills critical for education: Video analysis of students' technology use in Norwegian secondary English classrooms

Background: Globally, digital skills are a crucial aspect of education that schoolsshould develop systematically. Research on digital skills tends to be measured usingself-reports, performance tests or interventions. There is less knowledge about stu-dent and teacher uptake of technology in school, making it important to investigatethe actual use of technology and digital skills in authentic classroom settings. Objectives:This study contributes unique baseline data concerning students' use oftechnology and digital skills across mandatory English courses in real classroom set-tings in secondary schools in Norway over time. Methods:The study adapted a national framework for digital skills into an observa-tion protocol. With it, this study analysed videos from 60 naturally occurring Englishlessons in 13 English classes at seven lower secondary schools over two school years(grades 9 and 10), following 186 students (aged 13–15) and 10 teachers. Results and Conclusions:Students used digital skills critical for education in half ofthe video-recorded English lessons, with more digital skill use at some schools overtime. The main finding across classrooms and school years regards students' use ofbasic, not advanced, digital skills. Takeaways:Although teachers provide opportunities for students to use digital skillsin school, more advanced skills are needed. This work calls for continued use of videorecordings to provide systematic comparisons of potential shifts in students' digitalskills in real English secondary classroom settings over time.publishedVersio

Research Ethics: An investigation into why school leaders agree or refuse to participate in educational research

The present qualitative study investigates the reasons given by 236 Norwegian upper secondary school leaders when they either accepted or refused to take part in a research project. The analysis shows that those who agreed to participate gave two main reasons, while the range of reasons among those who refused was more diverse. Moreover, when making their decisions the school leaders considered the consequences for their schools and their teachers, and to some extent, their students. These findings are discussed in relation to consequence ethics and value judgments, in the hope of contributing to a renewed perspective on research ethics. There is a tendency to consider research ethics a matter of how researchers should treat their participants to safeguard the participants’ interests. However, the findings of the present study suggest that it is equally important to understand the participants’ perspectives, which will in turn help researchers provide the information needed to better inform, and hopefully recruit participants for research projects. Problems of Education in the 21st Century. 2013, 52, 7-20. Posted here with permission from 'Problems of Education in the 21st Century' Editorial Board

The Emergent Multiphase Design: Demonstrating a Fully Integrated Approach in the Context of Language Research in Education

This chapter proposes that the emergent multiphase design can be conceptualized as an integrated mixed methods approach for conducting language research. There has been interest in students’ first language (L1) and second language (L2) use and development in and outside of school. The emergent multiphase design is a way of conducting robust longitudinal inquiry within this topic. This is, in part, because, although a mixed methods research design can be planned in advance, changes can arise during the course of a study, thereby allowing for an emergent design. The multiphase aspect of the design allows researchers to attend to integrated analyses in a stepwise fashion, wherein each phase influences the next and wherein some decisions can be made during the research process. The emergent design is particularly relevant for the exploration of unexpected outcomes, and this chapter focuses on such outcomes in the form of empirical data concerning secondary school students’ use of English outside school, their English proficiency, and the status of English in the youth culture with which they identify

Explicit reading strategy instruction or daily use of strategies? Studying the teaching of reading comprehension through naturalistic classroom observation in English L2.

Research suggests that developing deep understanding of text requires sustained emphasis on reading comprehension instruction and scaffolded strategy practices. However, although research has shown explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies to be effective, we know little about whether strategy instruction and use are part of “daily life” in classrooms (Pearson, & Cervetti, 2017). The present study analyses 60 video recorded English as a second language (L2) lessons in seven lower secondary schools in Norway, across two school years (9th and 10th grade) based on The Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation. The article investigates the types of text-based reading comprehension instruction and strategy use that goes on in these classrooms. Key findings show that teachers engage their students in reading comprehension instruction of narrative and expository texts more than half the time, offering guided strategy practice based on student needs, and encouraging daily use of known reading comprehension strategies, instead of explicitly teaching new ones. These are powerful examples of successful reading comprehension instruction, and show that when English teachers prioritise reading comprehension instruction, they use authentic L2 texts to develop and scaffold critical literacy and metadiscursive awareness

PhD revisited: How teachers teach and readers read. Developing reading comprehension in English in Norwegian upper secondary school

This chapter reports a doctoral study (Brevik, 2015) that investigated the practices involved in developing reading comprehension in English as a second language in upper secondary school; focusing specifically on reading strategy instruction and use. The chapter describes how strategies were taught and used markedly differently in general and vocational study programmes, and addresses recent developments related to reading comprehension instruction across contexts in Norway, with suggestions for further research

The potential of digital tools for enabling the observation of comprehension in the classroom

This article examines findings about the role of digital tools in supporting teachers in the challenging task of observing student comprehension in upper secondary school. These findings indicate that digital tools can provide valuable information to teachers about students’ uses of comprehension strategies, as well as enabling the students to demonstrate or reflect on their own uses of these strategies. Based on interviews, narratives, and observations in four classrooms, these findings suggest that digital tools potentially afford rich information about student processes of learning, in the course of being used for a variety of specific pedagogical purposes in the classroom

Affinity and the classroom: informal and formal L2 learning

Abstract Connecting informal and formal language teaching and learning has gained prominence as a way to understand language development among teenagers, but questions remain regarding its application in L2 contexts. This study investigates the significance of such connections in two L2 English classes taught by the same teacher, where students were learning English during a technology-based project, the Time Traveller. We collected data during three weeks of fieldwork at a Norwegian secondary school. We found that informal and formal language teaching and learning were connected in two ways: the students’ use of English outside school was primarily linked to online game play and social media, and the teacher was able to design activities that extended her students’ existing affinity space, resulting in the students using English in the classroom more frequently and more confidently than before. Implications include the importance of understanding students’ informal language learning to rethink L2 teaching practices