Skolan i livet - livet i skolan : Några illitterata invandrarkvinnor lär sig tala, läsa och skriva på svenska som andraspråk

Many immigrants in Sweden have not had the chance to learn to read and write, for various reasons. In Sweden, literacy is a prerequisite to being able to function in the cultural community, and for many immigrants this is the first time that they experience their inability to read and write as a handicap or see themselves as “illiterate”. The aim of this study is to use a socio-cultural, second language and gender approach to describe, analyse and understand how a number of adult, illiterate, immigrant women experience their situation when they are expected to simultaneously learn to speak, read and write Swedish. The study focuses on two literacy groups in two Swedish municipalities. In one of the groups I act as both teacher and researcher. The thesis is a case study of the learning process of five illiterate immigrant women in Sweden. The results are based on interviews, carried out with the help of an interpreter, and observation of teaching and texts ritten by the students. The study is based on the assumption that human learning is an activity that takes place in a cultural community in a social context. When learning a language, the language is simultaneously the tool that facilitates social communication and the object of the learning process. The study shows that cultural communities influence the women in different ways. Gender structures are firmly planted in a patriarchal value system, which means that women are seen as inferior to men, and women are expected to “meet the demands of others”. The women have no time to study at home, as their household duties are prioritised. However, there are subtle indications that there is a wish to change the situation in accordance with Swedish values and norms. This can be seen in the Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) lessons. As they have little contact with Swedes, school is the only arena in which they have a chance to use Swedish. They are positive towards teaching and school as an institution. Here they are able to develop an alternative identity. The study also shows that teaching in the literacy groups is to a great extent based on a technical approach, in which the teacher tries to elicit a correct answer from the students. Social interaction involving contemplation and negotiation is either not included or not prioritised. the women’s experience and knowledge is not made use of. There are,however, occasions when collaborative discussions take place between the teacher and students. On these occasions an exchange of experiences takes place. Learning is based on the students’ own experiences and thoughts. Linguistic concepts gain meaning in the collaborative discussion. Initially the concepts may be unclear, but the group works on them together, adapting and adjusting them until they finally make sense. Finally, I conclude that women immigrants bring their own socio-cultural values and experience to the school situation, which affects their learning process to varying degrees. Furthermore, immigrant women need more time at school, as it is the only arena in which they can spend time on studying and personal development. another conclusion is that the school must become a learning community that recognises the immigrants’ cultures, makes use of the students’ experience and allows the students to participate in collaborative discussions, so that they can develop their ability to speak, read and write Swedish.

Nationella läsförståelseprov – på papper eller på skärm? : En studie av elevresultat på digitala läsförståelseprov gentemot pappersbaserade prov

Due to the upcoming digitalization of the Swedish schools standardized national tests, the aim of this study is to compare the results of a reading comprehension test on paper versus on computer screen and to examine whether the results differ between boys and girls and between swedish and swedish as a second lanuague students, or not. Previous studies show inconclusive results, some show that students get higher results when taking a test on paper then on computer screen, some show that the results don’t differ between the two medias. In this study, the national test for course Svenska 1 (Swedish) and Svenska som andraspråk 1 (Swedish as a second language) from the autumn term 2011 was transformed into a digital test. 38 students in the 10th grade took the test and the results were then compared with the same students results on the following national test of the spring term 2016 which is given on paper. The results show that the scores between the digital test and the paperbased test don’t differ. The boys got equally lower scores than the girls in both the digital test and the paperbased test. The swedish as a second language students got lower scores than the swedish students. The results are discussed in relation to previous research by Ackerman and Lauterman (2012), Mangen, Walgermo and Brønnick (2013), Rasmusson (2014) , Pasquarella, Gottardo and Grant (2012) and Norman and Furnes (2016).

"Vi kan skriva förargument och sedan motargument" ­­ : Om deliberativa samtal i undervisning i svenska som andraspråk på högskolenivå

In the light of the twofold mission of Swedish schools, that is to say enabling pupils to develop both subject knowledge and a democratic attitude, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate to what extent adult higher education students from different language and social backgrounds, studying Swedish as a second language, are able to carry out joint writing assignments with the aid of deliberative discourse, and to what extent they thereby also develop a deliberative attitude. The twofold mission of education applies to them too. While there already exists a certain amount of research into deliberative discourse relating to education in schools, the perspective of higher education didactics in this research is still lacking. The present study is to be viewed as a first contribution to this research. The theoretical starting point of this study includes previous research into deliberative discourse by further developing an existing model regarding criteria for deliberative discourse, for example that there is a striving towards agreement, although the consensus may be temporary, that diverging opinions can be set against each other, that tolerance and respect for views other than one’s own are shown, and that traditional outlooks can be questioned. This model is supplemented by designations for a number of disruptive behaviours, such as ridiculing, ignoring, interrupting people and engaging in private conversations. The thus further developed model will thereafter act as a lens in the analysis of students’ discussions when writing joint texts. Another theoretical starting point is the view of education as communication, and of the possibility of communication creating a third place, thereby developing democracy in the here and now-situation. For this study, comprising 18 hours of observation of nine students, that is to say the discussions of three groups in connection with writing texts on different occasions, various ethnographic data collection methods have been employed, for example video recordings, participant observations, field notes and interviews in conjunction with the discussions. The analysis clarifies that the three groups developed their deliberation as the discussions about the joint assignment proceeded, and that most of the nine students furthermore expressed at least an openness towards a deliberative attitude for further discussions in the future. The disruptive behaviours mentioned in connection with the analytical model that could be identified in the discussions, for example interruptions and private conversations, proved not to constitute real disturbances; on the contrary they actually contributed towards the discussions developing, enabling them to continue. On the other hand, other and not previously identified disturbances occurred, for example a focus on grades, the lack of time and lacking language ability, which all in different ways affected the students’ attitudes towards their work. For any future didactical work on deliberative discourse in Swedish as a second language within higher education, these disturbances would need to be highlighted and made aware of for both teachers and students. Keywords: higher education didactics, communication, deliberative discourse, deliberative attitude, John Dewey, Tomas Englund, heterogeneity, ethnographic data collection methods.

La perception du français oral par des apprenants suédois

Swedish learners of French often experience large difficulties in understanding spoken French. Words that the learners know very well when written or when pronounced separately are often hard to recognize in the speech flow. The aim of this study is to examine Swedish learners’ perception of French speech in order to identify the problems. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part provides an introduction to the perception of a second language. It also describes the phonological structures of Swedish and French and gives an overview of studies of the perception of spoken French. The second part of the thesis contains a presentation and an analysis of four perception experiments conducted with Swedish learners of French. The results show that the learners often confuse phonological contrasts that do not exist in Swedish. It is furthermore found that the phonological processes of schwa deletion, liaison, enchaînement and voicing assimilation contribute to the perception problems. However, although liaison may complicate word recognition the results indicate that the so-called potential liaison does so to an even greater extent. In a listening test using nonsense words, the learners seem actually to expect liaison when perceiving a word that can be linked to a following nonsense word. In fact, sequences like un navas and un avas are both perceived as un avas. Paradoxically, liaison thus seems to be most problematic when it does not occur. As to schwa deletion, the results show that word recognition is delayed when the schwa in the first syllable is deleted, as in la s’maine. In addition, the learners make a large number of errors due to schwa deletion. This phonological process sometimes completely prevents word recognition, especially when combined with a voicing assimilation. Schwa deletion thus seems to strongly complicate Swedish learners’ word recognition in spoken French.

Language and interaction in online asynchronous communication in university level English courses

Interaction involves people communicating and reacting to each other. This process is key to the study of discourse, but it is not easy to study systematically how interaction takes place in a specific communicative event, or how it is typically performed over a series of repeated communicative events. However, with a written record of the interaction, it becomes possible to study the process in some detail. This thesis investigates interaction through asynchronous written discussion forums in a computer-mediated learning environment. In particular, this study investigates pragmatic aspects of the communicative event which the asynchronous online discussions comprise. The first case study examines response patterns to messages by looking at the content of initial messages and responses, in order to determine the extent to which characteristics of the messages themselves or other situational factors affect the interaction. The second study examines in what ways participants use a range of discourse devices, including formulaic politeness, humour and supportive feedback as community building strategies in the interaction. The third study investigates the role of the subject line of messages in the interaction, for example by examining how participants choose different types of subject lines for different types of messages. The fourth study examines to what extent features serving a deictic function are drawn on in the interaction and then compares the findings to both oral conversation and formal academic discourse. The overall findings show a complex communicative situation shaped by the medium itself, type of activity, the academic discipline and topic of discussion and by the social and cultural aspects of tertiary education in an online learning environment. In addition, the findings may also provide evidence of learning.