'In Charge of the Truffula Seeds' : On Children's Literature, Rationality and Children's Voices in Philosophy

In this paper I investigate how philosophy can speak for children and how children can have a voice in philosophy and speak for philosophy. I argue that we should understand children as responsible rational individuals who are involved in their own philosophical inquiries and who can be involved in our own philosophical investigations-not because of their rational abilities, but because we acknowledge them as conversational partners, acknowledge their reasons as reasons, and speak for them as well as let them speak for us and our rational community. In order to argue this I turn, first, to Gareth Matthews' philosophy of childhood and suggest a reconstruction of some of his concepts in line with the philosophy of Stanley Cavell. Second, in order to examine more closely our conceptions of rationality and our pictures of children, I consider the children's books, The Lorax and Where is My Sister? and Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck.

Online and Offline Gaming as Support for English Education in Swedish Upper Elementary Schools with Focus on Reading Comprehension Online and Offline Gaming as Support for English Education in Swedish Upper Elementary Schools with Focus on Reading Comprehension : A literature review about online and offline gaming as a resource for developing English reading comprehension in Swedish schools in year 4-6

The aim of this degree thesis is to see what research says about the use of computer and video games to support upper elementary pupils’ development in English reading comprehension in Swedish schools. Other goals are to see how online and offline gaming can be integrated in the Swedish schools and what attitudes teachers have towards gaming. The method used is a systematic literature review and the purpose is to analyze chosen articles and to find relevant content that answers the research questions. Five articles were chosen from different databases and were systematically analyzed in this thesis. The results show that online gaming as support for education can be rewarding for some upper elementary pupils in English learning. However, in English reading comprehension there is not much research found which means that more research needs to be made within this area. Moreover, involving online gaming in English language learning seems to be a challenge for teachers mostly because of their lack of knowledge about the subject, even though they are positive to gaming. The lack of knowledge about the subject could be altered with more education and courses in the area.

Students’ Perspectives on Extensive Literature : Using Literature to Enhance Communicative Competence and Cultural Understanding in the EFL-Classroom

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of literature within the Swedish Upper Secondary EFL-classroom from the students’ perspective. How do the students in the study relate to literature and its use to enhance and enable their communicative competence and cultural understanding? Also, how do their answers compare with their teacher’s and the adult perspectives and findings from previous international research? The empirical data obtained from the study has been analysed from the perspectives of sociocultural and motivational theory, and the findings show that the participating students believe literature to be a good didactic tool to apply in the EFL-classroom, both in order to enhance their communicative competence and their cultural understanding. The students prefer to have a sociocultural approach to their literature-learning, with group-discussions of various sizes. The key for the students in this respect is interesting, relevant and engaging subject-matter, as well as a positive and motivational teacher. The responses given by the students correlate with those given by their teacher as well as previous international research. The students regard literature as a way of gaining new perspectives, as well as experiencing language in use. Where they diverge somewhat from the international research is in regard to literature’s use for enhancing their competence to speak in class, and that some students seem to think that communication and cultural understanding are separable. Future studies within this field might include the conducting of a larger and more in-depth survey regarding the students’ ideas about literature, culture and communication. Why do so many of the student respondents neither agree nor disagree with the statement concerning communication and cultural understanding being inseparable? This can be an important issue to investigate in today’s global climate of cross-cultural and intercultural experiences, especially in view of the political climate of diverse attitudes towards refugees, immigrants and emigration