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  • 1.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Att stötta och utveckla ämnesspråk2018Other (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
  • 2.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Comparison of deaf education in Sweden and the USA from an inclusion perspective2015Conference paper (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
  • 3.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Flerspråkighet och teckenspråkiga miljöer2017In: Språklig mångfald i klassrummet / [ed] Åsa Wedin, Stockholm: Lärarförlaget , 2017, p. 137-Chapter in book (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
  • 4.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Multilingual Education in a sign language school environment – To analyse language education from human right perspective2015Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Students´ language education in Sweden has become important for many reasons. First for it´s particular value for future studies as for the global labor market but also in time of our increasing globalisation. Therefore has multilingual skills become an important access to be able to develop and master in order to be competitive and employable in the global market. At the same time it can be enriching to know other languages. Related to this development pupils in Swedish primary schools are now opting for modern languages ​​as the language may count merit points for the studies to upper secondary school and for higher education. With this shift, questions of language education for all has therefore become important. Along with this issue there is a strong demand to develop language education both for teaching, education as it is for the Swedish School system in general. The Swedish National Agency has therefore in according to The Common European Framework for Languages  present guidelines based on the Council of Europe´s work which consist of teaching, learning and assessment of language skills. More specifically it present six reference levels of language proficiency in order to make it possible to compare skills in different languges, regardless of the school system or degree.As mentioned here language education has become an important issue to develop in conjunction with our globalisation and in education in general. And for this reason it is interesting to discuss how the opportunity for student to learn foreign language at school is organised. Indeed it is both a pedagogical question as it is for the individual its own right to have an adequate  language education. And from a human perspective this question is for this particular reason highlighted in this paper. Moreover in this paper it is discussed which language training is being offered in school not only for hearing student but specifically for  students that is deaf, hard-of-hearing and have CI.

    Purpose and aims: The pupils in special school for deaf and hard-of- hearing and with CI follow the same curricula as the National Agency of Education provides. But if looking at the difference special schools give special consideration to students' linguistic and cultural backgrounds. More specifically, it means that the school environment is built upon bilingualism as a pedagogical framework , which means that Swedish and Swedish Sign Language is the language instruction. How is then the language training organised when Swedish Sign is the language instruction while foreign langue is the  language subject? This paper examine this particular  Because students in special schools do not reach the course objectives in modern language, this issue of language training received, be a central concern for this study about students' language training in English and Spanish as modern languages in a sign language school environment. The study highlights the way in which teaching is organized and how teachers and students both use and learn the language topic that is the focus of the lesson. In order to examine the frameworks surrounding language teaching in a sign language school environment, this study on the basis of Ethnography as method and Conversational Analysis as conversation tools, studied the communicative practices in different classrooms. In order to clarify what teachers and students do with the different languages ​​as they interact , the key issues in the study is thus : What distinguishes a multilingual interaction in a sign language environment? And what are the opportunities and limitations features when Swedish and Swedish sign language has a function as a mediating tools in the teaching process?

  • 5.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Newly arrived pupils in Special School for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing2015Conference paper (Refereed)
  • 6.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    VARFÖR GÖR DE PÅ DETTA VISET?: Kommunikativa praktiker i flerspråkig undervisning med svenskt teckenspråk som medierande redskap2013Doctoral thesis, monograph (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    Applying a human rights perspective on plurilingualism as a national as well as a transnational concern, with a focus on the interaction taking place in foreign language teaching and learning practices at a Swedish Special Needs School for pupils with deafness or impaired hearing, the overall aim of this study is to describe and discuss this interaction in performative terms, i.e. in terms of what is said by whom, to whom, why, and with what consequences. Although extensive research has already been carried out within the field of plurilingualism, for example from linguistic, sociological and political points of departure, research on plurilingualism with regard to foreign language teaching and learning interaction in Swedish sign language contexts has been largely missing. The ambition of this work, therefore, is to add to the diversity of research on plurilingualism. It is also hoped that this work will contribute to the debate in educational politics concerning a human rights perspective on plurilingualism, especially with regard to modern European languages as a transnational issue.

    Methodologically, an ethnographic approach has been employed to document, by means of two video cameras in combination with field notes, the practices of communication emerging from teacherstudent interaction. Using notions from Conversational Analysis and alongside established conventions of sign language transcription, a model of transcription was designed for the specific purpose of describing, in detail, the plurilingual interaction where Swedish sign language is used as a mediating tool.

    Three lessons in English and four lessons – or lesson extracts – in Spanish, at secondary level in a Special Needs School for pupils with deafness or impaired hearing, have been documented and analysed. The analyses were carried out in two different steps, one describing and one discussing the results of the empirical investigation.

    The institutionally formalised interaction observed appears to have contributed to the heavy dominance of the teacher, and of the IRE sequence used during the lessons, to a much greater extent than students’ deafness or impaired hearing. Although the aims and objectives of the curricular texts intended for these students, as well as for hearing ones, are expressed in communicative terms – for example, learning to read texts of relatively high complexity, or developing writing skills for communication across linguistic boundaries – almost all the lessons that were investigated concerned the translation of isolated words into sign language, often taken out of their English or Spanish context. Nonetheless, the students took part in the classroom interaction when protesting, joking, asking questions and helping each other. Thus, the teacher dominance noted does not imply suppression, but rather a tendency on the part of the teacher to underestimate the students, as well as reflecting a selective tradition within foreign language teaching and learning practices in a general Swedish school context. However, when viewed from a human rights perspective on future plurilingual European citizens, using their language skills to reach out into the world for mutual understanding, the students involved in the language teaching and learning interaction observed in this study may hardly be expected to reach out across linguistic boundaries, at least not as a result of the language education they have experienced.

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  • 7.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Chen Pichler, Deborah
    Gallaudet University, Washington D.C., USA.
    Greatest challenges to implementing translanguaging practices in Swedish and American deaf contexts2018Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In Sweden, recent waves of immigration have dramatically altered the linguistic landscape of Swedish schools for the deaf and hard of hearing. Many newly arrived students come with no experience with any sign language, and/or rudimentary skills in one or more spoken languages. Educating such a linguistically diverse population poses vexing challenges. Translanguaging offers exciting potential as a framework to guide teachers in recognizing and utilizing the totality of students’ varied linguistic resources to promote learning, regardless of current proficiency in Swedish and Swedish Sign Language. However, the promises of translanguaging elicit mixed reactions among [Deaf educators]. On the one hand, it affirms that a multilingual repertoire naturally leads to language use that draws from multiple sources, a fact that should be recognized and supported by educational practices. Translanguaging offers a valuable framework for analyzing the dynamic blending of signed and spoken language that educators have long observed from all deaf children. On the other hand, Deaf signers are alarmed by translanguaging practitioners’ calls to abandon the concept of language separation and allow elements of signed and spoken language to mix freely. Such unrestricted mixing calls to mind the long struggle against “SimCom,” the simultaneous mixing of speech and degraded signing that has repeatedly proven inaccessible to deaf signers.

    How can Swedish Deaf schools employ translanguaging in a way that ensures equal access for all students, not just those with greater access to spoken language? The answer depends on teachers with strong competence in both Swedish and Swedish Sign Language, specifically trained to create visual learning environments where sign language skills are actively developed and used to facilitate access to spoken language content. Our talk highlights examples of such practices and identifies specific aspects of teachers’ ability to understand and leverage the multilingualism in their classrooms.

  • 8.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Chen Pichler, Deborah
    Gallaudet University, Washington DC, USA .
    Multi-modal visually-oriented translanguaging among Deaf signers2018In: Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts, ISSN 2352-1805, Vol. 4, no 3, p. 384-404Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Translanguaging is often regarded with great skepticism in the context of Deaf education, as an approach that has already been tried, with disastrous results. Already in the 1960’s educators understood the critical importance of allowing deaf children to exploit their full linguistic repertoire for learning: not only listening, lip-reading and reading/writing, but also sign language, fingerspelling, gesture, and other strategies that render language visually accessible. The resulting teaching philosophy, Total Communication (TC), quickly became the dominant approach employed in Deaf education. Yet despite its progressive stance on multilingualism and multimodality, TC ultimately failed to provide deaf students with full access to a natural language. This chapter contrasts the ineffective multilingual practices under TC with characteristically “Deaf ways” of multilingual meaning-making observed among skilled Deaf signers. Excerpts from life story interviews illustrate the impact these practices have for scaffolding learning among Deaf students newly arrived in Sweden. We conclude that prioritizing visually-oriented practices and supporting both students and teachers to become skilled signers offer the best assurance for successful translanguaging in Deaf education without engendering the problems that caused TC to fail.

  • 9.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Hjortgren, Katarina
    Örebro University, School of Law, Psychology and Social Work.
    Pettersson, Charlotta
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Ett pedagogiskt utvecklingsprojekt om programöverskridande samarbete mellan specialpedagog- och socionomprogrammet vid Örebro universitet kring samverkan, inkludering och elevhälsa2019Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [sv]

    Ett inkluderande arbetssätt inom skolan innebär att lärare och övrig personal tillsammans ska verka för att lärmiljön görs tillgänglig för alla elever. I skollagen (2010:800 kap. 3) anges att elever som behöver extra anpassningar och särskilt stöd har en lagstadgad rätt (Skollagen 2010:800 kap.3), att få ett pedagogiskt stöd, för att kunna nå de nationella målen. Utformningen av elevhälsoarbetet och samverkan mellan olika professioner utgör en central del i skolans verksamhet för att skapa en skolmiljö som kan inkludera alla elever oavsett social och kulturell bakgrund eller funktionsnedsättning. Hälsa och lärande har ett nära samband med elevers skolframgång, därför blir det nödvändigt att se på inkludering och tillgänglig lärmiljö utifrån ett salutogent perspektiv. Ett sådant arbete kräver att alla berörda professioner i skolan samverkar kring elevers skolsituation. Detta för att kunna skapa lösningar som är både främjande och förebyggande för elevens skolgång. Olika professioners kompetens och kunskap (Hjörne & Säljö, 2014) kring hälsa och lärande kan också innebära olika syn och arbetssätt kring elevhälsofrågor. Man behöver utveckla pedagogiska former för hur olika professioner kan samverka för både elevhälsoteam och pedagoger i skolan. Likaså är en samsyn kring innebörden av inkludering och implementering av skollagen nödvändig. Syftet med det pedagogiska utvecklingsprojektet är att skapa olika lärtillfällen där studenter från ämneslärar-, specialpedagogiska och socionomprogrammet kan mötas för att diskutera och lära kring utbildningarnas gemensamma men också olika ingångar i utbildningen kring elever som är i behov stöd. I genomförandet av studien har casestudier varit ett kursinslag i de gemensamma kursmomenten. Utöver kursaktiviteter i de gemensamma programöverskridande momenten har uppföljande semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med deltagande studenter från båda programmen. Resultaten visar att följande kursmoment i form av programöverskridande samarbete synliggör studenternas behov att mötas och diskutera gemensamma elevhälsofrågor. Det visar att studenterna behöver kunskap om varandras professionsuppdrag för att kunna skapa samverkansformer i ett kommande gemensamt elevhälsoarbete mellan elevhälsoteamet och skolans pedagoger. 

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  • 10.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Nordmark, Marie
    Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden.
    Takala, Marjatta
    University of Oulu, Faculty of Education, Oulu, Finland.
    The Education of Special Educators in Sweden and Finland2017Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Background: The educational policy is inclusive both in Finland and in Sweden. Still special educators are educated. They seem to work both in inclusive and in segregative ways. The more inclusive ways demand co-operation and planning with other teachers. Although the results of such co-operation have been good, there could be even more collaboration at schools. The main questions of our study are: 1) What is the core content of the work of special educators. 2) What is the role of a) inclusion and b) collaboration in their work?

    Method: The data for the study are current main laws and documents in both countries and curriculums of special educators in 5 universities in Finland and in 10 Universities in Sweden.  A content analysis as well as critical discourse analysis are used with these documents and curriculums. 

    Results: The results with regards to the curriculums will show the core areas in both countries as well as the differences in the content of studies. The legal documents will show the similarities and differences in regulations. In a previous study the core areas in curriculum for special education teachers students in Finland were reading, writing, mathematical and behavioral challenges (Hausstätter & Takala 2008). Sweden and special teachers and special pedagogs, Finland just special teachers. Sweden has education on more narrow areas, like mainly just on reading and writing challenges; in Finland special educators are general experts, studying more issues. 

    Conclusions: The results are not ready yet, but we will be able to say about the differences and similarities as well as focus on the demands of inclusion in both countries after we have done the study.

     

  • 11.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Pettersson, Charlotta
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Team of profession working with student health - a possibility room for collaboration and competence exchange2019Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Background: The Swedish school is based on an inclusive principle where teachers’ ability to meet and teach all children and student groups with different social backgrounds and disabilities, other ethnic backgrounds, low and high performance is central. This means, for example, that students in need of additional adaptations, special support or challenges of different kinds receive the support they have statutory rights to (Skollagen 2010: 800, chapter 3), which often involves collaboration with student health skills such as SENCO, school social worker and also psychologist ( SOU 2017: 35). Hjörne and Säljö (2014) point to the difficulties encountered in collaborating on student health issues and students in need of adaptations and support. That is an area that addresses key questions for the school, health care and social services. Different social institutions thus work with student health issues but from different perspectives. It also creates different approaches to student health issues, which can complicate the understanding of different professionals’ skills and knowledge (Hjörne & Säljö, 2014). We therefore see the importance of courses where the students have the possibility to meet, understand and discuss with each other, as a way to create bridges between different professions.

    Research question: The purpose of this study is to investigate what kind of knowledge and skills of co-operation future teachers, SENCO and school social workers need in order to qualitatively achieve good results across the professional boundaries with a focus on student health issues?

    Method: University students who have participated in cross-disciplinary learning activities and with active schoolteachers; SENCO and school social workers in professional teams of student health, will be interviewed. Experience and knowledge of difficulties and opportunities for collaboration, as a basis for what kind of knowledge about collaboration and action skills the students need as newly educated teachers, SENCO and school social workers. The empirical collection will start in early 2019 and last throughoutthe year.

    Results and discussion: The intended outcome addresses questions about what is important to develop in terms of professionalism within the multidimensional field. It is also important to get an overall picture of the students’ experiences and reflections of the academic learning activities found in the education and professional experience and knowledge. This applies to knowledge and action competence both in terms of content and collaboration in student health issues. Experience in working in different types of profession-wide teams such as student health, as well as meeting parents.

    We see this as aspects of how to develop collegial interaction and exchange of ideas about the educational activity in the context of students in need of special support. With these educational efforts in the programs, both students and teachers take an active role in the development of students’ career in the context of the multidimensional field, special education and school social work. It identify and problematize ”the gap” and develop opportunities, arenas, for this kind of issues in school’s student health work.

  • 12.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Pettersson, Charlotta
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    ULF-projekt: Samverkan för en inkluderande elevhälsa2020Conference paper (Other academic)
    Download (pdf)
    ULF-projekt. Sammanfattning
  • 13.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Roos, Carin
    Högskolan Kristianstad.
    CODA-gruppen – En bimodal tvåspråkig och ouppmärksammad resurs2023In: Nordand: nordisk tidsskrift for andrespråksforskning, ISSN 0809-9227, E-ISSN 2535-3381, Vol. 18, no 1, p. 34-49Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    This study concerns a group of people often called CODA (Children of Deaf Adults). CODAs are of significant interest to researchers since they grow up in families with one visual-signed language and another auditive-spoken language. They use two languages in the family in two different modalities. Despite this, the research field is limited.

    The study was an interview study of twelve hearing adults (age 18–50) who had grown up in deaf signing families. The overarching purpose of the study was, from a translanguaging theoretical perspective, to analyze effects associated with experiences of Swedish and Swedish Sign Language during childhood. In this particular article, positive multilingual effects and experiences are focused upon, as well as how they describe bimodal language effects. The main findings from this study show benefits from CODAs growing up in a signing family on development of Swedish and of general linguistic competence. 

    Download full text (pdf)
    CODA-gruppen – En bimodal tvåspråkig och ouppmärksammad resurs
  • 14.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Roos, Carin
    Karlstad universitet, Karlstad.
    Framgångsfaktorer i läs- och skrivlärande för döva barn och barn med hörselnedsättning: en systematisk litteraturstudie2016Book (Other academic)
  • 15.
    Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Wedin, Åsa
    Högskolan Dalarna, Falun.
    Skrift i teckenspråkiga skolmiljöer2013In: Flerspråkighet, litteracitet och multimodalitet / [ed] Åsa Wedin och Christina Hedman, Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 2013, 1, p. 209-231Chapter in book (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
  • 16. Allard, Karin
    et al.
    Wedin, Åsa
    Translanguaging and Social Justice: The Case of Education for Immigrants who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing2017In: New Perspectives on Translanguaging and Education / [ed] BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin, Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2017, p. 90-107Chapter in book (Refereed)
  • 17.
    Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    St John, Oliver
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Nordmark, Marie
    Understanding communication and identities in culturally diverse school settings in present day Sweden: empirical explorations from 3 different language profile schools in present day Sweden2008Conference paper (Refereed)
  • 18.
    St John, Oliver
    et al.
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    LISA 21 project poster presentation2007Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    EARLI conference – LISA 21      August 2007

    LISA 21 and Pilot Study Findings

    LISA 21 is a one-year-old project supported by the Swedish Research Council which focuses on plurilingualism, identity work and learning in multicultural settings. It is part of the Communication, Culture & Diversity – Deaf Studies research group at Örebro university, Sweden. This text presents an aspect of the project group’s research interest and outlines the preliminary findings of a pilot study conducted by two of the project team.

    Project aims and methods

    Over the coming three years, in-depth fieldwork has been planned in three very different kinds of school – a school of the Deaf, an ‘international’ school and a multicultural school. These schools have been chosen because of their “good practice” status and all offer the opportunity to study plurilingual practices in teaching-learning situations. The fieldwork sites are secondary schools, specifically pupils in grades 7 to 9, since it is at these levels that it becomes possible to study the communicative practices of teachers and pupils in environments where they are using different languages for classroom communication.

    The project’s envisaged studies assume a sociocultural perspective and, since they emphasize communication practices in plurilingual school arenas, are also informed by classroom interaction studies and an ethnographically inspired methodology. Fieldwork will involve both participant and nonparticipant observation techniques as a well as a study of national, school and classroom texts which bear relevance for pupils’ learning experiences.

    Pilot studies, 2007

    During the spring of 2007, two pilot studies were conducted in a school for the Deaf and Hearing-impaired and an ‘international’ school with the aim of identifying key areas of commonality and contrast for forthcoming ethnographic investigation. The studies involved ‘shadowing’ two classes through their daily schedule over a ten-day period in order to piece together a picture of the pupils’ daily school lives and routines. Video and audio recording of lesson activity as well as field notes were the primary methods used to collect data. A preliminary analysis of the data has pointed to several areas of potential significance for further fieldwork. They are of particular interest because they suggest educational incongruities, even contradictions, whose tensions and resolutions have important bearings on learning and development at school. Schools showed themselves to be formidable cultural institutions wielding certain powers and authority and yet sites of enormous struggle between, for example, curricular mandates and vision, teacher beliefs, educational ethos, parental demands and student identities. In the following paragraphs, we outline five of these areas which we hope will contribute impetus to the project’s focused fieldwork and analytical framework.

    1. 1.      Sense-making in plurilingual environments

    One established way of analyzing communication practices in the classroom entails studying oral and writing activity. Oral interaction in school most commonly orientates around texts and presupposes that learners develop the ability to produce meaning when moving between text and speech. The generation of understanding with the aid of a text is based on a different approach to statements than is the case with speech. Given this difference, the way teachers and pupils use language when engaged in textual practices is of particular interest.

    An ability to access written forms assumes a familiarity with specific ways of negotiating meaning. In a visually-oriented environment, mapping out similarities and differences between Swedish and Swedish Sign language is of less relevance than gaining insight into how pupils and teachers seek to build bridges between an everyday vernacular and the more specialized language of school. This issue has not been given the focus it deserves since research has often failed to highlight heterogeneity in the classroom, preferring to treat the body of pupils as a unified group. Building discursive bridges is especially interesting among the Deaf and Hearing-impaired since ‘bilingualism’ has long been regarded as a language model which is particularly characteristic of their language use. Underlying support for the view of a standardized form of ‘bilingualism’ has been given by linguistically-inspired research into Swedish Sign language and Swedish as a second language for the Deaf. Over the last few decades, such research has had a prevailing influence on educational thinking, school language policy and the way the syllabuses for special schools have been formulated.

    1. 2.      Suspending and resourcing dialogue

    It was evident that the way teachers coordinate and conduct student attempts to contribute to the lesson has important repercussions for the extent to which pupils are allowed to engage with the subject matter and therefore for the generation of certain kinds of knowledge. Teachers exercised their monopoly on communication rights in the classroom by gate keeping access to the ‘floor’ and orchestrating student participation. Factors that governed teachers’ decisions to constrain rather than encourage student contributions included the teacher’s need to protect the delivery of his/her points from competing contributions. Behind this tendency is often a teacher-constructed body of material that the teacher feels pressure to ‘get through’ as well as conceptions of what counts as legitimate or ‘real’ school work.

    Given the patterns of participation these constraints imply, what kind of learning do they lead to? A constraint on classroom participation and a suspension of dialogical rights tended to divert participation and, with it learning, to the ‘edges’, centrifugally, where plenty of knowledge sharing was going on, but which was not directly related to the activity in the ‘official’ arena. The term diverted learning perhaps describes the kind of learning that emerges when pupils are denied an ‘official’ opportunity to gain a discursive grip on a particular issue or concept. There were also discursive barriers to student lesson participation which some teachers failed to break down, but which others managed to bridge.

    1. 3.      Transferring and transforming understanding

    In many of the lessons observed (Science and Social Studies being prime examples), there seemed to be a paradox, a critical tension, with regard to the learning aims and needs in the classroom. On one hand, the teachers seemed determined that the students should understand the lesson topics and reflect independently on them. On the other hand, their practices suggested a conception of gaining knowledge as transferring knowledge with very little room for the kind of interaction that encourages the co-production of understanding. The students’ questions and attempts to get a ‘handle’ on the topic demonstrated that their needs would be better satisfied with a transforming rather than a transferring of understanding. Even activity on the ‘unofficial’ fringe was sometimes geared to interacting with the topic meaningfully and trying to relate the new information to the pupils’ own experiences.

    Data suggested that a teacher’s conception of how pupils can become more knowledgeable has a decisive effect on the aims, the roles, expectations, interaction patterns, learning activity and outcomes in the classroom. For example, a view of knowledge development as a cumulative packing of brains with bits and pieces of information reduces student influence, and ultimately democracy, to responsibility for receiving and reproducing school learning material rather than reflecting on or interacting with it creatively and constructively.

    1. 4.      Linguistic resources

    Assuming a plurilingual perspective on a Sign language teaching setting, what linguistic resources do Deaf and Hearing-impaired pupils have access to when trying to understand each other in the midst of several potential language opportunities? This raises the question as to what importance the communication practices have for the teachers and pupils who participate together in classroom activities. The pilot study includes data showing different lessons in which different languages as well as different oral and writing activities shape different language encounters. The methods used captured sequences of classroom activity in which teachers converse with pupils about the relationships between different languages in different countries, language use, personal experiences of changing to a different language, code switching and second language socialization in Sweden among those with an ethnically different background. These sequences bring together both teacher and pupil experiences of language complexity regarding both language function and its different purposes in various contexts. The conversations with pupils suggest that a language need not create distance between everyday life experiences and the more technical language of the academic disciplines.

    The study also points to different aspects of code switching.  Data suggests that the use of code switching has a communicative purpose and serves different pragmatic functions at a general level. The grammatical aspect of code switching is also evident when different languages are interwoven at a more micro level into the conversation between teacher and pupils. More specifically, the data shows examples of linking, chaining between Swedish and Swedish Sign language where teacher and pupils juxtapose different terms and expressions with the purpose of introducing or underlining the meaning of certain words in different contexts.

    1. 5.      Identity affordances and restraints in school arenas

    A formal learning environment in which two or more languages are in operation as main means of classroom communication both creates opportunities for new identity positions, new roles and relationships in the classroom as well as conditions which restrain pupils’ ability to identify themselves as significant and eligible selves. On one hand,  the appropriation of new language practices extends pupils’ communicative capability, affords the possibility to display  an esteemed ‘bilingual’ competence and creates new roles, such as that of ‘interpreter’ of the teacher’s meaning or instruction for peers.

    At the same time, working in a second language can limit the students’ capacity to express meaning, can put them at a cultural disadvantage and, in the face of ‘foreign’ values and practices, may lead to alienation. Given these restraints, plurilingual learning settings, without considerable pedagogical care, can war against inclusion. Whether these tensions are resolved or remain sharp depends on several factors which include second or third language competence, attitudes to this language, self-confidence and cultural affinity or remoteness.

    Karin Allard and Oliver St John

    Department of education, Örebro university, Sweden

     

     

  • 19.
    Takala, M.
    et al.
    University of Oulu, Finland.
    Nordmark, M.
    University of Dalarna, Sweden .
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    University Curriculum in Special Teacher Education in Finland and Sweden2019In: Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education, E-ISSN 2535-4051, Vol. 3, no 2, p. 20-36Article in journal (Refereed)
  • 20.
    Torpsten, Ann-Christin
    et al.
    Linnæus University, Växjö, Sweden.
    Warren, Anne Reath
    Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
    Straszer, Boglárka
    Dalarna University, Borlänge, Sweden.
    Lindahl, Camilla
    Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
    Siekkinen, Frida
    University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
    Svensson, Gudrun
    Linnæus University, Växjö, Sweden.
    Rosén, Jenny
    Dalarna University, Borlänge, Sweden; Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
    Allard, Karin
    Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
    Wedin, Åsa
    Dalarna University, Borlänge, Sweden.
    Transspråkande: en holistisk syn på språk, språkanvändning och språkdidaktik2016In: Lisetten, ISSN 1101-5128, no 2, p. 32-33Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.))
    Download full text (pdf)
    Transspråkande – en holistisk syn på språk, språkanvändning och språkdidaktik
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