Utforskande meningsskapande i sva-undervisning via digital teknik. En etnografisk fallstudie om nyanlända elevers digitala meningsskapande i svenska som andraspråk

Utforskande meningsskapande i sva-undervisning via digital teknik: en etnografisk fallstudie om nyanlända elevers digitala meningsskapande i svenska som andraspråk

I dagens samhälle är flerspråkighet snarare regel än undantag. I nästan varje klassrum i Sverige finns flerspråkiga elever. Vissa av dessa elever är även nyanlända. Ett sätt att möta elevers olika erfarenheter och behov utan att exkludera någon kan vara att använda digital teknik som ett didaktiskt verktyg. Den här avhandlingen bidrar med fördjupad kunskap kring kontexten för nyanlända lågstadieelevers digitala meningsskapande i ämnet svenska som andraspråk (sva), när ämnet läses integrerat med ämnet svenska. Områdena andraspråksundervisning och elevers meningsskapande med digital teknik kan tillsammans erbjuda nya möjligheter för elever att använda flerspråkighet som en resurs i lärandet.

I kontexten ingår undervisningens orkestrering och innehåll, resurser för meningsskapande, läs- och skrivprocesser samt texter; alla aspekter är väsentliga för elevernas utrymme för meningsskapande. Jag har valt att dela in kontexten för nyanlända grundskoleelevers digitala meningsskapande i tre nivåer: konceptuell, didaktisk och produktionsnivå. Nivåerna är tre olika lager snarare än ett hierarkiskt system; nivåerna interagerar med varandra och kan röra sig uppåt eller nedåt i systemet.

Avhandlingens viktigaste resultat är att lärare hade ett inkluderingsfokus på digital teknik, där nyanlända elever, tillsammans med lärare och andra klasskamrater, utforskade digitalt meningsskapande genom flerspråkighet och translanguaging. Flerspråkiga komponenter var dock inget de nyanlända eleverna kunde använda sig av i digitalt förmedlade berättande och återberättande texter.

Ett av avhandlingens främsta bidrag är hur den empiriskt synliggjort kontexten för nyanlända grundskoleelevers möjligheter och begränsningar i digitalt meningsskapande i sva. Resultaten bidrar till att utveckla undervisningen med ett flerspråkigt perspektiv när det gäller hur teknik används, utbildningens orkestrering och hur eleverna stöttas i meningsskapandet.

Abstract in English

An important issue in teaching and research is how newly arrived students best can develop their linguistic resources in learning. The overall aim of the dissertation is to contribute with in-depth knowledge of the context for newly arrived primary school students’ digital meaning-making in Swedish as a second language (SSL) when the subject is studied in parallel with Swedish. The context includes the orchestration and content of the teaching, resources for meaning-making, reading and writing processes, and texts; all aspects are essential for the students’ scope for meaning-making. This dissertation contains four articles, each aiming to answer the over-arching research questions. I have chosen to divide the context of newly arrived primary school students’ digital meaning-making into three levels: conceptual, didactic, and production level. The levels are three different layers rather than a hierarchical system; the levels interact with each other and can move upwards or downwards in the system.

The first level, which I chose to call conceptual, concerns teachers’ experiences teaching newly arrived students with digital technology in Swedish. Through fieldwork and interviews, I study how teachers manage linguistic complexity involving increasingly digitized teaching. I investigate how teachers’ reason whether digital technology can support or hinder learning Swedish as a second language. Here, I focus on the teachers’ experiences and perceptions of using technology to help newly arrived students’ learning.

The second level-the didactic level -focuses on teaching with digital tools and how digital technology affects the organization of teaching in the classroom. How linguistic and spatial boundaries are challenged and handled in teaching with digital technology is studied through observations of teaching. I explore how teachers’ teaching orchestration contributes to newly arrived students’ opportunities for digital meaning-making, how teachers scaffold newly arrived pupils’ digital text activities, and how the teachers use the students: multilingual resources.

The third level, the production level, focuses the context surrounding students’ text creation and agency in the writing process. In the dissertation, the production level is studied via written text activities, as part of students’ meaning-making. I have observed teachers’ writing instructions and analysed student texts to explore how newly arrived students create meaning, communicate, and express thehemselves with digital technology and how they can use their multilingual potential in digital writing within different text types. types.

This thesis takes its point of departure in sociocultural perspectives that are an overarching term for several closely related human learning (Vygotsky, 1978). By studying how people use tools or tools to understand, act and interact in the outside world and how people adopt, or appropriate, the mediating tools, it is possible to approach how people learn (Salji:i, 2020). Language is a mediating tool, a dynamic and constantly evolving sign system that interacts with other forms of expression (Saljo, 2020).

The thesis also has a multimodal perspective (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006; Selander, 2017). Multimodality focuses on the different symbols people use to communicate with each other and express themselves (Kress, 2009). Different modalities can give room for multilingual ways of expression. In the thesis, I study how students use modalities in digital meaning-making processes and how students and teachers interpret and get involved in meaning-making. In analyzing students’ digital meaning- making and their digital compositions, it is essential to notice how different modalities can contribute to how students use their multilingual palette.

The overall methodological approach in the thesis is an ethnographic case study. I chose the case study approach to capture the complexity and activities of a school subject (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011, p. 128). Inspired by Yin (2009), I intended to create broad empirical material to understand and analyze the context of newly arrived primary school students’ digital meaning-making in SSL. Levy and Moore (2018) argue for qualitative methods to investigate how language teaching uses technology. Through qualitative research, learning processes can be studied moment by moment via the alternating use of an outside and an inside perspective.

The thesis’s most important results are that teachers had an inclusion focus on digital technology, where newly arrived students, together with teachers and other classmates, explored digital meaning-making through multilingualism and translanguaging. However, multilingual components were nothing the newly arrived students could build on in digitally mediated narrative and retelling texts.

One of the main contributions of the thesis is how it empirically visualized the context for newly arrived primary school students as well as opportunities and limitations in digital text activities in the Swedish subject. The study results contribute to developing teaching with a multilingual perspective regarding how technology is used, the orchestration of educati9n, and how students are scaffolded.