Discourse and learning in a Norwegian multiethnic classroom: Developing shared understanding through classroom discourse

European Journal of Psychology of Education 2005, Vol. XX, nº 1, 13-27 © 2005, I.S.P.A. Discourse and learning in a Norwegian multiethnic classroom: ...
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European Journal of Psychology of Education 2005, Vol. XX, nº 1, 13-27 © 2005, I.S.P.A.

Discourse and learning in a Norwegian multiethnic classroom: Developing shared understanding through classroom discourse Lutine de Wal Pastoor University of Oslo, Norway

This article explores the mediational role of classroom discourse in the development of shared understanding in the multiethnic classroom. Successful participation in classroom discourse not only requires linguistic and cognitive competence, but also demands cultural knowledge, which often is taken for granted. Research carried out in a multiethnic third grade class in Norway reveals that a discrepancy between teachers’ implicit assumptions of what is “common knowledge” and minority pupils’ lack of background knowledge might impede joint meaning construction. Discourse episodes, illustrating various misunderstandings, are analyzed and compared. The analysis of the discourse focuses on how the topical content, the multiple reference frames applied, and the particular forms of discourse used, jointly create the framework within which development of shared understanding occurs or fails to occur. It becomes apparent that various discourse patterns, creating different premises for pupil participation, afford different ways of dealing with the misunderstandings encountered. It is argued that disparities in understanding should not be looked upon as “transmission errors”, that are something to be avoided in classroom dialogue, but might be viewed as generators of new understandings. The article is based on qualitative analysis of discourse excerpts, using transcribed audio recordings, field notes and interviews.

Introduction During the last few decades, the Norwegian primary school population has become increasingly ethnically and linguistically diverse. A topic of major concern in Norway, as in many other European countries today, is how to improve the educational situation of ethnic The research reported in this article was initially funded by The Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs and from 2000 by the Norwegian Board of Education. I express my gratitude to the teachers and pupils featuring in the transcripts for welcoming me to their classrooms. Furthermore, I gratefully acknowledge the useful and inspiring comments of Guida de Abreu, Ed Elbers, Tony Cline, Karsten Hundeide and Roger Säljö.

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minority children. Although researchers agree that the educational problems regarding minority children are complex (Cummins, 1984), they stress that minority children’s second language proficiency is a decisive factor for their school success (Cazden, 1988; Thomas & Collier, 2002). Since most ethnic minority pupils speak their mother tongue at home1, the classroom will be a central setting for their second language learning. A considerable number of minority pupils rely on obtaining the required second language competence through classroom discourse. Some researchers indicate that one reason why minority pupils’ second language development is insufficient is due to the fact that in traditional, teacher-led classroom discourse, pupils get too few opportunities to actively participate in good language learning situations (Ellis, 1984). The language used in classroom discourse cannot just be considered in terms of communication, as in everyday discourse. One also should reflect on how teachers and pupils use it in the teaching-learning process, that is classroom discourse as educational discourse (Mercer, 1995). The oral and written language used in educational discourse serves a double function for minority pupils, it transmits the subject matter to be learned and it provides an important source of linguistic input for their second language acquisition (Wong Fillmore, 1982). Classroom discourse is thus an essential mediator of minority children’s learning in school. Observations and analyses of the classroom discourse in a multiethnic class in Oslo, reveal that being simultaneously involved in the processes of “learning language” and “learning through language” (Halliday, 1993) may lead to minority pupils’ misunderstandings. Misunderstandings that turn out to be more than mere language problems, they are also the outcome of misinterpretations of the various interpretive frames implied in the discourse. As formal institutions of socialization and enculturation, schools play a decisive role in transmitting culture by means of semiotic tools, particularly language. Successful participation in classroom discourse as a medium for knowledge building depends on having access to the “tool-kit” of shared cultural knowledge, including rules of interpretation concerning educational talk and practice, i.e., educational ground rules (Edwards & Mercer, 1987). Cultural knowledge is usually tacit knowledge, taken for granted, and therefore seldom communicated explicitly. The linguistic, social, and cultural contexts of minority pupils’ everyday experiences represent the frames of reference through which they interpret and respond to what is said in classroom discourse. As the discourse episodes presented below will show, there might arise misunderstandings, originating from a discrepancy between what is assumed to be “common knowledge” (Edwards & Mercer, 1987) in the classroom discourse and the everyday knowledge and experiences minority pupils bring to the classroom. The aim of the article is to explore the mediational role of discourse in the development of knowledge and understanding in the multiethnic classroom. A central question concerns the nature of the classroom discourse that creates the framework within which the development of shared knowledge occurs. In order to do so, the discussion will focus on what is taught, i.e., the topical content and its implied reference frames, in relation to how it is taught, i.e., the social-interactional dimensions of the classroom discourse, how turn-taking shapes the discourse (cf. “participation structures”) and how the subject matter is presented, related and negotiated to achieve intersubjective understanding. Particular attention will be paid to misunderstandings between teachers and pupils, resulting from not sharing the same background knowledge and applying different reference frames, and how they are dealt with. The data analysis will show that the occurrence of misunderstandings can be related to a variety of embedded levels of framing the discourse.

Theoretical framework The interpretive framework adopted in this study is a sociocultural and dialogic one, based on the perspectives of Vygotsky (1987), Bakhtin (1981) and Rommetveit (1974). The

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sociocultural approach treats human learning and cognitive development as originating from a social-interactional rather than an individual process; and as a communicative process, whereby knowledge is shared and understandings are constructed in culturally formed settings (Mercer, 1994). The process of establishing shared understanding between the interlocutors in a task setting, e.g., between the teacher and the pupils in classroom discourse, is referred to as the establishment of intersubjectivity (Hundeide, 2002; Rommetveit, 1974). Intersubjectivity is established by means of semiotic mediation, especially through language, but also through gaze and pointing, for instance. Achieving a certain level of intersubjective understanding is a precondition for both knowledge construction and language acquisition (Wells, 1993). If intersubjectivity is not achieved, further misunderstandings are likely to develop. In line with Vygotsky’s emphasis on learning through social interaction, Bakhtin emphasizes learning through dialogue, which involves both oral and written communication. According to Nystrand (1997), who applied Bakhtinian constructs to teaching in language classrooms, dialogic devices important for language learning are: authentic questions, that is, questions without “prespecified” answers, high-level evaluation, referring to an appreciative and substantial response to pupils’ contributions, and uptake, i.e., following up pupils’ responses in the subsequent discourse. Several researchers emphasize the importance of pupils’ active participation in classroom interaction to facilitate learning in general and second language learning in particular (Ellis, 1999). Furthermore, educational researchers argue that “social participation structures”, participants’ rights and responsibilities concerning what to say, how to say and when to say it during discourse, determine what learning opportunities become available to the participants (Mehan, 1979). Even though the nature of classroom interaction seems to be decisive for the second language learning process, still little is known about processes of teaching and learning, that is the educational practice, in multiethnic classrooms (Elbers & Haan, 2004). Furthermore, Ellis (1984, p. 10) claims that the few studies that directly explore second language classroom interaction fail “to examine the actual discourse that classroom participants construct”, also Watson-Gegeo (1997) calls for studies based on transcripts of the discourse in these classrooms. This article aims to examine educational practice in the multiethnic classroom, based on observations and transcripts of authentic classroom discourse.

The study Classroom discourse as a mediator of learning became the focus of my attention in the context of ethnographic research carried out in a Norwegian multiethnic classroom during the school year 1999/2000. In the course of a joint research project (see Bezemer, Kroon, Pastoor, Ryen, & Wold, in press), case studies were carried out in Dutch and Norwegian primary school classrooms throughout a year. The aim of the project was to improve the understanding of how language minority children participate and perform in regular education and to gain insight into the processes of language acquisition in multiethnic classrooms. The collected data consist of field notes from non-participant observation, audio and video recordings of classroom interaction, interviews with all teachers and pupils involved, pupils’ work, teaching materials and school documents. Significant classroom episodes were selected for further analysis: the significance concerned either the main research question or was based on “sensitizing concepts” (van den Hoonaard, 1997) emerging from the collected data. The research school, Ekelund Skole2, is an urban primary school, situated in the inner city of Oslo, the capital of Norway. Class 3A3, the research class, is a third grade class with 24 eight-year old pupils. With 13 of the 24 pupils being ethnic minority pupils and ten different languages represented in the class, the class can deservedly be called a “multiethnic”, but not

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so much a “multilingual” class since Norwegian is the sole language of instruction. The pupils have not only diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, their competence in the Norwegian language differs a great deal too. The minority pupils receive tuition together with the pupils having Norwegian as their first language. Only during Norwegian lessons, the class is split into two groups, a “Norwegian as a first language” (NL1) and a “Norwegian as a second language” (NL2) group. The form teacher, Karin, with many years of teaching experience, teaches the NL2 pupils. Jon, the co-teacher, newly graduated from the Teacher Training College, takes the regular Norwegian lessons.

The focus of the analysis Classroom discourse is dynamic and complex. The language used in discourse draws on multiple, e.g., cultural, ethnic, and discursive frames of reference, based on our earlier experiences and background knowledge (Rommetveit, 1974). The challenge of school learning, particularly for minority pupils, is to frame, i.e., to interpret, apply, create and share appropriate contextual frames to the typical language used in classrooms (Edwards & Mercer, 1987). The various reference frames, which share characteristics with Bateson’s (1972) and Goffman’s (1974) metacommunicative frames, function as “interpretive scaffolds”, producing meaning by contextualizing, that is, constructing temporary frames for the language used in discourse. Framing is a meaning-making device that allows a “fixation of references” in relation to the ongoing discourse. By means of a frame analysis, that is an exploration of some of the multiple embedded frames applied in the classroom discourse episodes presented, I wish to propose certain framing levels as relevant in relation to the misunderstandings that arise. These framing levels can be analyzed “hierarchically”, that is, not implying a ranking but referring to focus or scope, i.e., the extent of what is being studied. Each level might comprise a variety of misunderstandings. For the purpose of presenting and analyzing the language in the discourse episodes, I choose to focus on the following, hierarchically inclusive, framing levels: 1) 2) 3) 4)

cultural “grammar” level (e.g., background knowledge, various ground rules), discourse level (e.g., everyday/academic discourse), genre level (e.g., fictional/non-fictional essay, everyday/science register), word level (e.g., multiple word meanings, everyday/schooled concepts).

The different levels are analytical, allowing us to focus our attention temporarily on one framing level and its corresponding misunderstandings at a time. When presenting the discourse episodes below, a closer examination will show that in actual classroom discourse misunderstandings relate to several embedded and intertwined levels of framing. An everyday concept, for example, does not only relate to the word level, but is also inextricably linked with levels of every day discourse and cultural knowledge. The notion of “word meaning” is thus really complex and something to be taken into consideration in classroom communication.

Four levels of framing classroom discourse For the purpose of analysis, four episodes of classroom discourse are presented and each episode will be discussed in relation to one or more of the four framing levels referred to above. Each section starts with the introduction of an excerpt of classroom discourse, where there arises some kind of misunderstanding resulting from a discrepancy in framing the discourse topic. The subsequent analysis focuses on the framing levels corresponding with the misunderstanding that occurs.

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The first two episodes are of subject matter lessons, that is, lessons with an emphasis on “learning through language”, and the last two are of a Norwegian as a second language lesson, emphasizing “learning language”. This particular selection of episodes is made in order to illustrate and typify both the levels and the kinds of misunderstandings that might arise in classroom discourse, resulting from a discrepancy between the teacher’s and the pupil’s framing. The misunderstandings discussed entail the same two minority pupils, a boy and a girl with different cultural backgrounds. Each of them is involved in two discourse episodes with different teachers, to illustrate that the teachers’ different ways of shaping the discourse afford various types of teacher-pupil interaction. The analysis, will therefore also deal with the nature of the classroom discourse that creates the framework within which the development of shared knowledge occurs or fails to occur, and how the participants deal with the misunderstandings that arise. Cultural background knowledge The first episode deals with a discrepancy between a teacher’s implicit assumption of “common knowledge” and a minority pupil’s lack of cultural background knowledge, and how this impedes the creation of shared meaning. It also illustrates the interrelatedness of framing contexts, by linking different types of cultural knowledge to everyday concepts and scientific concepts on the word level. Episode 1: John the Baptist For centuries, Norway has had a state religion, the Lutheran “Church of Norway”. Religious ceremonies, such as baptism and confirmation, are established parts of Norway’s Lutheran culture and “Christian Studies” has a long tradition in Norwegian public schools. In 1997, as part of an educational reform, “Christian Knowledge and Religious and Ethical Education” (CRE) was introduced as a new school subject. The subject has to be taken by all pupils; besides Christianity it includes an orientation to other world religions and life philosophies as well. The timetable for class 3A shows two periods of CRE per week, that is just as many periods as “Social Studies” and “Science and the Environment”, for instance, to give an indication of the “valorisation” (Abreu, 1999, p. 17) of the subject. The episode below is from a CRE lesson in October 1999. Niklas, a young substitute teacher, has decided to read the story of John the Baptist for the class. Afterwards the pupils will have to draw a picture related to the story, one of the usual activities in the CRE lessons. The teacher tells the children to open their CRE book, Broene [The Bridges] (Bakken, & Haug 1998), and then he starts reading. It is a long and difficult text, containing many rare, i.e., low frequency, words and the teacher stops reading after every paragraph to ask the pupils whether they understand what he reads. Teacher: (reads) John baptizes people (paragraph heading). In The New Testament a story is told about a man called John. /…/ John preached that people should convert to God. They should get baptized in order to get forgiveness of their sins. /…/ Teacher: Do you understand what I am talking about? Pupils: Yes. Teacher: Do you understand everything I say? Pupils: Yes. Teacher: There were no difficult words, or? Pupils: No. Teacher: (reads) /.../ As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. Suddenly, heaven was opened. Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove. A voice from heaven said: “This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased”. Teacher: Do you know what to baptize means?

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Pupil: Yes. Teacher: Can you explain to me what “to baptize” means? Can you tell me what it means to baptize somebody? (Silje and Michael raise their hands) Silje. Silje: Somebody gets water on the head... so they will believe in God and so on... and will go to heaven. Teacher: Very good! Teacher: (reads) John is captured by Herod… (the teacher is interrupted). Silje: Not everybody gets baptized. There are many who just get infant blessed. Pupil: I have not been baptized. Teacher: There are probably many here who have not been baptized. Pupils: Not me. Not me either. Pupil: I am infant blessed. The teacher carries on reading, when finished he asks some more questions. Teacher: Do you remember something of what I said about John? What I read about John? What did John do? (no pupil response). What was John’s job in a way? Not exactly his job, but what he did. Silje: He baptized people… and told other people about God. Teacher: Quite right!

The teacher continues asking questions, it turns out that the pupils have difficulties answering them. Silje, Ida and Stian, all ethnic Norwegian pupils, manage to answer one question each. Eventually, the teacher asks the pupils to make a drawing of what he has read. The pupils get their exercise books. On the way back to their desks, some children discuss what to draw. The teacher and Nimrat, a minority pupil, overhear the conversation and join in. Pupil: Pupil: Pupils: Teacher: Nimrat: Pupil: Teacher: Nimrat: Teacher: Nimrat:

What do we draw? I will draw that he gets baptized [døpt]. Me too, xx me too. xxx very good. When he was killed [drept]? Baptized [døpt]. Baptized [døpt] xxx not ‘e:’, but ‘ø:’. Baptized [døpt]? Yes. Baptized? I don’t know what “baptized” means, I!

The teacher explains to Nimrat, “To baptize xxx small drops of water xxx”, and he points to one of the pictures in her CRE-book that shows the baptism of Jesus, a picture made by a medieval Italian painter. Nimrat starts drawing, trying to copy the picture in the book. Discussion The term baptize and the related expressions baptism and baptist were used ten times in the text the teacher read, and eighteen times during the spoken discourse. To understand the meaning of the subject matter presented, it is crucial to understand these words. It proved insufficient to create an understanding of the subject, by just being exposed to these topically related words during classroom discourse, even if it was nearly thirty times. Nimrat apparently lacked the background knowledge that gives meaning to the topic discussed. As mentioned,

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pupils’ individual life histories and background will influence what they know and whether they will be able to make sense of what is said during classroom discourse. Consequently, it might be appropriate to have a closer look at Nimrat’s biography. Nimrat is an 8-year-old girl of Indian Sikh descent. Her mother tongue is Panjabi. She lived in India with her mother and grandparents until she was five, and she has lived in Norway for only three years. Nimrat is one of the highest achieving minority pupils in her class, often asking for clarification. However, this time Nimrat did not indicate that she did not understand until she was asked to make a drawing of the story, and both she and her teacher became aware that she had misunderstood. The observed classroom discourse had much in common with traditional teacher-led instruction, emphasizing transmission (cf. Säljö, 2001) of subject matter. It was dominated by Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) sequences (Mehan, 1979), in which the teacher asks a question – the pupils respond – and the teacher evaluates the responses. Discourse dominated by IRE sequences offers limited opportunities for active participation and pupils rarely get a chance to come with extended responses. The pupils were asked several times whether they understood the story, and none of them indicated that they did not understand. The teacher asked the pupils what “to baptize” meant, but they had difficulties explaining it even though several pupils probably had an implicit understanding. When Silje finally came up with an explicit statement of baptizing, the teacher assumed that – or at least acted as if – the rest of the class also knew what baptizing stood for. Pupils’ “hidden misunderstandings” can be difficult to discover for the teacher, but they might be disclosed by follow-up questions or through executive tasks, such as making a drawing as in Nimrat’s case, or by means of pointing out, retelling or role-play. Baptism is an essential part of Norway’s Lutheran culture, and for most Norwegian children the act of baptizing is part of their cultural knowledge, meaning an implicit understanding of “culture as knowledge”. It is relevant to distinguish between two types of cultural knowledge (Gullbekk, 2002) in this context. First there is “culture as knowledge”, which comprises what the child directly experiences and learns in his or her life world and which is the basis of situated, experiencebased, internal notions. These notions are similar to what Vygotsky (1987) refers to as everyday concepts. And then there is “knowledge about culture”, which consists of explicit statements and definitions, taught by teachers or learned from written texts, leading to a more generalized knowledge of Christianity or Islam, for example. These statements are similar to Vygotsky’s scientific or schooled concepts (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988), which are more abstract concepts, primarily mediated in formal educational contexts, that is, outside the original learning context. However, schooled concepts often build on spontaneous concepts. While “to baptize” for most ethnic Norwegian children is a concept learned by personal experience, for non-Christian minority children, such as Nimrat, it might be a concept only encountered in a school setting. Since the teacher did not check any further whether the other pupils understood the term, it might have gone unnoticed that not all shared the assumed “common knowledge”. Academic discourse In order to illustrate a misunderstanding on the discourse level, I will call attention to the term “bell-shaped” [klokkeformet] in an episode during a “Science and the Environment” lesson, where the harebell [blåklokken, litt. “bluebell”] is presented. The misunderstanding is the result of misinterpreting a word in the lesson’s “academic discourse”, associated with the discourse level, but it can be related to the word level as well. Episode 2: The harebell The harebell, a wild plant with blue flowers shaped like bells, is frequently depicted in Norwegian schoolbooks. In this lesson, the Norwegian word klokke, which is polysemic,

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having the different but related meanings “clock”, “watch” and “bell”, brings about comprehension problems when used as “bell-shaped” [klokkeformet]. In a Science lesson by Jon, May 2000, the pupils are given a work sheet with a hand written text on the harebell, comprising much factual knowledge and several scientific concepts, such as “perennial”, for instance. Ivan, a minority pupil, volunteers to read the text aloud, but finds that it is not an easy text to read. He falters repeatedly and even skips a line without noticing it. Some pupils say they cannot follow Ivan’s reading. Jon, the teacher, reads the text once more and gives additional information. One of the sentences reads as follows “The flowers are bell-shaped, blue, and are 2 cm long”, the teacher stops and comes with an explanation.

Figure 1. The harebell

Teacher: There is a picture of them at the top of the paper. A few flowers, long shafts and the flowers are klokkeformet [bell-shaped], that’s why they are called blåklokker [harebells]. Ivan: Are they klokker [clocks/bells]? Teacher: Yes, they look like klokker, you see the ones hanging here (pointing at the black and white drawing on the paper). Ivan: I don’t think so! (firmly expressing disagreement, while simultaneously casting a glance at the round, colourful clock on the classroom wall). Teacher: (the teacher ignores Ivan’s comment and continues) xxx and they are blue and about two centimeters long… about this long (showing with his fingers).

When finished, the teacher asks the class to answer the questions on the work sheet. Teacher: There are four questions here and these you can answer, when you read what is written here. Actually, I have already given you all the answers. You write the answers on the work sheet and if you still have questions, you can read more or ask me.

The class is rather restless. Several of the minority pupils tell their desk mates that they do not understand the text. When Ivan answers the question about what the flowers look like, he only writes “blue”. Discussion The excerpt showed that Ivan disagreed with the teacher’s explanation of the term klokkeformet. As mentioned, the word klokke has various meanings. Clock and watch are “everyday” objects and probably none of the pupils will have problems in understanding these core meanings. The third meaning, “bell”, is less common and thus more difficult to interpret, especially when used figuratively as “bell-shaped”. Ivan disagreed with the teacher’s explanation that the harebell flower resembles a “bell”, since he apparently misinterpreted the word klokke as “clock”. When words have multiple meanings, pupils and especially minority pupils might fail to interpret the words as teachers

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intend. Ellis (1999) indicates that second language learners find it difficult to infer the correct meaning of polysemous words and that they often are reluctant to discard the meaning they are familiar with even if it does not fit the particular context they encounter the word in. Ivan is an eight-year-old boy of Croatian descent, born in Norway. Croatian is his home language. During the interview, he tells that he does not bother the teacher when he does not understand, because he does not want to disturb. However, classroom observations reveal that Ivan frequently asks for help when working on individual tasks. He probably does not like to interrupt the teacher during whole-class discourse. The classroom discourse observed during this lesson was characterized by traditional transmission teaching. The teacher’s response to Ivan’s contributions to the discourse was not very substantial. Obviously, he did not realize that Ivan was misinterpreting klokkeformet as “clock-shaped”4, assuming “bell-shaped” to be common knowledge. Learning “Science” involves learning the particular vocabulary related to the subject matter and the conventions of interpretation, as well as mastering the discursive practice of academic discourse. Academic discourse involves ways of reasoning and talking that (Vygotsky, 1987) has termed “non spontaneous”. The emphasis in the two subject matter lessons was on “learning through language” rather than on “learning language”, though the episodes revealed that in practice these dimensions are interdependent. The next two episodes, taken from a “Norwegian as a second language” lesson, both deal with essay writing but the emerging misunderstandings relate to different framing levels, that is the genre and the word level. Fictional and non-fictional genre The “Norwegian as a second language” (NL2) classroom is situated next to 3A’s regular classroom. Twelve of the thirteen minority pupils participate in the NL2 lessons, which are taught by Karin, the form teacher, who has taught the class since second grade. Episode 3 deals with essay writing, which is associated with the genre level, but the cultural background level is also involved. In this episode we again meet Nimrat, the pupil we met in episode 1. Episode 3: A fishing trip August 2000, the NL2 pupils work on a chapter called “The Sea”. The homework for today’s lesson is to draw a salmon and a shell, and to write a story about their life in the sea. On entering the classroom, Flora tells the teacher, that she could not do her homework since she “did not remember what a salmon was”. The teacher, Karin, says that she first wants to discuss the homework tasks of last week, which were, writing about a holiday trip [ferietur] and a fishing trip [fisketur], the latter based on a picture of a boy in a rowing boat. She tells the pupils that before returning their exercise books, she will read aloud one of the two essays they wrote. Before reading, the teacher asks each pupil which of the two essays they want her to read. After a while it is Nimrat’s turn to choose the essay to be read. Teacher: Nimrat, which one do we take, the holiday trip or the fishing trip? Nimrat: Fishing trip Teacher: (reading) Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a rowing boat. He lived all on his own. One day it was very boring in the rowing boat and he turned on the television (teacher skips possible spelling mistakes). Pupils: xx the television? (surprise and laughter). Teacher: (reading) Then the telephone rang. He answered the telephone. It was... his boss! He had to go to... and then you wrote? Planet Three. Nimrat: Yes. Teacher: What do you mean with that?

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Nimrat: Teacher: Nimrat: Teacher: Teacher:

I wrote as if it was in heaven. Yes, yes! Yes, that’s what it is. Another planet? Yes. Yes. This boy has to go to another planet, Planet Three. (reading) At Planet Three, there was a cat, which had run away from the house. He went to Planet Three (Ahmed laughing). He talked to the cat. Then the cat accompanied him home. When he came home, he received a gold medal of his boss…and that’s the end of the story! Ahmed: You cannot fly. Teacher: Everything is allowed, when one tells stories. Then one can find cats on Planet Three for example…

Discussion The topics “a fishing trip” and “a holiday trip” presuppose narrative essays of pupils’ personal experiences. Nimrat had not been on holiday that year, nor was she familiar with fishing. Her limited experiences concerning the essay topics could easily have excluded Nimrat from participating in the discourse, as Flora felt resigned to doing when she could not remember what a salmon was. Nimrat, on the contrary, wrote an essay grounded in fiction by transforming “a fishing trip” into “a space trip”. By using the topic fishing trip as a “thinking device” (Lotman, 1988), she converted the interpretive frame of the genre non-fiction into fiction. Nimrat’s strategy is in accordance with the emphasis Elbers and Haan (2004) put on minority children’s range of cultural skills and resources to respond to the educational demands they encounter. When the teacher asked Nimrat to clarify what she meant by “Planet Three”, Nimrat referred to “heaven”. The teacher showed herself to be an open-minded interpreter, taking the child’s perspective, by interpreting “heaven” as “space”. She responded enthusiastically to Nimrat’s genre transformation and explained to the class “Everything is allowed, when one tells stories”. Pupils do not just “learn language” and “learn through language” at school, they also “learn about language” (Halliday, 1993), i.e., learn specific ways of using language, such as genre and discourse. Nimrat showed that she had appropriated the cultural genre of writing a fictional narrative. As in fairy tales she started her story with “Once upon a time...” and finished with “That’s the end of the story”. Ahmed’s comment “You cannot fly” might mean that he conceived Nimrat’s essay as a non-fictional narrative. It might also be a flippant comment, which is another genre. The dialogic function of the discourse, where the teacher appropriates the perspective of the pupil and vice versa, facilitates the generation of new meanings (Wertsch & Smolka, 1993). Multiple word meanings The episode below is taken from the same NL2 lesson and deals with a non-fictional essay. The misunderstanding here concerns primarily the word level of framing. Episode 4: A holiday trip In this episode we meet again Ivan, the pupil we met in episode 2, who has written an essay on his holiday trip to Croatia. Teacher: Ivan? Then it is holiday or fish… what do we take? Ivan: Holiday Teacher: (reads) I travelled by plane to Croatia. I was at my grandfather and grandmother’s. I was at the wedding of my aunt. That was fun. Afterwards we went to a park and then I drove a car.

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Teacher: Ivan: Teacher: Ivan: Teacher: Ivan: Teacher: Pupil: Teacher: Nimrat: Pupil: Nimrat: Pupils: Ahmed: Teacher: Pupil: Teacher: Pupil: Teacher: Pupils:

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Then I ask, as I asked Noora, that cannot be a real car you drove? I drove. You had a lift? You did not drive? Yes! What kind of car then? xx there I sat xx in such cars my sister and I drove… and afterwards we crashed into someone. Exactly. But was this in a kind of amusement park then? I have been in one like that. Was it in Croatia? (Nimrat raises her hand) Yes, Nimrat? That is like the kind of cars they have at Tusenfryd (an amusement park near Oslo). I have driven there as well. Me too. They are sort of play cars you can sit in and drive. There I have been xxx (several pupils talk at the same time). Me too, both at Tusenfryd and in Syria. Do you call it a “radio car”? Yes, it is a radio car xx with a long… With a long rod which goes up to the roof? Yes. That is a radio car, a “radio controlled” car thus, that rod at the back of the car goes up to the roof and gets electricity… it is a lot of fun, isn’t it? xxx (speaking all at once).

Discussion Ivan did not differentiate what kind of car he drove in Croatia. He just wrote “car”, maybe due to his limited second language vocabulary or may be because he believed it was obvious what kind of car he referred to, taking the framing “for granted”, that is, a kind of “contextual egocentrism”. Karin, lacking the appropriate background knowledge, wondered whether Ivan drove a real car in Croatia. By asking “What kind of car then?” she asked him to be more explicit. Then, by means of a framing cue, “was this in a kind of amusement park then?” the teacher helped Ivan to frame the word “car”. The teacher’s contingent responses to Ivan’s contributions lead to extended turns of talk, and several other pupils joined the discourse. It became apparent that several pupils had been visiting amusement parks and thus shared common background knowledge. In order to achieve intersubjectivity, it is essential to attend and refer to the same topical frame, and then negotiate its meaning. By joint negotiation, the teacher and pupils achieved a shared understanding that the car Ivan drove was a “radio controlled” car. Intersubjective understanding not only facilitates knowledge construction but also language acquisition (Wells, 1993). That is why processes of “learning language” and “learning through language” are mutually interdependent.

General discussion The analysis of the discourse, which took place in various settings of the multiethnic classroom, revealed that classroom discourse is a complex mediator, implying several levels

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of framing the subject matter. This makes processes of teaching and learning not only “multilayered and multi-faceted” (Linell, 1995, p. 183), but also entails that something might go wrong at different levels of the mediating process. The educational discourse found in Western schools is generally supposed to be abstract and formal, involving appropriation of specific norms of argumentation and presentation, as distinct from experience-based and informal, everyday discourse. To be able to participate successfully in classroom discourse requires mastering multiple levels of framing the language, which again presupposes having appropriate background knowledge, appreciating the “ground rules” for classroom talk, and having access to the “toolkit” of academic discourse and schooled concepts. Ethnic Norwegian pupils will often learn schooled concepts based on their background knowledge and everyday concepts in an experience-based transformation, an abstraction of everyday experiences. Ethnic minority pupils, on the contrary, are quite often forced to learn the schooled concepts by formal instruction only – without anchorage in their everyday experiences. This kind of learning is much more cognitively demanding and requires a good command of the second language. Otherwise, it might lead to what Piaget refers to as “verbalism”, i.e., using the terms without having knowledge of the experiential meaning base. When we compare the first two discourse episodes with the next two, we notice that the nature of the discourse in these episodes is different. Whereas the emphasis in the first two episodes is on transmission of information, the emphasis in the two following episodes is on dialogue and generation of new meanings. According to Lotman (1988), most texts fulfill two basic functions, though in a certain discursive activity one often dominates. This “functional dualism” refers to a univocal function of texts, characterized by the transmission metaphor (Säljö, 2001) of communication, aiming at conveying meanings effectively, and a dialogic function of texts, involving multiple voices, where the text’s function is seen as a generator of new meanings. Classroom discourse dominated by IRE-sequences is grounded in the univocal function of texts, which “is fulfilled best when the codes of the speaker and the listener most completely coincide, and, consequently, when the text has the maximum degree of univocality” (Lotman, 1988, p. 34). In the multiethnic classroom, where pupils have divergent backgrounds, the dialogic function of discourse, with “difference” as the very essence of a text’s function as a thinking device, will more likely provide a space or a voice for the minority pupils in the process of knowledge construction. In the first two discourse episodes, of a CRE and a Science lesson, where the discourse was dominated by information transmission, the participants’ different background knowledge resulted in misunderstandings and communication breakdown. While in the two episodes from the Norwegian as a second language lesson, disparities in pupils’ and teacher’s understandings were used as thoughtgenerators in a classroom dialogue leading to the generation of new meanings. Ivan’s use of the term “car”, for instance, was not treated as a misunderstanding, but became a thinking device, raw material to be “appropriated, transformed, and so forth in the generation of related, but new ideas” (Wertsch & Toma, 1995, p. 170). An inquiring teacher, asking authentic, clarifying questions promotes a dialogic discourse, and facilitates the identification of mutual misunderstandings. Identification of misunderstandings, both by teachers and pupils themselves, is very important, not for the sake of diagnosing “deficiencies”, but in order to create an awareness of the need for clarification and explanation. Assistance seeking has been shown to be a decisive quality for successful achievement in school (Nelson-Le Gall & Resnick, 1998). In the research class, high achieving minority pupils, such as Nimrat and Ivan, participate in the classroom discourse and ask for clarifications and assistance. In other words they are pupils who dare to expose themselves. “Silent pupils”, neither participating in the discourse nor asking for clarification, will be excluded and their misunderstandings will not be identified. The challenge for teachers will be to give silent pupils in the multiethnic classroom a voice, by accommodating to a teaching-learning approach that facilitates all pupils, despite differences in cultural and linguistic backgrounds, access to the resources that classroom

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discourse mediates. Mercer (1995, p. 72), referring to Vygotsky, underlines “that a learner’s actual achievement is never just a reflection of that learner’s inherent ability, but is also a measure of the effectiveness of the communication between a teacher and a learner” (my emphasis). The multiple reference frames embedded in classroom discourse make complex communicative demands on both teachers and pupils, especially minority pupils. Emphasizing the dialogic function of classroom discourse as a mediational tool in overcoming differences in understanding, by opening up for renegotiation and reinterpretation, might contribute to the development of shared knowledge and understanding in multiethnic classrooms. Making classroom discourse a mediator of all minority pupils’ learning will be crucial for their educational achievement (Cazden, 1988). There are still many significant issues to be resolved in the field of minority pupils and schooling. The social and cultural dimensions of learning and teaching are important themes to be addressed in future research on communicative interaction in classrooms with heterogeneous pupil populations. Another concern should be how we as researchers can impart a voice to silent minority pupils. Transcription conventions: Teacher Pupil/pupils .., ... xxx /.../ [text] : text (text)

indicates teacher’s utterances indicate(s) unidentified pupil(s)’ utterances indicate short pauses indicate unintelligible speech item(s) slashes indicate that some talk has been left out from the excerpt brackets indicate the translation of the preceding term(s) colons indicate lengthening of the preceding sound the use of italics in excerpts indicate texts the teacher is reading parentheses indicate additional information

Notes 1

All the ethnic minority pupils involved in this study had other languages than Norwegian as their home language.

2

For reasons of anonymity, the names of the school, the teachers and the pupils are fictional.

3

A few lessons were recorded August 2000 and Class 3A had then become Class 4A.

4

If I had not been sitting so close to Ivan, I would have missed his quick glance at the wall clock too.

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Cazden, C.B. (1988). Classroom discourse. The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment and pedagogy. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge. The development of understanding in the classroom. London: Methuen. Elbers, E., & Haan, M. de (2004). Dialogic learning in the multi-ethnic classroom. In J. van der Linden & P. Renshaw (Eds.), Dialogic learning. Shifting perspectives to learning, instruction, and teaching (pp. 17-43). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Ellis, R. (1984). Classroom second language development. Oxford, England: Pergamon. Ellis, R. (1999). Learning a second language through interaction. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper & Row. Gullbekk, E. (2002, May). Lessons in dialogical dilemmas in Norway and England. Paper presented at the Current Issues in Classroom Research Conference, Oslo, Norway. Halliday, M.A.K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education, 5, 93-116. Hoonaard, W.C. van den (1997). Working with sensitizing concepts. Analytical field research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hundeide, K. (2002). The mind between us. Nordisk Psykologi, 54(1), 69-90. Lotman, Yu. M. (1988). Text within a text. Soviet Psychology, 26(3), 32-51. Linell, P. (1995). Troubles with mutualities: Towards a dialogical theory of misunderstanding and miscommunication. In I. Marková, C.F. Graumann, & K. Foppa (Eds.), Mutualities in dialogue (pp. 176-213). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mercer, N. (1994). Neo-Vygotskian theory and classroom education. In B. Stierer & J. Maybin (Eds.), Language, literacy and learning in educational practice (pp. 92-110). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Mercer, N. (1995). The guided construction of knowledge. Talk amongst teachers and learners. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Nelson-Le Gall, S., & Resnick, L. (1998). Help seeking, achievement motivation, and the social practice of intelligence in school. In S.A. Karabenick (Ed.), Strategic help seeking. Implications for learning and teaching (pp. 39-60). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Nystrand, M. (with Gamoran, A., Kachur, R., & Prendergast, C.). (1997). Opening dialogue. Understanding the dynamics of language and learning in the English classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Rommetveit, R. (1974). On message structure. A framework for the study of language and communication. London: Wiley. Säljö, R. (2001). Læring i praksis. Et sosiokulturelt perspektiv [Learning in practices. A sociocultural perspective]. Oslo: Cappelen. Tharp, R.G., & Gallimore, R. (1988). Rousing minds to life: Teaching, learning, and schooling in social context. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, W.P., & V.P. Collier (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence, University of California – Santa Cruz. Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). Thinking and speech (N. Minick, Trans.). New York: Plenum. Watson-Gegeo, K.A. (1997). Classroom ethnography. In N.H. Hornberger & D. Corson (Eds.), Research methods in language and education (pp. 135-144). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Wells, G. (1993). Intersubjectivity and the construction of knowledge. Retrieved December 12, 2003, from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~gwells/intersubjectivity.txt Wertsch, J.V., & Bustamante Smolka, A.L. (1993). Continuing the dialogue. Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Lotman. In H. Daniels (Ed.), Charting the agenda. Educational activity after Vygotsky (pp. 69-92). London: Routledge. Wertsch, J.V., & Toma, C. (1995). Discourse and learning in the classroom: A sociocultural approach. In L.P. Steffe & J. Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 159-174). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wong Fillmore, L. (1982). Instructional language as linguistic input: Second-language learning in classrooms (pp. 283-296). In L.C. Wilkinson (Ed.), Communicating in the classroom. New York: Academic Press.

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Cet article explore le rôle médiateur du discours dans le développement de la compréhension partagée dans la classe multiethnique. Une participation réussie au discours en classe demande non seulement de compétence linguistique et cognitive, mais aussi de la connaissance culturelle, qui est souvent considérée comme déjà acquise. La recherche, développée dans une classe multiethnique de troisième année en Norvège, montre qu’une divergence entre les suppositions implicites des professeurs sur ce qui est ‘connaissance commune’ et l’absence de connaissances de fond des élèves minoritaires peut empêcher la construction collective du sens. Des épisodes du discours, illustrant plusieurs malentendus, sont analysés et comparés. L’analyse du discours se concentre sur comment le contenu du sujet, les cadres multiples de référence, et les formes de discours particulières utilisées, créent des cadres dans lesquels le développement de la compréhension partagée se produit ou ne se produit pas. Il devient apparent que les différents genres de discours, créant des prémisses différentes pour la participation des élèves, offrent des possibilités différentes pour faire face aux malentendus rencontrés. On argumente que les discordances de compréhension ne devraient pas être perçues comme ‘erreurs de transmission’, qui sont des choses à éviter dans le dialogue en classe, mais qu’elles peuvent être perçues comme des génératrices de nouvelles compréhensions. L’article se base sur l’analyse qualitative d’extraits du discours, en utilisant des enregistrements audio, notes sur terrain et entrevues.

Key words: Classroom discourse, Cultural background knowledge, Ethnic minority pupils, Everyday and schooled concepts, Shared understanding.

Received: June 2004 Revision received: November 2004

Lutine de Wal Pastoor. University of Oslo, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 1094, Blindern, NO-0317 Oslo, Norway; E-mail: [email protected], Web site: www.psykologi.uio.no Current theme of research: The mediational role of classroom discourse in the development of shared understanding in the multiethnic classroom. Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education: Bezemer, J., Kroon, S., Pastoor, L. de Wal, Ryen E., & Wold, A. Heen (in press). Language and learning in a multicultural context. Case studies from primary schools in Norway and the Netherlands. Oslo: Novus. Pastoor, L. de Wal (1998). “De leker så merkelig”. Mangfold og samspill i et flerkulturelt skolemiljø. Hovedoppgave i sosialantropologi [“They play so strangely”. Diversity and interaction in a multicultural school environment. M.Ph. Thesis in Social Anthropology]. Oslo: Institutt og museum for antropologi, Universitetet i Oslo. Pastoor, L. de Wal (forthcoming). Classroom discourse as educational practice in first and second language lessons: Multiple dimensions of educational discourse. Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway.

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