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ABSTRACT
Wennergren, Ann-Christine (2007). Dialogue competence in school: An action research
study in learning environments for hard-of-hearing pupils. Luleå University of Technology,
Department of Education. ISSN 1402-1544, ISRN: LTU-DT--07/34--SE
In classes for hard-of-hearing pupils there are children and young people with different
degrees of impaired hearing, all of whom need hearing aids and technical equipment in
the environment. The initial problem area of the present thesis concerned the pattern of
communication in the classroom. Previous research has shown that such communication
is strongly affected by the chosen technical solution. The research questions developed
successively from the assumption that it is only the teachers that can change the learning
environment. In order to achieve a combination of scientific results and improvement,
this study has an action research study approach. The overall aim was to illuminate and
describe dialogues between different actors in a national school improvement project.
Actors in the context were teachers, their pupils and the researcher. The thesis is based on
improvement work in which the researcher cooperated with fifty teachers from five
schools located in different parts of Sweden. This work involved parallel processes of
change, for the pupils in the classrooms and for the participating teachers. The thesis
comprises three substudies, two of which are focused on the teachers’ dialogues and one
on the pupils’ listening environments. In the last-mentioned substudy, 165 pupils were
asked to draw and describe their best listening environment at school. The result showed
that the listening role required different environmental conditions, such as a cleaned up
sound environment, visual support, conversation rules and comfortable surroundings. A
central conclusion was that pupils need to be offered opportunities to verbalise their individual
needs in the school environment. The result further showed that the teachers
worked in different ways to improve the learning environment and that they introduced
structures to support the dialogue between pupils. This happened at the same time as the
teachers were trying out tools for their own learning in order to take part in dialogues
with colleagues based on confirmations and challenges. Tools used in the learning processes
were a logbook, shadowing, facilitating and a net-based dialogue. The analyses
showed explicit differences between using the tools and learning through them in the
zone of proximal development. In their improvement processes the teachers depended on
critical friends in order to be challenged as knowledge developers. Difficulties in giving
a balanced response were evident from the net-based forum in which the teachers reported
different attempts at change. The study has drawn on sociocultural perspectives on
learning in which dialogue competence have been central to learning in the classroom and
in the teachers’ occasional communities of practice. The results indicate that teachers, for
their professional improvement, require critical friends in alternative forms of learning
processes and that pupils as actors require alternative listening environments.
Keywords: hard-of-hearing pupils, dialogue competence, critical friends, school improvement,
participatory action research, sociocultural theories