Oracy in year one: a blind spot in Norwegian language and literacy education?

Abstract

This paper focuses on opportunities for student talk in Year One of the Norwegian L1 subject, based on observations from six classrooms (24 lessons) with two teachers in each. The analysis of the data first identifies how the lessons are organised (plenary, individual work, station work and work in groups/pairs) and then focuses on student talk within each organisational frame. The results are discussed with reference to Wegerif's (2007) concept of 'dialogic space' and Segal and Lefstein's (2016) four-level model for understanding dialogic qualities. The data reported in this paper suggest a clear contrast between the established and well-developed oracy practices at Norwegian kindergartens, which involve a high level of student participation, and highly regulated and teacher-dominated practices in Year One of Norwegian L1, offering students little opportunity to engage in oral interaction or to explore matters in their own language. While having two teachers in the classroom could have stimulated dialogic interaction, which has been shown to be effective (Clarke, Resnick, Penstein Rosé, Corno & Anderman, 2016), it actually seems to produce more discipline, more control and more student silence. One important exception from this trend is circle time, which seems to be a promising space for dialogic activities.

Dialogic space in Norwegian early-years literacy education

“…But they also observed a "lack of depth" in whole-class teaching (Hodgson et al, 2012, p. 16), which they associated with the plethora of competence aims in the 2006 curriculum. A pilot to the present study, carried out in the same classrooms in Year One (Skaftun & Wagner, 2019), suggests a paradoxical contrast between the oral practices of kindergarten and school: whereas kindergarten tends to explicitly support activities where students actively use oral language, initial schooling seems to implicitly support activities where students are silent and listen to their teacher.…”

“…But the overall picture remains that student talk in independent settings is strictly regulated or "scripted" (Gutierrez et al, 1995). If we but for a moment accept this perspective on oral participation as a matter of maturation through early years and further into secondary school, a striking contrast compared to the practices of Kindergarten appears (Skaftun & Wagner, 2019). In Kindergarten, oral participation is by far acknowledged as an essential resource for language development and also an essential aim in itself.…”

“…Conceiving early years in school as a transition between the predominantly oral practices of early childhood and the literacy practices of school suggests considering oral participation as an important part of early schooling. It represents a meaningful bridge between the practices of Kindergarten and an essential learning resource on the verge of literacy, i.e., in the early years' literacy instruction (Skaftun & Wagner, 2019). The most dominant organizational forms are whole-class teaching (42 % of the L1 lessons), individual work (33 % of the L1 lessons), and station work (18 % in the L1 lessons).…”

Dialogic Discourse Analysis: A methodology for dealing with the classroom as a text

“…Alongside opportunity to talk (which is not a prominent feature in the typical classroom in Norway, (cf. Hodgson, 2012, Klette, 2003, Skaftun & Wagner, 2019 they must be allowed to deal with substantial ideas, use their own language, and be acknowledged for doing so by others (Segal & Lefstein, 2016). Bakhtin's study of the double-voiced word has taught us to consider the dialogic relations that are played out within single utterances, and sometimes, in order to verbalize or visualize such relations, we must ourselves enter into dialogue with them.…”

Literacy practices in co-taught early years classrooms. Study protocol: The Seaside case

“…Less frequent, but still universally, he found that teachers make use of discussion and dialogue (Alexander, 2008). We have added to and reorganized this typology in order to resonate with our empirical basis and also our key interest in eligibility conditions for participation (Skaftun & Wagner, 2019). Our modified list of categories is organized as a continuum from teacher domination on the one hand side (teacher instruction) to potential student domination on the other (narrative sharing is added to the list) with recitation as intermediary.…”