About the project
Aim
The overarching aim is to investigate multilingual writing practices in English writing instruction in Norwegian secondary schools. The study responds to previous research that suggests the importance of creating space for students to draw on their full linguistic repertoires (Hornberger, 2003), as well as a context of increasing diversity in students’ linguistic and educational backgrounds.
The prominence and early start of English instruction in Norway means that not only Norwegian teachers, but also many English teachers, find themselves in need of new strategies for bridging understandings with their linguistically diverse students. The study thus seeks to develop an understanding of how students employ multilingual resources in English writing and how teachers reference these resources in writing instruction.
Design
The project examines students’ writing practices and teachers’ instructional practices through linguistic ethnographic methods (Copland & Creese, 2015), including video-recorded classroom observation, interviews with students and teachers, and collection of student texts. Study sites include English classes at a lower secondary (spring semester 2017) and an upper secondary school (fall semester 2017), with participants in introductory and sheltered classes as well as mainstream English classes.
Funding
The project is a four-year doctoral research project (2016–2020), financed by the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo.