Volume: 19  Number: 6  Page: 513–536

The Collaboration of Teacher and Language-minority Children in Masking Comprehension Problems in the Language of Instruction: A Case Study in an Urban Norwegian School

Elena Tuveng and Astri Heen Wold Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway

Problems in comprehending the language of instruction may contribute to language minority children’s difficulties with different educational tasks. In this project the relationship between difficulties in language comprehension and task solutions was explored by studying in depth the concrete interactions and communications in mathematical lessons in one group of children from a multicultural third-grade class in Norway and their teacher. The methods included non-participant classroom observations, audio recordings of classroom communication, interviews with teachers and children, and language testing. The children’s difficulties in mathematics were categorised as either technical difficulties, diffuse difficulties or difficulties in comprehending the language of instruction. Only one example of an explicitly expressed language-comprehension difficulty was observed in about 10 hours of observation. The pattern of results from observations, interviews and testing strongly suggests that more comprehension problems are actually experienced by the children, however. We discuss how the teacher, by her modelling, and the children, by their behaviour, co-create a situation in which difficulties in comprehending the language of instruction are masked. We emphasise that the responsibility for changing the situation lies with the teacher.

Keywords: classroom discourse, ethnographic study, language-comprehension, language minority pupils

© 2005 E. Tuveng & A.H. Wold

Access this article