Sarah Margrethe Øverlie Eiene

• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie; Cohen, Cathy & Myhill, Debra Ann (2026). Student Talk Matters: Student Voices and Perspectives on Classroom Talk in English and French Classes in England, France and Norway. Acta Didactica Norden (ADNO). 20(1). doi: 10.5617/adno.13067. Full text in Research Archive
• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie; Brevik, Lisbeth M. & Vold, Eva Thue (2026). Fluid multilingualism: Classroom talk in English and French classes in England, France and Norway. The Modern Language Journal. ISSN 0026-7902. 110(3), p. 794–811. doi: 10.1111/modl.70077. Full text in Research Archive
• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie & Brevik, Lisbeth M. (2025). A dialogic whole: Creating space for student talk in digitally-rich language classrooms in England, France and Norway. Teaching and Teacher Education : An International Journal of Research and Studies. ISSN 0742-051X. 172. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2025.105334. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Despite indications that digital technology transcends traditional approaches to classroom instruction, evidence of the role of digital technology during student talk in language classrooms is scarce. This paper presents findings from the large-scale European project LANGUAGES. Through a sociocultural lens on student talk during 72 video-recorded language lessons in England, France and Norway, we examined 36 secondary classrooms of English and French. Using a mixed methods approach to video-recorded instruction, we found student talk typically occurring during oral interaction, seldom during oral production, and frequently in the presence of digital technology, such as PowerPoint-led teaching (England, France) and individual laptops (Norway). However, in a quarter of the observed lesson time, students talked in the absence of digital technology. Implications include insights into the importance for teachers and teacher education of consciously creating a dialogic whole in language classrooms through creating space for student talk both with and without digital technology.

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• Brevik, Lisbeth M.; Blikstad-Balas, Marte; Korbøl, Karsten; Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie; Stordrange, Guro & Stave, Åse Eikill [Show all 8 contributors for this article] (2026). Skolens tilstand: Digital lesing i en analog skole? Hva sier ny forskning om det digitales plass i skolen, og hvordan kan skolen ta ansvar for både lesing, læring og digital danning? Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  PC, mobil, KI og internett er blitt en del av elevenes hverdag, både i og utenfor skolen. Samtidig vokser ønsket om å skjerme klasserommet fra det digitale, av hensyn til konsentrasjon, læring og trivsel. Vi har på kort tid gjort en kraftig u-sving i det offentlige og politiske ordskiftet. Fra et ønske om én-til-én dekning og heldigitale læremidler, tar mange nå til orde for at det digitale skal begrenses og at mye lesing og læring skal skje analogt. I det femte møtet i Skolens tilstand stiller vi spørsmål om hva som er i ferd med å skje med ambisjonene om digital kompetanse og leseferdigheter som er relevante også i en hverdag der mye skal leses på skjerm. Hvis skolen lukker døren for digitale verktøy, hvem skal da lære elevene å forstå og håndtere dem? Hva krever dagens læreplaner når det kommer til digital teknologi og digital lesing?

• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie (2026). The value of student talk in the language classroom | BERA. Full text in Research Archive
• Brevik, Lisbeth M.; Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie; Isaksen, Anja Ramfjord; Elgen, Annie Karoline; Dodou, Katherina & Skarpaas, Kaja Granum (2026). Digital expectations vs. classroom reality in Nordic and European secondary classrooms: The importance of digital life skills, digital responsibility and student voices. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In today’s digitalised society, the role of digitalisation is greater than ever. As digital technologies and Generative AI increasingly influence the lives and learning experience of young people, concerns about their ICT skills, screen usage and life skills have become commonly debated topics (Munthe et al., 2022). Students are expected to have sufficient – or even high – digital competence, be resilient, critical thinkers capable of identifying misinformation, amongst other challenges in a highly digital English-speaking world. Research indicates that students should develop into responsible technology users (Choi, 2016; Kure et al., 2025), while they also face challenges related to social media and technology, such as mental health issues, loneliness and exclusion (Holmarsdottir et al., 2024). Despite these insights, there is a lack knowledge of what happens inside the classrooms, including teachers’ and students’ perceptions on these matters. This symposium presents various perspectives of digitalisation in lower and upper secondary classrooms in Norway, England and France across four subjects. By analysing data from video-recorded classroom observations and teacher interviews, we draw on insights from two large-scale longitudinal projects, EDUCATE [AI2.1](Evaluation of the curriculum reform) and LANGUAGES (Language use and instruction across contexts), exploring how digital responsibility, student voices, and digital life skills are characterised and reflected upon in teaching. How can we facilitate the development of responsible technology use in the classroom? Are students becoming responsible users of technology, and what actually occurs inside the classroom in practice? In this symposium, we present four recent studies from Nordic and European classrooms, allowing us the opportunity to explore what actually occurs within today’s classroom. The first study observes and interviews teachers in xx lower secondary English classrooms, revealing that there is clearly an absence of teaching on digital responsibility (Paper 1). The second study contributes with important insights into how English and Norwegian teachers from xx classrooms in Norway understand and teach responsible use of GenAI technologies (Paper 2[AI3.1]). The third study explores 36 lower secondary classrooms of English and French, focusing on the role of technology in making students talk (Paper 3). The final paper presents a study that explores 68 upper secondary English and social science classrooms, highlighting the importance to put digital life skills on the agenda, especially if we aim to develop future responsible future technology users (Paper 4). The findings discussed in the symposium highlight the need to reconsider the approaches to teaching in Nordic and European secondary classrooms to emphasize the importance of embedding digital life skills and digital responsibility into everyday teaching and listening to student voices. We offer valuable insights and implications to research on ICT skills in the digital classroom.

• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie (2025). Opportunities to Talk: Student Voices and Perspectives on Language Use in English and French Lessons in England, France and Norway. doi: https:/www.bera.ac.uk/conference/bera-conference-2025/programme/presenter-information. Full text in Research Archive
• Molway, Laura Jane; Brevik, Lisbeth M. & Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie (2024). Invited talk: Multiple voices and perspectives: Comparing students’ language resources to actual language use across countries and contexts. Full text in Research Archive
• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie & Brevik, Lisbeth M. (2024). Fluid multilingualism: Opportunities for student talk in language lessons in Norway, France and England. Full text in Research Archive
• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie & Fohr-Prigent, Estelle (2023). Poster: Language use in English and French classes across England, France and Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Fohr-Prigent, Estelle; Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie; Brevik, Lisbeth M.; Haukås, Åsta; Cohen, Cathy & Funova, Adéla [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2023). Multiple voices and perspectives: Comparing students’ language resources to actual language use across countries and contexts. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is generally agreed that embracing linguistic diversity in education is a key part of developing inclusive societies that respect diversity and difference (Council of Europe, 2008). However, scholars have expressed concern about the lack of a multilingual pedagogy in the classroom that includes and draws on all students’ existing language resources, whether home languages or additional ones (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). This paper provides new knowledge by reporting on multiple datasets from an international project, combining a student perspective and an observed perspective on students’ language resources and the actual use of these resources in language lessons in three countries. The project aims to spotlight the role that teaching plays in developing students’ ability to communicate in more than one language. The classes in this project were strategically sampled to include language homogeneous and heterogeneous contexts in the three countries and includes eight French classes and eight English classes in each country (n=48), among students aged 13–15 (n=1440). This paper reports on findings from the first year of the project and includes two strands of data to identify the two most linguistically diverse English and Frech classrooms in the LANGUAGES project: (1) the Ungspråk student survey (Haukås et al., 2021), where the project obtained a quantitative and systematic overview of all students’ reported linguistic repertoires, and (2) a well-proven video observation design in the classroom (Brevik, 2019), where the project systematically recorded four consecutive lessons in each language class (n=192). Adopting a mixed-methods approach (Greene, 2007; Tashakkori et al., 2020), this study focuses on the results specifically relating to similarities and differences between students’ reported language repertoire and the use of languages in the classroom. The contribution relates to trends across the three contexts, showing the extent to which the most linguistically diverse classrooms capitalises on students’ diverse language resources.

• Eiene, Sarah Margrethe Øverlie; Brevik, Lisbeth M.; Cohen, Cathy; Molway, Laura & Funova, Adéla (2023). Diversity and inclusion. Comparing students’ reported languages to actual language use in English and French lessons across countries. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is generally agreed that embracing linguistic diversity in education is a key part of developing inclusive societies that respect diversity and difference (Council of Europe, 2008). However, scholars have expressed concern about the lack of a multilingual pedagogy in the classroom that includes and draws on all students’ existing language resources, whether home languages or additional ones (Auger, 2007; Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). This paper provides new knowledge by reporting on multiple datasets from the LANGUAGES project, combining a student perspective and an observed perspective on students’ language resources and the actual use of these resources in language lessons in England, France and Norway. LANGUAGES is a longitudinal project that examines the teaching and use of English and French within and across three national contexts, where these languages have very different statuses and where students’ language resources and proficiency vary extensively (European Commission, 2012). The project aims to spotlight the role that teaching plays in developing students’ ability to communicate in more than one language. The classes in this project were strategically sampled to include language variety in the three countries and include the four most linguistically diverse French and English classes in each country (n=24 classes), among students aged 13–15. This paper reports on findings from the first year of the project and includes two strands of data: (1) a thoroughly validated student survey (Haukås et al., 2021), where the project obtained a quantitative and systematic overview of all students’ reported linguistic repertoires, and (2) a well-proven video observation design in the classroom (Brevik, 2019), where the project systematically recorded four consecutive lessons in each language class (n=96). Adopting a mixed-methods approach (Greene, 2007; Tashakkori et al., 2020), this study focuses on the results specifically relating to similarities and differences between students’ reported language repertoire and the use of languages in the classroom. The contribution relates to trends across the three contexts, exemplifying teacher practices for capitalising on students’ diverse language resources and identities in the language classroom.

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