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