Browsing by Subject "koulutehtävä"

Aims. The purpose of this study was to show in what ways a school task is carried out in interaction. The task in question was giving a presentation in an upper secondary school Finnish lesson on an elective topic. The theoretical framework used was learning as changes in participation. Previous research has tracked various changes in participation longitudinally, i.e. across several conversations. In such studies, learning is indicated by changes in repair type, in use of learning objects, and in epistemic stance and topicalization of epistemic stance. Although these by themselves cannot be considered evidence of learning, they show what kind of contingent practices of understanding are used to accomplish the task. This is known as doing learning. Previous research has often focused on second language learning, but rarely on first language learning. Neither has the accomplishment of one task across several days been much researched. For these reasons, the accomplishment of one school task longitudinally in the context of first language learning was chosen as the focus of the current study. The research question is: How is a school task accomplished in interaction? Methods. The data were a set of videos originally recorded for the Språkmöten project. One sixth-form student is followed by a video camera for three days during both classes and recess. From the videos, I chose the parts in which the presentation for the Finnish lesson is discussed. I analyzed them using conversation analysis. Results and conclusions. I demonstrated empirically how the different phases of the presentation task fit together. I showed that doing the task involves a lot of intertwined telling and negotiation. "Doing learning" could be seen in the explicit, longitudinal orientation towards change: in this way, the presentation task was taken forward and accomplished. The data showed how the understanding of the presentation task developed. They also showed how the requirements of the school on the one hand, and the students' own ideas on the other, were integrated into the process. The showing of affect (i.e. emotions) was demonstrated to be part of "doing learning". The results help us to understand learning outside the classroom and school enjoyment. In further studies, the same methods may be applied to explore tasks in interaction in other contexts, e.g. universities and workplaces.