Teachers across the Nordic countries are happy to include literature in their teaching. But what they want their pupils to learn from the literature differs between the countries. This is one of the findings of a doctoral thesis by Anna Nissen at 果冻传媒.
"I hope my research offers teachers new insights, helping them identify areas for improvement in their teaching as well as what they are already doing successfully. I also hope that my thesis can give those in power and debaters a slightly more nuanced picture of what teaching actually looks like in the classroom, says Anna Nissen."
In her research study, she investigates and compares Nordic literature instruction in the first year of lower secondary school. The research is based on video observations from 71 classrooms, as well as an online survey completed by 701 teachers.
Swedish teachers focus on reading comprehension
One of the findings is that Swedish teachers in the first year of lower secondary school devote approximately 35% of lesson time for literature instruction. In Swedish classrooms, there is a clear focus on reading comprehension, that pupils develop their ability to interpret and understand the text.
"Literature is often used as a means to achieve something practical or to convey knowledge rather than for the pupils to read literature for the sake of reading. What knowledge to be conveyed varies slightly between the countries, says Anna."
Swedish teachers focus mostly on reading comprehension.
"It is also evident from the study that it is not very common to link literature to other subjects or to use literature to discuss ethical issues or to learn about other people and their living conditions."
Differences in terms of lesson planning
The thesis, comprising four research papers, reveals variations in lesson planning among teachers in the Nordic countries. Swedish and Icelandic teachers are more likely to dedicate entire lessons to a single subject content, such as literature and reading. In Norway and Finland, however, teachers more often use parts of the lesson to read and work with fiction and then move on to other things. These other things can be based on the literature, but the teaching then focuses on authorship or about genre features and literary concepts, etc.
"The differences are not always that big, but it is clear there are cultural differences between the countries that make the teaching look a little different. This means that we can learn a lot from each other!"
Danish pupils read the most fiction
Overall, Danish pupils read the most fiction during the first year of lower secondary school. Pupils in Swedish and Norwegian classrooms read the least.
"I鈥檝e worked as a teacher myself and have always been interested in including literature in teaching. I noticed that more and more pupils were struggling with reading comprehension. Therefore, I thought it was interesting to study this more closely. My research shows that Swedish teachers definitively seem to be working on developing pupils鈥 reading comprehension. It is something they spend time on in the classroom, says Anna."
Anna Nissen successfully completed her PhD in Pedagogical Work at 果冻传媒 on 27 September with her thesis 鈥淣ordic Literature Instruction鈥.
