The aim of this study was to illuminate the listening strategies which are revealed when pupils described their choice of the “best listening environment” in school. The study comprises 165 hard-of-hearing pupils from five compulsory schools in Sweden. The results are mainly based on the pupils’ drawings and their attached written explanations. The pupils’ explanations are analysed in the form of four different needs associated with being a listener: a “cleaned-up” sound environment, visual support, conversation rules and comfortable surroundings. The explanations can be seen as reflective knowledge and experiences of listening strategies. Not every pupil in this study has a verbalised awareness of listening strategies in all categories but, as a community, they describe a lot of experiences and knowledge to be shared. How to take the role of listener and continuously develop new strategies might be a matter of self-image.

In classes for hard-of-hearing pupils there are children and young people with different degrees of impaired hearing, all of whom need hearing aids and technical equipment in the environment. The initial problem area of the present thesis concerned the pattern of communication in the classroom. Previous research has shown that such communication is strongly affected by the chosen technical solution. The research questions developed successively from the assumption that it is only the teachers that can change the learning environment. In order to achieve a combination of scientific results and improvement, this study has an action research study approach. The overall aim was to illuminate and describe dialogues between different actors in a national school improvement project. Actors in the context were teachers, their pupils and the researcher. The thesis is based on improvement work in which the researcher cooperated with fifty teachers from five schools located in different parts of Sweden. This work involved parallel processes of change, for the pupils in the classrooms and for the participating teachers. The thesis comprises three substudies, two of which are focused on the teachers' dialogues and one on the pupils' listening environments. In the last-mentioned substudy, 165 pupils were asked to draw and describe their best listening environment at school. The result showed that the listening role required different environmental conditions, such as a cleaned up sound environment, visual support, conversation rules and comfortable surroundings. A central conclusion was that pupils need to be offered opportunities to verbalise their individual needs in the school environment. The result further showed that the teachers worked in different ways to improve the learning environment and that they introduced structures to support the dialogue between pupils. This happened at the same time as the teachers were trying out tools for their own learning in order to take part in dialogues with colleagues based on confirmations and challenges. Tools used in the learning processes were a logbook, shadowing, facilitating and a net-based dialogue. The analyses showed explicit differences between using the tools and learning through them in the zone of proximal development. In their improvement processes the teachers depended on critical friends in order to be challenged as knowledge developers. Difficulties in giving a balanced response were evident from the net-based forum in which the teachers reported different attempts at change. The study has drawn on sociocultural perspectives on learning in which dialogue competence have been central to learning in the classroom and in the teachers' occasional communities of practice. The results indicate that teachers, for their professional improvement, require critical friends in alternative forms of learning processes and that pupils as actors require alternative listening environments.

I hörselklass finns barn och ungdomar med olika grad av hörselnedsättning där alla har behov av hörapparat samt hörselteknisk utrustning i miljön. Det initiala problemområdet inför detta avhandlingsarbete handlade om att kommunikationsmönstret i klassrum för elever med hörselnedsättning starkt påverkades av vald hörselteknisk lösning, vilket bidrog till en passiv inställning till kommunikation mellan eleverna. Forskningsfrågorna har successivt vuxit fram med tanke på att det endast är pedagogerna i hörselklass som kan förändra lärandemiljön. För att åstadkomma en kombination av forskning, utveckling och förändring har denna studie en aktionsforskningsinriktad ansats. Det övergripande syftet var att synliggöra och beskriva dialoger mellan olika aktörer i ett nationellt skolutvecklingsprojekt. Aktörerna i detta sammanhang var pedagoger i hörselklass, deras elever och forskaren. Själva avhandlingsarbetet har sin grund i ett utvecklingsarbete där forskaren samarbetade med femtio pedagoger från fem geografiskt spridda hörselskolor. Utvecklingsarbetet har inneburit parallella förändringsprocesser; för eleverna i klassrummet och för deltagande pedagoger. Avhandlingen innefattar tre delstudier där två har fokus på pedagogernas utvecklingsdialoger och en har fokus på elevers lyssnarmiljöer. I den sistnämnda uppmanades 165 elever att rita och motivera sin bästa lyssnarmiljö i skolan. Resultatet visade att lyssnarrollen krävde olika förutsättningar i miljön såsom: en tillrättalagd ljudmiljö, möjligheter till visuell förstärkning, samtalsregler och en trygg miljö. En central slutsats var att elever med hörselnedsättning behöver erbjudas möjligheter att benämna sina individuella behov i skolans miljö. För att kunna bli aktörer i en lärande dialog krävs en hög medvetenhet om egna och andras lyssnarstrategier. Resultatet visade ytterligare att pedagogerna på olika sätt arbetade för att förbättra den fysiska lärandemiljön samt att de införde strukturer för att stödja dialogen mellan elever. Detta skedde samtidigt som pedagogerna provade redskap för sitt eget lärande för att ingå i dialoger med kollegor som byggde på bekräftelser och utmaningar. De redskap som användes var loggbok, skuggning, handledning och en nätbaserad dialog. Analyserna visade explicita skillnader mellan att använda sig av, eller att lära genom redskapen, inom den närmaste utvecklingszonen. I sin utvecklingsprocess var pedagogerna beroende av kritiska vänner för att kunna bli utmanad som kunskapsutvecklare. Det framkom svårigheter med att ge en balanserad respons, vilket tydligt visade sig via det nätbaserade forum där lärarna delgav olika förändringsförsök. Detta tyder på att sociokulturella perspektiv på lärande dialoger varit svårt att omsätta via nätet. För att stödja professionsutveckling behövs olika redskap för lärares lärande, de behöver förfinas och kombineras för att passa in i kontexten. Studien har tagit stöd i sociokulturella perspektiv på lärande där dialog och dialogkompetens varit centralt för lärandet i klassrummet och i lärarnas tillfälliga praxisgemenskaper. Att förändringsprocesserna upplevts som meningsfulla i relation till eleverna har varit själva bränslet i processen. Nya begrepp och teorier blev ett stöd för pedagogerna att konkretisera nuet och forma framtiden. Studien ger implikationer om att lärare som aktörer i sin kunskapsutveckling efterfrågar alternativa former av kompetensutveckling och att elever som aktörer efterfrågar alternativa lyssnarmiljöer.

This article describes a national school improvement project involving five compulsory schools for hard-of-hearing pupils, located in different parts of Sweden. Using action research, the teachers tried to change the communication patterns among the pupils by changing their own classroom practices, In this process the teachers tested and used different tools, such as writing, shadowing and facilitating each other, over a three-year period. The purpose of this article is to examine how tools used in action research can be used to promote learning in relation to the concept of the zone of proximal development. The theoretical framework of the study is based on action research, as a collaborative way of creating knowledge, and on sociocultural learning theories. The basic assumption is that teachers, by using different tools, also challenge each other's learning. The results show the importance of internalising tools that become owned by individuals or communities of practise. To be able to assume an active role in the zone of proximal development, and to produce knowledge collaboratively, a meaning-making process was needed. It was found that this could be realised if the participants had an awareness of how to function as a critical friend among colleagues. Furthermore, the results revealed that, by using different tools, different voices can be heard. Three categories of voices were identified.

The aim of this paper is to enlighten and discuss dance as a form of expression for hard of hearing children, from a starting point of dance educational praxis. In every special educational setting communication is challenged. Traditionally, training these children's spoken language has been the common way of developing communication skills. We will present our starting points for using dance as an alternative communication, to offer different forms of expression. A good self esteem is in our opinion the ground for communication. One challenge in this respect is to take care of the initiatives of the children. Another aspect is to use the body in a communicative context and learn how it works in relation to other human beings. Also important is to catch how the children participate in the activities, from their specific circumstances. One part is how they imitate the teacher, the classmates and themselves. We also want to enlighten how the teacher relates to the children and their learning in this context. Finally we want to discuss different ways of developing this project, and how it is possible to use in other special educational settings.