Qualitative action research on how pupils in a lower secondary school can develop intercultural communicative competence through picturebooks

Abstract

This study investigates how pupils at a lower secondary school can develop intercultural communicative competence (ICC) through picturebooks within the theme of everyday life. To answer the thesis question, three research questions were formulated; how pupils’ picturebook dialogues can foster intercultural learning, what are the possibilities and challenges when developing ICC through picturebooks, and how pupils at a lower secondary school experience working with ICC through picturebooks.

In order to answer the research questions, qualitative action research was adopted and used as the research strategy of the study. The methods used were observation, recordings of pupils’ picturebook dialogues, field conversations, and pupil products.

The findings indicate that the pupils struggled to explore and discuss picturebooks to develop ICC without direct guidance from the teacher. Pupils’ picturebook dialogues can foster intercultural learning when the teacher assists the pupils in getting immersed, exploring, and discussing the picturebook in an exploratory way of talking. The findings also show that the dimensions of attitudes, the skills of discovery and interaction, and knowledge of ICC may be achieved through pupils’ picturebook dialogues. There are several possibilities and challenges when developing ICC through picturebooks. A possibility found is that deep learning may be achieved when the pupils create multimodal output aesthetically when using multimodal picturebooks as input. It may be a challenge to work with several picturebooks instead of one, as the pupils need direct guidance from the teacher. Using self-evaluation forms can be seen as a possibility as it may positively affect the pupils’ self-regulated learning strategies and self-efficacy. However, it may also be a challenge if the pupils are not mature enough to understand the criteria for good and bad, and do not have metacognition. Picturebooks allow for differentiation through pictures and the relationship between pictures and writing. However, it may be challenging to inform the class explicitly enough about the differentiated choices available to them. The findings further indicate that the pupils experienced the teaching scheme as instructive, fun, challenging, and helpful in working with ICC using picturebooks and became more positive towards picturebooks.