«Hva betyr det ordet, lærer?» En undersøkelse av nytten av språkteknologisk støtte av morsmålet når minoritetsspråklige elever på videregående skole skal forstå begreper i samfunnsfag på andrespråket sitt

Abstract

The topic of this master thesis is conceptual learning and conceptual comprehension among the minority language students in high school who have lived shortly in Norway. Through a study in an introductory class at Møglestu high school in Lillesand, I have looked at the use and benefit of digital language support of the mother tongue in the students' work with concepts from a textbook in Norwegian in social studies. The main research question is "What benefit has digital language conversion of words from the second language till the mother tounge in minority language student’s understanding of Norwegian concepts?". The purpose of this thesis is to look at whether the use of digital language support of the mother tounge, such as the use of the Google Translate application, helps this type of student to better understand their second language. The survey was conducted by classifying the students into two groups, one group having access to digital language support of their mother tongue in working with the concepts, while the other group could only use a digital dictionary in their second language when working on the concepts. The assignment is didactically oriented, and the results may lead to a change in educational practice for educators who teach students in a second language. In addition to the actual study in the class, in which the students delivered their answers digitally, seminstructured interviews were subsequently conducted by four of the informants. The interviews show the students' own thoughts about what they performed in the survey, and contribute to giving the study more depth. The main result shows that there was an overweight of several understood terms in the group that could not use digital language support of the mother tongue. Accordingly, the findings show that the students who only used their second language in general understood the concepts somewhat better than those students who could use digital language support of their mother tounge. These are both surprising and interesting findings, especially in view of the fact that many of the students themselves believe that they understand words in their second language better if they are able to translate the word into their mother tongue. This task's main findings can therefore be said to contribute to a change in pedagogical practice of educators who teach second language. It can also lead this type of student to see, to a greater extent, the benefit of using digital language support of their second language, such as the digital dictionary in Norwegian, in his or her work on understanding Norwegian concepts in the various school subjects. This may replace the extensive use of digital language translation from the second language to the mother tongue that the students are using today.