Eeva Raunela
NORENSE funding 31.200 Euro in 2012

Background and motivation for the project
The aim of my ethnographic action research study has been my interest in understanding myself as a Finnish language and literature teacher and my actions in teaching situations in Lappeenranta Steiner High School. Specifically, I have aimed to improve my own pedagogical practice.

Research questions
 My research questions have been:
 1. Is the language awareness in Lappeenranta High School students improving during the three High School years through student-centered dialogic methods?
 2. What kind of experiences do the students in Lappeenranta High School attribute to their understanding of language?
 3. What kind of impact has the dialogic teaching method on the Finnish language and literature lessons?

Sources, methods and theoretical perspectives
 I’ve made my research report into a chronological narrative about growing into becoming a teacher. The report also includes the history of Lappeenranta High School Finnish language and literature lessons as far as I’ve been contributing to them as a teacher. This has included a conscious attempt to discard lecturing in favour of attempting to activate students thought more dialogic methods. The empirical implementation of the study was participant observation. It consisted of an observation period of three school years: from Autumn 2009 to Spring 2012. During this time I followed one High School class and its’ development in language awareness. In analysing the development of language awareness I used phenomenography as the method. The data was all the writing tasks the five students in the followed class wrote during their High School Finnish language and literature courses. In addition to the writing tasks I followed my own impact to the development of the language awareness through three surveys for three High School classes and my own reflective/observation journal.
The results of the research will be available at the end of this year.

Intended form of publication of results
A PhD monograph Publication

Raunela, Eeva. (2018). ”OPIN OPPIMAAN ITSELTÄNI” Autoetnografinen toimintatutkimus kielitietoisuuden kehittymisestä sokraattista opetusmenetelmää hyödyntäen lukion äidinkielen ja kirjallisuuden opetuksessa. (PhD), University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu. Link to publication, text in Finnish, summary in English.