Session Information
Session 6B, Academic and staff development in higher education (3)
Papers
Time:
2004-09-23
17:00-18:30
Room:
Chair:
Barbara Zamorski
Discussant:
Barbara Zamorski
Contribution
The voice is known to be a most important professional tool for every teacher. Through her voice the teacher creates a learning atmosphere, mediates information and expresses her thoughts and feelings. The voice of the teacher is hence a central aspect of the interaction in any educational setting. However, the educational work environment is also a major challenge to the teacher´s voice. Consequently, the occurrence of voice disorders is noticebly high among both teachers and student teachers. The importance of early prevention of voice disorders is generally recognised and education about the voice as a professional tool should therefore be considered a crucial issue in teacher training. Not only should the students get the possibility to learn to prevent future voice problems, but they should also have a chance to develop their voice as a didactical tool. As knowledge about the nature of learning in this field is still remarkably limited, the focus of my research is directed towards the learning involved in becoming a professional voice user. The aim of the present study was to explore the characteristics of the learning process related to becoming a professional voice user in a teaching profession. Learning process is here defined as the interaction between the student, the specific learning content and it´s form, and the context in which learning is situated (Nielsen & Kvale 1999).The intention was to describe and understand the complexity of the phenomenon mainly from the perspective of the student teacher. The study was conducted within a qualitative, constructivist-interpretive research paradigm, grounded in phenomenology and hermeneutic epistemology. It was designed as a multi case study including ten students attending a course on professional voice usage during teacher training. The participants were followed throughout the course and during teaching practice. Multiple data collection methods were adopted to capture the different aspects of the learning process. Through the process of crystallisation of multiple materials an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon was obtained. The main focus of the data collection was an emic perspective on the learning process, while the etic perspective formed a frame for analysis and interpretation of the data. Data were analysed and reported within the tradition of narrative research. The student teachers describe the learning process involved in becoming a professional voice user as an individual as well as a social phenomenon in accordance with Malinen (2000). The narratives capture individual experiences related to awareness, knowledge and bodily learning. However they also contain elements of learning through discussion, observation and feedback from others, which implies the social aspects of learning in this field. The learning process involved in becoming a professional voice user can thus be understood as a gradually increasing understanding of the meaning of the individual voice while participating in the social practice of teaching. The implication for future education on professional voice usage seems to be the situated character of learning involved in becoming a professional voice user must be emphasised through connecting education in formal contexts (course) to education in informal contexts (teaching practice).
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