VOCATIONAL STUDENTS TALK ABOUT TEXTS IN SMALL GROUPS

The study presents a comparison between how three teachers and their students talked abouttexts – narrative and expository – in small groups during a regular lesson and during two lessons where anew approach of comprehension instruction, Questioning the Author (QtA), was adopted.The students were 17 years old. The majority of them were poor readers and they attended the HealthCare Programme. The lessons were videotaped.During the regular lessons, the teachers dominated the text talks and mostly asked retrieve informationquestions. The students – including the immigrant students – made few inferences and reflections.After the regular lessons, the teachers were invited to participate in seminars led by the investigator wherethe QtA model was practised before videotaping the second time and the third time.Results showed that during the QtA lessons the teachers′ share of talking time diminished. The teachers′questions also underwent changes. The number of retrieve information questions decreased and constructmessage questions increased. The students – including the immigrant students – read more actively duringthe QtA lessons. They clearly made an effort to explore ideas in the text and made numerous inferencesand reflections.