Min essä handlar om ett problem som jag ofta mött i mitt arbete på förskolan – hur man ska hantera barn och föräldrar som kommer sent. Det blir ofta ett dilemma när olika värden ställs mot varandra så som kollegornas olika synsätt på verksamheten och på lärande, individ och gruppens behov och strukturer och regler mot vad som är praktiskt i situationen. Jag inleder essän med två berättelser om situationer från mitt arbete i förskolan som illustrerar dilemmat. Dessa situationer tar jag sedan som utgångspunkt när jag reflekterar över dilemmat med hjälp av olika teorier. Syftet med denna essä är att belysa och undersöka ett problem som jag tror många förskollärare möter. Hur det hanteras får konsekvenser för att alla barn ska få möjlighet att få uppleva sin tid på förskolan som både lärorik och rolig, och för att de ska få den omsorg och bemötande som de förtjänar. I min essä har jag undersökt hur det är möjligt att som pedagog förstå och förhålla sig till den här typen av situationer. Jag har även reflekterat över mitt eget förhållningssätt i situationen, varför jag gör som jag gör och om vad som tyckts fungera respektive innebära problem. / My essay is about a dilemma that I often face at my work in preschool – how to handle children and parents that show up late for school. It often becomes a problem when different values are in conflict, as can happen when colleagues have different views on how to handle daily activities and teaching. Furthermore, the needs of the individual and the group as a whole, in terms of structure and rules, may be in conflict against what’s practical in the situation when parents and children show up late. My essay contains two stories about situations at my work in preschool that illustrate the dilemma. I will use those two situations as a base, as I reflect over the dilemma using different types of theories. The purpose with this essay is to bring into light and investigate a problem I believe many teachers have. The consequence of my investigation will affect the children’s opportunities to find their time at preschool both instructive and fun, and that they also receive the care and treatment they deserve. In my essay I have investigated how it is possible for an educator to understand and relate to these types of situations. I have also reflected on my own approach in the situation, why I do as I do, what seems to work and what seems to create problems.

The foundational premise of communicatively-based foreign language teaching approaches is that the activities used in the classroom are 'communicative'; that the language learned is being used to 'communicate'. Genuine communication however is difficult to establish in a traditional classroom setting consisting of desks, chairs and textbooks. This project examines how a specific form of Drama in Education - process drama - can be used to create more authentic communicative situations and learning experiences in the foreign language classroom; experiences that are both intellectually and affectively engaging. It begins with a review of the literature pertaining to the three main areas that provide the backdrop to the project's central research proposition, namely second language acquisition, second language methodology and aesthetic education. The three main protagonists are then introduced, namely social interactionist theories of language acquisition, communicative language teaching approaches (the main focus being on task-based methodology), and process drama. The two supporting characters, change and motivation, also make their entrance. The curtain is then raised to reveal a performance of various teaching and learning experiences of the use of process drama in first and second language settings. This illustrates how process drama operates on a practical level and explores the offered potential for more authentic communication when this approach comes into contact with second language task-based methodology. Literature surrounding unit and lesson planning frameworks from the fields of both second language acquisition and process drama is then examined before the spotlight falls on the proposed 'Foreign language and Process drama' Unit and Lesson planning Framework. Illustrative models of the innovative framework together with concrete examples of its use are provided to represent more clearly how it can facilitate the creation of characters and contexts through which to communicate more authentically in the FL classroom. The closing curtain falls on a reflection of the entire project, which includes recommendations and possibilities for further research.

A new realm of discourse research has started examining medical interactions in the crowded space – hospitals (Iedema, 2007). Beyond clinical settings and dyadic doctor-patient interactions, scholars have begun investigating doctors’ interactions in various hospital settings including Emergency Rooms and hospitals’ wards (e.g., Eggins & Slade, 2012; Slade & Eggins, 2016; Slade et al., 2015). Other investigations have expanded this scope of discourse research to include other health professionals, such as nurses (e.g., Staples, 2015). Drawing on discourse analytic approaches (Critical Discourse Analysis, Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar, and Interactional Sociolinguistics), this study examined nurse-to-nurse handoff interactions in two hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Nursing handoff – the transfer of patient information, professional responsibility, and accountability between departing and incoming nursing teams (Manser et al., 2010; Riesenberg et al., 2010; Slade & Eggins, 2016; Wood et al., 2014) – is a critical communicative practice which ensures the continuity and quality of care provided to hospitalized patients. The aim of this study was to provide detailed analyses of the language used in this type of nursing discourse and its impact on the quality of handoffs. The data included 80 nursing handoff interactions, which were observed and audio-recorded in 7 different wards at two sectors (National Guard Hospital and King Fahad General Hospital) in Saudi Arabia including: Intensive Care Units, General-Adult, General- Pediatric, Oncology-Pediatric, Oncology-Palliative, ENT, Urology and Surgical wards. The nurse participants come from various cultural backgrounds including Philippines, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The analyses provided a detailed description of this type of nursing discourse including the discourse pragmatic features (i.e., linguistic, interactional, and interpersonal features) which nurses use while delivering and receiving patient information. In addition, the findings provide insights into the various discourse features that contributed either positively (e.g., using discourse markers, presenting complete thoughts, presenting sufficient detailed patient information) or negatively (e.g., producing questions instead of statements, shifting verb tenses, focusing on one patient issue as opposed to providing detailed patient information report) to the nursing handoff practices in this setting. The findings also point to the vital role that head nurses play in this nursing discourse and its impact on enhancing the quality of nursing handoffs. Additionally, a six-stage nursing handoff model was developed from the data, which could be used for nursing training in the National Guard Hospital and its branches in Saudi Arabia. Finally, the findings provide further support for Eggins and Slade’s (2012) claim that communicatively effective handovers are achieved interactionally and with the collaboration of both departing and incoming teams. Furthermore, the use of standardized protocols (like SBAR) alone proved to be insufficient in guaranteeing effective nursing handoff.