This dissertation examines the language proficiency of school-aged deaf pupils from a bilingual perspective. The first aim of the study is to investigate the Swedish L2 skills of the pupils. This includes testing the validity of the Processability Theory on deaf learners of Swedish as an L2. The second aim is to investigate whether there is a correlation between proficiency in Swedish and Swedish Sign Language (SSL) as suggested in earlier research on deaf bilingualism. This study is cross-sectional and contains data from 38 pupils (grades 5 and 10) from a school for deaf and hearing-impaired pupils in Sweden. The data consists of retellings of a cartoon in written Swedish and of free stories in SSL. For the first part of the study, the Swedish data has been analyzed according to Processability Theory (PT).  For the second part of the study, narrative structure in both the Swedish and SSL data has been analyzed. As a theoretical framework, Labov’s narrative model is applied. The results show that there is an implicational order in the informants’ development of Swedish following the predicted grammatical learning order described by PT. The results therefore suggest that PT is a valid theory also for deaf learners of L2 Swedish. The conclusions regarding SSL proficiency suggest that more research about sign language as such is needed to get a deeper understanding of SSL proficiency. The results show that one narrative component of Labov’s model - Evaluation - is an important component in SSL proficiency. The results from the comparative analysis show that there is a positive statistical correlation between some Swedish and SSL variables used in this study, suggesting that skills in Swedish correlate with skills in SSL. This means that a well-developed sign language is important for the deaf to learn any written language as a second language.

The aim of this study is to investigate the interaction in sign language in a classroom in the special school for deaf and hard of hearing pupils. Three questions are of particular interest: What characterizes interaction in educational situations where the whole class is present compared to half the class and when the pupils in small groups are solving problems given by the teacher? How are a hearing and a deaf teacher interacting in the classroom? And How are boys and girls interacting in different educational situations? Theoretically the study is based on an educational interaction model. Of particular interest in this model are restrictive and permissive aspects of teaching and factors stimulating pupil participation. Symbolic interactionism has been used in the interpretation of face-to-face interaction in sign language. Video recordings of classroom interaction in natural sciences were documented in a class in the special school comprising 17 pupils and three teachers. A total of seven lessons were recorded consisting of whole class teaching, half class teaching and problem solving in small groups. Of the pupils ten were girls and seven were boys and of the teachers one was hearing and one was deaf. The third teacher was only temporarily in the class and was not included in the analysis. The recorded material was transcribed and analyzed in six steps. The results show that the teachers are most restrictive in whole class teaching while there is more participation from the pupils in half class teaching. In the small group problem solving the teachers seem to be more interested in the group process than in getting an answer to the problem. This gives a lot of room for individual actions and interaction of a relational kind rather than educational. There tend to be some visible differences between the hearing and the deaf teacher. The former uses a more individual approach towards the pupils, I-Gaze, which leaves room for the pupils to be engaged in other activities. The deaf teacher on the other hand keeps all the pupils engaged by using a group approach, G-Gaze. Other differences are the use of literacy tools where the deaf teacher situates the material and keeps the attention of the pupils by telling a narrative. Concerning differences between boys and girls it is evident that the boys are more dominant in whole class and half class interactions while the girls tend to take over the teacher role in small group interaction. These results are discussed in relation to theoretical background and research on classroom interaction in the compulsory school and in schools for deaf pupils.

This thesis is focused on learning texts reading comprehension of pupils in primary schools for hearing impairment pupils in comparison with primary schools pupils of mainstream education, in connection with the textbooks. The whole issue is put into the theoretical framework of reading literacy and teaching texts information. Specifically, there is a reading literacy in the concept of international studies, and also a brief overview of the findings drawn from the textbooks, their functions, research, evaluation and comparison. The comparison of the concept of primary school textbooks for the hearing impaired with textbooks for mainstream schools through standardized assessment tools is included too. In this thesis, there is a research of learning texts comprehension for pupils from 3rd to 9th (or 10th) years of primary schools for the hearing impaired and analogous grades of primary school pupils of mainstream education. The research design is based on Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), one part of this research is translated into Czech sign language.