Helle Rønholt, University of Copenhagen, Institute of Exercise and Sport Sciences

INTRODUCTION

In this paper, I briefly present an empirical study of PE teaching in schools (Rønholt, 1996), afterwards I make a reanalysis of the most important empirical points in order to see if these points can be further amplified by using a general learning theory like Situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Finally, the applicability of this theory is discussed.

A basic assumption in the study was: "In principle, PE teaching does not differ from teaching in other subjects, but the body and movement aspects are such a large part of the content of the teaching, that this in itself makes a difference, and therefore must be presumed to have significance for the teaching and learning processes in this subject.

The main questions in the study, inspired by ethnography and phenomenology, were thus: What do the teacher and the pupil do during PE lessons? Why do they do what they do? What is the meaning of their actions in the situation? And what are the pedagogical and didactic perspectives?

Teaching was defined as inter-action processes that take place in a social and professional forum. That is to say, teaching was regarded as processes in which relations between teacher and pupil play a central role. Teaching processes were therefore understood not just as learning processes in which the content and problems of a subject were confronted, but also as social processes or social learning processes (Klafki, 1991). It was pointed out that the field of study was narrowed to the space where the intention is to teach a PE content, which becomes visible in the inter-action between teachers and pupils in school PE lessons. The learning concept was not similarly defined. Therefore it was interesting and relevant afterwards to see if general learning theories could help to give more understanding than that generated phenomenologically by the empirical material.

DATA

The empirical methods used consisted of video-recorded classroom observations in the first to third classes in four different schools. The length of observation was from 4 to 10 lessons in each class. Semi-structured interviews were made with 11 PE teachers and structured interviews with the participating children in the break after teaching . The interviews were collated with the observations that were the central data material.

METHODOLOGY AND METHOD

The cognitive interest in the study was basically didactic with references to a critical constructive research programme (Klafki, W., 1991), but the main inspiration for the method used in the study came from ethnography (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983, 1995; Glasser & Strauss 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990), as well as recent hermeneutic phenomenology (Manen, M.v., 1991). Actions were regarded as intentional on the basis of a monistic perception of humanity (Merleau - Ponty, 1962), and the orientation was thus directed towards the life world of PE teaching as it can be directly experienced in school.

According to Max Van Manen (1991), a lived experience can be understood as a pre-reflective experience. This approach aims at a deeper understanding of the nature and meaning of everyday experiences. The experience is questioned, and in research work, efforts are made to give insightful descriptions of pre-reflective experiences without systematising, categorising or abstracting. The experiences in the life world that touch awareness are of potential interest for the phenomenological approach. Thus, phenomenology did not offer a theory with which I could explain the life world of PE teaching. On the other hand, it offered a method that could give plausible insight and a direct contact with the field of study.

The ethnography methodology inspired the processing of the data material. And the central element in the research process was basically ... to produce descriptions and explanations of various phenomena, and through systematic collection of data to develop theories, rather than testing existing hypotheses and relying on armchair theorising (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995, p. 25).

PE teaching is above all manifested in body actions that become lived experiences in the situation and context in which they are experienced. My didactic starting point meant that not everything in the empirical material could be regarded as relevant for an analysis. Only the elements that had a crucial significance for the teaching and learning processes were considered to have research interest. After several viewings of the video recordings and field notes, the core category, Didactic irritations became the data-limiter as well as the key to opening the data (Rønholt, 1996, p. 31)

At an early stage, irritations were experienced as a commonly occurring, interesting, didactic phenomenon in the observed reality. Generally speaking, teaching is seldom seen as perfectly executed planning, but consists of both planned and non-planned situations, of interactions and interventions that succeed and fail, of intentions on the part of teachers and pupils, which can have both the same and opposite directions. Karlheinz Scherler has worked with such problems in PE teaching (Scherler, K. 1989). Problems in the teaching process were thus well known as a common phenomenon, but before problems arise you are sometimes able to register an irritation, that proves to be very significant for the following process. I found that these irritations could tell us something important in relation to teaching and learning in PE. Therefore I was interested in these situations, which I called didactic irritations.

The experience and interpretation of didactic irritations are linked to the researchers eyes and framework of understanding, both in relation to PE in general and specifically in relation to the concrete situation. In this project, the subjectivity and relativity of the research basis influenced the choice of descriptive method. The phenomenological descriptive method was made by transcriptions of central situations that could illustrate the didactic irritation. The irritation was hermeneutically interpreted on the basis of an understanding of the whole situation, and the argumentation for a given phenomenon was made a key part of the interpretation. In addition, I consulted impartial PE teachers about their views on my narratives and the phenomena that were stressed., and I have pointed out that my subsequent didactic reflections could not be regarded as final or static, but that they were accessible both to criticism and to new perspectives or wider interpretations. The reanalysis of the empirical points in this paper should thus be understood as an extra level of analysis, which is testing whether a general learning theory can amplify or further illustrate the results of the study.

RESULTS

The selected core category in the limitation and interpretation of the data material was significant for which results the study produced. Seventeen narratives about didactic irritations and derived phenomena were collected in three themes and then reflected on didactically. The themes were: 1. The meaning of the movement with the phenomena: movement expression, movement learning, words without movement, movement without words, movement without meaning, meaningful movement, the bodys words. 2. Gender and relations with the phenomena: content gets gender, peer group, difference in interest and understanding, boys space and girls space, visible relations. 3. Observation and speech acts with the phenomena: the speech of moralising, the speech of organising, the speech of posing questions, the speech of experience, and the speech about the subject. These narratives, phenomena and reflections were the results of the study. A number of general points were derived from these results, which are subsequently examined in dialog with the theory of situated learning.

MOTIVATION FOR CHOICE OF LEARNING THEORY

Since the radical change in learning theories in the 1960s, when the behaviouristic stimulus-response theories were replaced by theories from cognitive psychology and the concept of meaningful learning, the basic view has been that the individual actively processes new information and constructs his or her own knowledge. However, cognitive psychology is criticised because important factors are ignored when the focus is exclusively on the cognitive processes. In this connection, Shuell & Moran (1994) point to a number of shortcomings in the theoretical considerations: no allowance is made for a) the socio-cultural nature of learning, b) the importance of authenticity (the real world instead of artificial tasks), c) the importance of motivation, interest and emotions, and d) the specific nature of the learning domain.

The empirical points have played a crucial role in the deliberations about which learning theories could be relevant in the reanalysis. The theory of situated learning was chosen because 1) it can help overcome some of the shortcomings for which, according to Schuell and Moran, cognitive psychology can be criticised, 2) it is in agreement with the definition of PE teaching in the project mentioned 3) it is an analytical theory that harmonise with a phenomenological understanding of humanity. Some major reservations are that the theory is linked to a vocational idea rather than to a traditional school didactic idea, which can mean that it is not suitable for elucidating school practice with intentional learning strategies and a cognitive teaching tradition. But since PE practice because of its body aspect has a direct resemblance to a craftsman-type vocational practice, where not only is it accepted that learning takes place through body actions, but where this is also practised, testing the theory was found to be of interest.

THE THEORY OF SITUATED LEARNING

Jean Lave and Etienne Wengers theory of situated learning has its source of inspiration in Vygotskys activity theory (Bakhurst 1988; Engeström 1987; Wertsch 1981, 1985) and probably also in Bordieus theory of practice (Bordieu 1977; Callewaert 1992, 1994). The situated learning theory can be regarded as a form of showdown with learning seen as a cognitive learning process that takes place exclusively inside the head of the learner. The theory regards learning as a way to be present in the world. Learning is an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 31), and the focus is on the learner in this practice.

The teaching situation is by definition a social practice, and even though not all social practice situations can be regarded as teaching, learning according to the theory is an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice where the relation between person, action and situation is the most important element. "Learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process that we call Legitimate, peripheral participation (Ibid. p. 29). Children can be regarded as legitimate, peripheral participants in several different social communities of practice. They are accepted as not being full participants for example in the family, sports club and school. The learning is situated and developed in communities of practice which thereby are important for the development of the child. Through legitimate, peripheral participation, which is regarded as being a precondition for learning, the child`s relations in the community of practice change and the learning takes place through the activities that exist against the background of the current context. In time, the child moves from being a legitimate, peripheral participant to being a full participant. Knowledge is thus generated through participation and involves the whole person. The movement from legitimate, peripheral participant to full participant takes place through learning processes, which are also regarded as being identity forming.

The situated learning theory is characterised in particular by following concepts; context, communities of practice, situated learning; legitimate, peripheral participation; trajectories, and identity in learning. Some of the most prominent key words in the theory are used in the analysis below.

PE CONTEXTS AND COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

When using the situated learning theory on PE, it is nessessary to analyse the teaching as a social practice that is rooted in a context. It involves an analysis for example of the institutional framework of the school system, characterised by general laws, teaching plans, buildings, space, economy etc., which constitute the context of the school. The context is vitally important for what kind of community of practice that can be established, and with that the kind of learning environment.

In any given concrete community of practice the process of community reproduction - a historically constructed, ongoing, conflicting, synergistic structuring of activity and relations among practitioners - must be deciphered in order to understand specific forms of legitimate peripheral participation through time. (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p 56)

The pedagogically motivated content in the school´s PE teaching is presented by means of radically different forms of activity and modes of action, which differ from comparable forms of practice in leisure-time sport by not being able to the same extent to reproduce a specific sports culture, which can have the nature of a vocational culture. A specific sports culture is developed in a different context in a community of practice that has had a different historical development (football club, swimming club etc.) from what can be/is created in schools. In Denmark there is a crucial difference between the contexts of school sport and club sport, and this means that they are never comparable, even though the content they have can be the same in substance. These contextual differences mean there are also important differences in the conditions, connections and possibilities are established in the communities of practice in the club and the school. The similarity in substance between the PE content in the club and the school is the cause of a latent problem about what and who defines the PE community of practice in school.

Below is outlined a structural characterisation of traditional differences between the contexts of school PE and club sport. The characterisation shows the factors that have a direct influence on the community of practice that can be established in the school and the club.

Figure 1. Structural characterisation of traditional differences between the contexts of school sport and club sport

It makes a great difference whether sport is obligatory or voluntary, whether the group of participants is homogeneous with regard to gender, age, level and interest, whether the individual pursues just one sport discipline and concentrates on that, or whether the primary content is movement activities and games with elements from several disciplines, whether the person responsible for the practice situation is primarily teacher, trainer or instigator of activities, whether the adult acts on the basis of a developmental goal, a product goal or a process goal, and whether participants are in the same community of practice for a short or long period.

The PE teacher in Danish schools usually tries to create a teaching culture which has the overall aim of promoting the children´s holistic development within both a short and year-long time framework. The teacher´s espoused theory about the content, function and potential of the subject is therefore crucially significant for the practice that he or she tries to establish. The pupils all have their individual ideas and backgrounds and a culture of being together and learning in PE is created in the meeting between teacher and pupils, by means of joint routines, rules, norms, attitudes, activities, forms of work and expression, which teacher and pupils define through negotiations. These can be understood as aspects of a PE community of practice, as learning processes are situated in the school. A description and an understanding of the learning processes can therefore only be made on the basis of an analysis of a concrete community of practice and a concrete course of practice.

ANALYSIS OF PRACTICE

In the reanalysis, excerpts from 3 narratives from 3 themes are used: A) The meaning of movement, B) Gender and relations and C) Observations and speech acts. The themes, narratives, phenomena and didactic points are shown reduced and schematically below.

Figure 2. Themes, narratives, phenomena and didactic points

In the following, a short excerpt of a single narrative is presented. The didactic phenomena are pointed out, and subsequently, the general points, which are analysed with the help of the situated learning theory, are deduced.

A) THE MEANING OF MOVEMENT

Example 1:

The teacher has a first class for PE. Eleven pieces of equipment are set up in the large hall, and at the beginning of the class, the children sat in a circle and the teacher explained very exactly and showed what they should do on the various pieces of equipment. During the instruction, the children ask about the movements they are to do and they negotiate permission to do cartwheels and somersaults too.

At the springboard with the large thick mat, the children did many different jumps. Some just run through without taking off. Several of the boys throw themselves flat on the mat. Towards the end of the sequence, 5 boys stand in line ready to jump.

The first boy runs forward and takes off on the springboard on one foot and lands on his side on the thick mat. The next boy in the row shouts at him, Michael, you touched it with only one foot! What? asks Michael. You have to touch it with two feet, continues the boy from the line. The boys who stand behind him in the line begin to discuss. But the boy who is now first in the line turns to them quickly and says firmly, Yes, you do!. He then runs to the springboard, lands on the springboard with both feet, takes off and lands on the mat with his feet together, after which he does a somersault - exactly as the teacher had shown and explained at the beginning of the lesson. Thats how to do it, he says loudly, so the line of boys can hear him. The following jumps look like this:

First boy: runs up and takes off with one foot on the springboard, lands on two feet on the thick mat, hops on heavily on two feet on the mat, loses his balance and lands on his hands and knees.

Second boy: runs up and takes off with two feet on the floor in front of the springboard, lands on two feet on the springboard, hops and lands on two feet on the mat.

Third boy: runs up and takes off with two feet on the floor in front of the springboard, lands with two feet on the springboard, hops and lands on his stomach on the mat.

Fourth boy: runs up and takes off with two feet on the springboard and lands on his hands and knees on the thick mat.

The lesson is finished, the children put the equipment away and afterwards gather in a circle again, where the teacher demonstrates how a roll of matting can best be lifted. After this, the children are sent out to take a shower.

In the subsequent interpretation, questions were asked about the meaning of movement, and movement expression and movement learning were emphasised as conflicting phenomena in the teaching situation that gave rise to an experienced didactic irritation. The teachers thorough and differentiated instruction needed different, but also definite, modes of action from the children. Most of the children did not use these forms of action with the equipment. And the interpretation led to a perception of a discrepancy between the teachers long, careful instruction and the actions the children actually did, either because they had other intentions or because they could not manage or could not remember the exercises. Nevertheless, there was great movement activity, but the movement expression did not necessarily lead to movement learning. This problem recurred in other narratives, so the following could be asserted as general points:

There is rarely full agreement between the intentions of teacher and pupil in the practice situation. The teacher tries to create intentional learning processes through instruction, and all the children find their own meaning in the situation (A1).

Children ascribe various meanings to the movement and negotiate with the teacher and other children about their own perception of the meaning (A2).

Analysis of points A1 and A2

The lack of agreement between the intentions of teacher and pupils in PE teaching, can be regarded as a common phenomenon in a social community of practice, in accordance with Jean Lave and Etienne Wengers theory about legitimate, peripheral participation.

Peripherality suggests that there are multiple, varied, more- or less-engaged and -inclusive ways of being located in the fields of participation defined by community. Peripheral participation is about being located in the social world. Changing locations and perspectives are part of actors learning trajectories, developing identities, and forms of membership. (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 36).

The social learning theory, which was originally formulated for informal learning, is concerned with the participants actions in a given community of practice and less focussed on what a possible master/teacher does in relation to the participants. The theory allows a plurality in the way of being present in a community of practice and is interested in the relations between newcomers and old-timers, in activities, identities and artefacts in communities of knowledge and practice. The attention therefore is not directed towards the teacher/master, and that persons talent for instructing and guiding the participants, but rather on the relations between the participants. School lessons should be regarded as a special form of a community of practice where there is intentional, goal-oriented instruction as well as parallel non-intentional processes.

Children come to PE lessons with different backgrounds and they have different concerns about what can happen or what is to happen there. Each individual tries to create a meaning in the situation. An interest in participating is noticeable and so is an interest in learning something when ex. a participant changes perspectives during the process, and for example takes the perspective of someone else, as was the case with the boys at the springboard. They go into a learning process that they may perhaps pursue in the future. Learning is thus not primarily about learning a certain jump, but is about acting in a certain way  here with regard to a movement task in a certain structure. In this way, the child follows some learning trajectories and gradually learns how he or she should become part of the PE community of practice. At the same time, the learning process affects how the child perceives him/herself and the others, and how he or she is perceived by the others. According to Lave and Wenger, all learning is at the same time identity-creating.

Being a legitimate, peripheral participant implies the possibility of strengthening or weakening ones position in relation to a move towards full participation in a social community. The boy at the springboard, who can be regarded as a competent and full participant, takes on a apprenticeship role in this situation, where the practice is to execute a correct take-off from the springboard and a balanced landing on the mat. He comes to act as a catalyst for the peripheral participant, who gets the opportunity to go from being a peripheral participant to being a full participant. The learning opportunities in the springboard situation consist of either executing the teachers instruction or doing it like the competent participant. But the children can also choose to follow their own impulsive intentions. The boys observe and imitate, but, in spite of persistent efforts, are not able to do the correct jump, nevertheless they have started on a learning trajectory, which they were probably not familiar with previously. They go from the impulsive jump towards a sequence of movements decided by someone else and thereby overstep the spontaneous movement expression. This overstepping demands learning in terms of attention, observation, and practice in transferring the observation to ones own movements.

A number of other activities are part of this community of practice, which do not demand such an overstepping, which do not demand a specific technique, but on the other hand some process-oriented modes of action such as to try, to practice, to experiment, to play etc. However, these various modes of action are neither clear nor visible for the children. They are expressed in the teachers introductory instruction, but are not made specific nor mentioned in detail. Did they try all the equipment? How did they practise, could they feel that they got better or more familiar with the equipment? What experiments did they make? What did they play on the boom? Etc. To elucidate meanings and qualities in the movement processes seems to be an important task that might bring teacher- and pupil intentions closer to each other in this PE community of practice.

B) GENDER AND RELATIONS

The second classes have PE in the hall. They have warmed up to music, together with the male PE teacher. They have played circus horses while they all lay flat on the ground in a large circle and, in turn, galloped over their classmates, and they have crawled under and jumped over each other while they were on all fours. They were amused when someone stumbled or got stuck, or when a boy sat on the teachers back and was shaken off. Now the teacher gathers them in a smaller circle, and while the children sit on the floor, they are told what is going to happen.

Teacher: Now there will be some music, so the idea is to dance - freely - everyone by themselves. Then when I blow the whistle, you have to find a partner and then dance together two by two. When I blow the whistle again, then you dance alone again. The children sit and look around. They have become silent. A boy breaks the silence: May we begin? The teacher has gone over to turn on the music and suddenly it sounds through the room with an energy that brings the children to their feet.

Sara begins to move and immediately gets into the rhythm. Just as she starts, the music stops. She stops the movement right up on her toes, and trips around while she looks about. Some children have got together. She turns around at full stretch and looks for someone to be with. There is Jane. She runs to her quickly and reaches out her arms towards her. Sara has not noticed that the music stopped by mistake and the others are just waiting for it to start again. Jane moves backwards and runs away. Sara looks around, astonished. Then her body relaxes. Then the music comes again. The children immediately move, hopping and dancing around among each other. Some are already beginning to look for each other. The whistle sounds and all look for a partner. When most have found one, Sara and Jane are still standing looking around. Sara goes over to Jane, and this time Jane accepts that they are together. With stretched, crossed arms, they hold each others hands, bend their knees, lean their bodies back and swing around like a carousel. Then the whistle sounds already. They are alone again, dancing by themselves to the music. The whistle goes again and Sara goes over to the nearest girl. It is going well now, the children know the pattern: meet and separate. The whistle sounds again. Sara turns towards Katja. Katja holds Saras arms hectically, hopping restlessly, while at the same time turning her body and looking around her. For a moment, she is just about to let go, holds on anyway, but suddenly sees Lone, and she lets Sara go and is gone. Sara stops dancing and walks slowly out to the wall. At the same time she is looking round. The whistle sounds - and now Sara is on the floor again among the others. The whistle sounds for the last time. Camilla runs over and takes hold of Saras arms and they dance enthusiastically together until the music stops.

After a short break, the teacher says, now, boys and girls have to dance together. The boys protest noisily. Nevertheless, the teacher puts the music on, but has to stop it again when most of the boys run away from the dancing space in feigned horror and hide behind the handball goals.

The relations, and especially those related to gender, have proved to have an important meaning in PE teaching. The physicality of the subject makes it obvious that boys and girls often react differently in the same situation and choose different challenges, which also reflect their different value-oriented opinion of the content of the teaching. Against this background, girls and boys become visible with different strength. The boys create fellowships and orient themselves towards each other. The girls are rooted in their friendship relations, which are put to the test, when for example they have to choose a partner. Some children experience the processes in PE as a game, for others they can be experienced for a few moments as an existential threat.

If one looks at the body actions on the basis of a general socialisation perspective, i.e. that movement experiences from everyday life are the basic factor for their movement actions, the childrens actions can be interpreted in one way . If one looks at them with a gender perspective (for example lack of willingness to do movements that challenge their gender identity), then the interpretation of their actions has a different character. The point is that the interpretation chosen has consequences for the didactic considerations and pedagogical actions. The movements themselves do not have a gender. But observations have shown that movements are often ascribed a gender perspective, according to whichever meaning and value are ascribed to them by the teacher and pupils respectively. The teachers do not consciously try to ascribe gender value to the movements, it happens unconsciously and accidentally, and is controlled by the norms and values that teachers and pupils have with them, also as regards the body aspect, in the pedagogical community. However, the teachers tend consciously to ignore gender or to think that the difference is not important. Observations show the opposite; the difference has influence on interest, attention and spontaneous movement expression, which are shown both before the lesson starts and during the process. The following points were stressed: Gender is always significant in the teaching situation. Movement actions express identity, for instance gender identity (B1).

Previous movement experiences and the movement-culture background are important for childrens learning processes in PE. Movement learning integrates mental and social processes (B2).

Analysis of points B1 and B2

The situated learning theory supports the empirical points, precisely because it emphasises that learning involves the whole person. The notion of participation thus dissolves dichotomies between cerebral and embodied activity, between contemplation and involvement, between abstractions and experience: persons, actions, and the world are implicated in all thought, speech, knowing, and learning. (Ibid. p. 52) And the points can be further amplified with the statement of the theory about how people participate in activities, tasks, functions and understandings that do not exist in isolation, but have to be understood as parts of a larger system of relations: ...the person is defined by as well as defines these relations. Learning thus implies becoming a different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these systems of relations. To ignore this aspect of learning is to overlook the fact that learning involves the construction of identities. (Ibid. p. 53)

But the theory does not go deeper into an understanding of identity. It is basically a social theory. Nor is it concerned with the possible identity conflicts, which the individual may encounter when the body socialisation cannot be denied or when gender identity is asserted in the encounter with a given community of practice. Attention to, for example, psycho - dynamic factors that are important for body learning and storing are not part of the theory. Peter Arnold (1991) makes an interesting contribution in this connection. In his book, Meaning in Movement, Sport and Physical Education, he identifies three different layers of meaning in peoples movement (primordial meaning, contextual meaning, and existential meaning) and tries to clarify why movement is experienced in one way or another.

Even though Lave and Wenger do not go into the subject of an understanding of identity creation or the importance of movement for identity, they go as far as to write: ... the development of identity is central to the careers of newcomers in communities of practice, and thus fundamental to the concept of legitimate, peripheral participation...In fact, we have argued that, from the perspective we have developed here, learning and a sense of identity are inseparable: They are aspects of the same phenomenon (ibid. p. 115)

Executing movements that broaden the pattern of movement or breaking with possible stereotype movement norms can have a liberating effect, even though the starting point is bodily. The body aspect also affects the individual personally and socially, because the body actions have a significance that reaches beyond the purely physical movement aspect. This is a point that indicates that body learning in itself can be ascribed a personal educative value.

C) OBSERVATION AND SPEECH ACTS

The third class is in the hall. The school has bought a game box that is to be tested. There is a small book in the box with instructions for old village games. The male teacher has set one of the boys to read out the rules for the game they are now playing: a sack race. The children stand in two lines. The game starts. In the lines, they hoot and shout eagerly at those who are hopping in the sack. The children hop across the hall - over and back. It is a long stretch and some stumble, lose their balance, come up again and run with small steps in the sack, to come first, or to avoid coming too far behind. When the last in line have flung themselves across the line, the children begin to discuss the way one of the boys hopped. The teacher had been standing a little away, looking in the book, but now comes over to the children.

Teacher: Yes, very good, what did he do?

The children: He ran!

Teacher: Yes, what about the rules? Why do you have rules?

Boy: You have to keep them!

Teacher: Yes, what of it? Why do you have to keep the rules?

Girl: Otherwise its no fun!

Teacher: Why is it no fun if he runs?

The children begin to discuss who runs, and what you do when you run.

Teacher: Try to show me how you should hop!

The children show how, and the teacher tries to hop like the children.

Teacher: Now well try to have a race where you try very hard to hop forward. And I would like to ask the spectators, instead of standing and cheering, to talk about the children who are hopping, whether they are doing it properly.

The children start again, They hop now, almost as they had agreed, but it is hard for them not to cheer each other on. They try at the beginning, but gradually the idea of the game cannot be ignored, and restrained cheers and eager movements are apparent in the line after all.

When the competition is over, the teacher asks the children to sit in a circle with one of the girls in the middle. Teacher: Just a quick talk about what was good and what was bad with this, and what can be better next time.

The teacher goes away from the circle and when the children follow him with their eyes and show that they are directed towards the teacher instead of towards the girl in the middle, he turns his back. It is not until then that the children take his request seriously and the children now direct their attention to the girl who is to lead the conversation. After a few minutes, the teacher starts a new game.

The many different speech phenomena that were described under the theme Observation and speech gave an insight into the function and form of speech acts in PE teaching. In the example above, the teachers speech was defined as speech about the subject and the childrens speech is the speech of experience. By observing and listening to the children, the teacher is able to understand what is going on, and he uses the situation pedagogically, turning a negative discussion that is emotionally charged into a constructive conversation based on the subject. He gets the children to change perspective and gives them an understanding of the importance of rules at the same time as he gives them tools to solve a conflict. When he later allows them to talk to each other in the circle about what was good and bad, to reflect about what had happened, he withdraws from the situation and puts a pupil into the middle of the circle and gives her the role of chairperson. The intention is clear, the children have to be in charge themselves and learn that their comrades views are just as important as the teachers. Following points were made:

Speech acts have both an instrumental and meaning-creating function - with a crucial effect on the quality of the teaching and learning processes (C1).

In connection with movement, speech acts have different forms of expression and functions, for example: the speech of organisation, the speech of moralising, the speech of experience, the speech of raising questions, the speech about the subject (C2).

Analysis of points C1 and C2

Lave and Wenger discuss the importance of language for learning in both formal and informal learning situations. They refer to Jordan (1989) who argues: "to learn to become a legitimate participant in a community involves learning how to act (and be silent) as a full participant." Further more they differentiate between talking about a practice and talking within a practice when they say: inside the shared practice, both forms of talk fulfil specific functions: engaging, focusing and shifting attention, bringing about co-ordination, etc., on the one hand; and supporting communal forms of memory and reflection, as well as signalling membership, on the other (Lave and Wenger, ibid. p. 109)

They point out that the didactic use of language, not the actual practice discourse, creates a new language practice, which has its own existence, and which can give one form of learning for the participants, but it does not mean that the newcomer learns the actual practice that the language is about. They raise questions about the traditional question-answer-evaluation form that is characteristic in the school system, and in that connection, talk of the use of storytelling from practice, i.e. case stories, which are often about problematic or difficult situations. Both forms of talk fulfil specific functions such as engaging, focussing, giving perspective, which can bring about co-ordination or create joint memories and reflections. According to this understanding, it is not about learning to move by means of conversation, but about learning to talk about movement. This last can mean getting a key to legitimate, peripheral participation in a PE community of practice. In a community of practice that is intentional and not unequivocal, which is precisely what is characteristic of the PE community of practice in schools, communication is very important in the establishment of an understandable, meaningful and transparent practice. Communication about the content, approach, attitudes, norms, rules, experiences, etc. is necessary to be able to develop a joint understanding of the meaning (a negotiation of meaning) of the community of practice and how to go from legitimate, peripheral participation to full participation. The distinction between talking about practice and talking within practice can help to differentiate the importance of the various forms of talk.

DISCUSSION

The situated learning theory can elucidate the mentioned points from the empirical study of PE teaching in schools to a large extent. The theory opens up for a broader study of learning processes in PE, as it deals with the learning that occurs without teaching. In the traditional understanding of teaching you operate with a double learning situation, when making a distinction between intentional learning and non-intentional (hidden) learning (Jackson, 1968), where the hidden learning is understood as the learning that occurs at the same time and unbeknown to the participants. The hidden learning can also be understood as the socialisation that is involved when people are part of a social context.

It is difficult to see the difference between the situated learning theory and socialisation, because the concept of community of practice is not delimited in relation to possible social communities that cannot be termed communities of practice. Anyway the theory offers some useful concepts that contributes to a meaningful understanding about the nature of the learning processes and their function in socialisation.

The re-analysis with the situated learning theory has brought some new angles to the interpretation of teaching and learning processes in PE, among other things because it helps to maintain the perspective of the learner, in contrast to an interpretation that mainly focuses on the teachers role in the teaching process. The use of the term, legitimate, peripheral participation and full participation, gives a good image of the relations in the community of practice and in the socialising learning process.

At the same time, however, there is also confusion about the terms, when the theory on the one hand asserts that all are legitimate, peripheral participants, or newcomers, in a community of practice that is never static, and on the other hand, talks about a move from legitimate, peripheral participation towards full participation together with the old-timers. In this connection, it is not clear what and who decides what the practical mastery is about.

The general categories of the theory contribute to an insight into how a PE community of practice is to be understood. It does´nt give a specific suggestion for how a legitimate, peripheral participant can become a more competent or a full participant. For this purpose, there is a need for familiarity with the concrete challenges, problems and learning opportunities that exist in the field of PE.

The theory raises questions about the didactic planning culture, which believes in learning by means of structured, straightforward organisation of learning processes. In spite of the relevance of the situated learning theory in an analysis of PE teaching the abolition of the goal-oriented and intentional learning in schools would be an absurdity, as long as the legitimisation of the subject is all-round development in a school system that is otherwise scholastic. Who or what can and should constitute the PE community of practice in schools, when it is not linked to one specific and tradition-linked culture, developed over years, as in Lave and Wengers study of, for example, Midwifes, Tailors, Quartermasters, Butchers etc.?

When PE teaching has its place in a larger school-cultural community, which has development and education as the central product goal, then the PE teacher has to be a master in using PE professional knowledge and, together with other PE teachers, be able to define and establish a PE practice within the premises of the larger community. This does not demand master -teachers in a traditional sense, but teachers who can consciously create and adjust a PE community of practice with a basis in a professional, school-cultural and PE cultural understanding.

Attention to the socialising learning is essential, not as a contrast to intentional learning, but as part of a broader perception of learning, which oversteps the idea of planning and effect by being concerned with the social processes in general.

The empirical data has shown that the most prominent learning form in PE is implicit. An understanding of this phenomenon has to be combined with an understanding of body learning as a learning process which not necessarily is turned into language or cognitive processes. There is no problem in incorporating the implicit learning theories in the situated learning theory.

But according to Lave and Wengers view of the function of language, a community of practice cannot easily be developed or maintained without a language. Talking within a practice, learning to talk about practice in different ways, helps a community of practice to understand itself, and, with that, its understanding of the learning that occurs.

Basically, children do not consider PE lessons as a place where they have to learn something, even though they know about the adults agenda. They perceive PE as a pleasurable activity. This can be interpreted positively: that the teaching considers the childrens preferred forms of action and learning, and negatively: that the teaching is not aimed at learning or that the learning opportunities and learning are not clear to the children.

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