The teacher shaping and creating dialogues in project work

The background of the work presented in this article is that for quite some time project work has been a method of working that is more theoretically described than it is put into practice. The aim of this text is to show how a teacher can function as a facilitator or a guide for the students within project‐directed teaching and how this setting can enhance the students’ learning. A qualitative method with a focus on dialogues in the classroom was used in the inquiry process. In this article a dialogue between the students in the realization phase of the work is analysed in depth to illustrate how student interaction framed by project work can enhance the students’ learning. In the study Dewey’s, Vygotsky’s and Bakhtin’s theories are used as a theoretical framework and the activity system is used to visualize the work processes in their intertwined context. The outcome of the study shows that learning is inherent in language, but concludes that it demands a great deal of the teacher to create such learning situations.