Abstract
Teachers at the School of Nursing, Centre for Haelth Care Education in Greenland often experience low verbal activity in the classrooms. Only few students participate avtively an spontaneously in discussions. This article seeks to describe a study aiming at analysing the reasons for the low activity and the possible pedagogical factors that could contribute to a higher activity. The study combines questionnaire data, classroomobservations and focus-group-interviews. The study shows that three kinds of factors influence the verbal activity: cultural, linguistic and pedagogical factors. In accordance with the litterature on Greenlandic and Inuit culture, the study indicates that showing authorities (including teachers) respect by keeping quiet, not criticizing others and avoiding making a point of stating ones opinion are cultural elements. The linguistic factors influencing the verbal activity have to do with the bilingual conditions of higher education in Greenland. At the school of nursing, most of the students speaks Greenlandic as their native mother tongue whereas the majority of the teachers speaks Danish and no Greenlandic. The combination of the cultural factors and the linguistic factors generates a need for specific pedagogical initiatives; most important seems to be the creation of a basic feeling of security when students are asked to speak up in the classroom. There is a need for situations where the student can practice explaining things and share his or her opinion with fellow students.