This essay aims to compare two EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks by using a multimodal discourse analysis in order to find out how EFL textbooks have changed in design and visually. In this essay the textual content is treated as one of several pillars making up design, this essay is interested in the visual changes. This analysis is done using two EFL textbooks with twenty years in between them, both are used in the same school by different teachers. A study like this is going to be published later this year but that study includes three subjects (English being one of them) and starts with textbooks from the 1930s up until now. In this essay, two chapters of each textbook will be looked at  in a closer analysis to represent each textbook; every page is analyzed without first reading the text. The conclusion of this essay is that the written communication still seem to be the most credible of the different communicative methods of making meaning, however, it is no longer the only credible way of making meaning.

The English language has become an international language and is globally used as a lingua franca. Therefore, there has been a shift in English-language education toward teaching English as an interna-tional language (EIL). Teaching from the EIL paradigm means that English is seen as an international language used in communication by people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. As the approach to English-language education changes from the traditional native-speaker, target country context, so does the role of culture within English-language teaching. The aim of this thesis is to in-vestigate and analyse cultural representations in two Swedish EFL textbooks used in upper-secondary school to see how they correspond with the EIL paradigm. This is done by focusing on the geograph-ical origin of the cultural content as well as looking at what kinds of culture are represented in the textbooks. A content analysis of the textbooks is conducted, using Kachru’s Concentric Circles of English as the model for the analysis of the geographical origin. Horibe’s model of the three different kinds of culture in EIL is the model used for coding the second part of the analysis. The results of the analysis show that culture of target countries and "Culture as social custom" dominate the cultural content of the textbook. Thus, although there are some indications that the EIL paradigm has influ-enced the textbooks, the traditional approach to culture in language teaching still prevails in the ana-lysed textbooks. Because of the relatively small sample included in the thesis, further studies need to be conducted in order to make conclusions regarding the Swedish context as a whole.

In traditional EFL classrooms, teachers often tend to relay on textbooks where the reading material is a text usually followed by reading activities. Consequently, this material does not really provide students with the reading strategies necessary to become succesful readers. Successful readers should posess the ability to apply appropriate kinds of reading and reading strategies and to do that the teacher needs to provide the students with the right teaching material. Therefore, this degree project analyses three EFL textbooks for upper secondary school in the Swedish context, namely Context 2, Pick & Mix 2 and Viewponts 2. The present study explores if the reading activities in the textbooks provide learners with the opportunity to develop their reading skills by including different kinds of reading and reading strategies. Moreover, the researchers use a qualitative content analysis and criteria to conduct their study. The results reveal that the textbooks do consist of reading activities which allow for different kinds of reading. Two of the textbooks analysed, Pick & Mix 2 and Context 2, entail activities which require the readers to be able to use the majority of different kinds of reading. One textbook, however, shows lack of activities that allow learners to train their skimming ability. Finally, the textbooks do not provide learners with sufficient reading activities that include the three processes: before-, during- and after- reading.

To achieve the Swedish National Agency for Education’s (2022) aim of developing all-round communicative skills, knowledge of the vast diversity of English may be needed. Therefore, this study analyses the representation of standard and non-standard varieties in four EFL textbooks aimed for the English 5 course in Swedish upper secondary school. The study applies the theory of linguistic variation and includes consideration to sociolinguistics in terms of differences within varieties. The methodological approach is based on qualitative ethnographic content analysis, where textbooks are systematically analysed to determine how standard and non-standard English varieties are showcased. The textbook material consists of Blueprint A Version 1.0 (2002), Blueprint A Version 3.0 (2017), Pick & Mix 1 (2013), and Echo. 5. Main Issues (2013). The results show a vast representation of standard varieties of English, while non-standard varieties constitute a limited representation. The linguistic variation in regard to standard English is instead observed in the use of slang and informal language within standard varieties such as American English and British English. This demonstrates an outcome in the textbooks of favouring standard varieties over non-standard varieties, which entails implications for the teaching profession in terms of a reliance on teachers to introduce language variation through other channels.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching should not only aim at providing learners with the linguistic resources to communicate in English, but also develop learners’ pragmatic competence in order for them to be able to use language efficiently and appropriately for different purposes. The present study examines what pragmatic input learners receive from two Swedish EFL textbook series regarding the speech act of request. The analysis was conducted by identifying all instances of requests and all metapragmatic information about the specific speech act. In addition, the present study also focused on finding exercises that provide learners with the opportunity to practice making requests. The findings show that the two examined EFL textbook series differ in terms of which directness levels are most frequently used, and both series lack explicit information about requests that may increase students' understanding of this speech act. Moreover, request exercises are few and practicing requests is rarely the main learning objective. Consequently, teachers will need to use supplemental material and exercises in order for learners to develop their pragmatic competence in the case of requests. / Engelskundervisning bör inte bara syfta till att ge elever de språkliga resurser som krävs för att kommunicera på engelska, utan även utveckla elevernas pragmatiska kompetens så att de lär sig att använda språket effektivt och lämpligt för olika ändamål. Det som undersöks i den här studien är i vilken utsträckning språkhandlingen uppmaning förekommer och lärs ut i två olika läromedel i engelska för högstadiet. Analysen utfördes genom att identifiera alla exempel av uppmaningar och all metapragmatisk information om den specifika språkhandlingen. Utöver detta fokuserade den här studien även på att hitta övningsuppgifter som ger eleverna möjlighet att öva på språkhandlingen uppmaning. Resultaten visar att de två läromedlen skiljer sig åt vad gäller fördelningen av direkta och indirekta uppmaningar. Dessutom saknar båda läromedlen explicit information som kan öka elevers förståelse för denna språkhandling. Övningsuppgifterna är få och fokuserar inte på att utveckla elevers förmåga att formulera uppmaningar i första hand. Följaktligen behöver lärare använda kompletterande material och övningsuppgifter för att elever ska kunna utveckla sin pragmatiska kompetens vid uppmaningar.

This is a linguistic study of the EFL textbooks Wings 6 and Wings 9 which are used in Swedish schools today. It is a partially quantitative and partially qualitative study which sets out to look at the representation of gender in the narrative sections of the two textbooks. The texts are looked at with consideration of four different linguistic aspects, namely female/male visibility, activeness, relational/occupational terms and verbs. A historic and linguistic background is provided through the presentation of previous work within the fields of gender and language, gender and EFL material and discourse analysis. The findings show that since the 1970's, little progress has been made concerning the representation of female and male characters in EFL textbooks. This study also exemplifies the fact that different methods although within the same field of research and applied to same material can produce different and sometimes even contradictory results.

The teaching of pragmatics is often neglected in foreign language classes despite the wellknown importance of pragmatic competence. No matter how well a learner masters thetarget language, errors of a pragmatic nature may lead to major communicative failure orturbulence. Both studies in language teaching and current language educational laws inSweden (following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) pointtowards the necessity for the learner to be pragmatically proficient. Following these lines,textbooks are expected to mirror curricula and educational laws. The present study aimsto address this very issue and investigates the pragmatic content of ELT books in Swedenwith a specific focus on lower and upper secondary school (year 6, 9 and last year ofupper secondary school). The study has as its primary data set three ELT books from thesame publisher and extensively used in Swedish schools, namely Good Stuff Gold A,Good Stuff Gold D, and Blueprint C 2.0. The presence of pragmatic content isinvestigated through the method of content analysis of the textbooks focusing on threespeech acts - greetings, requests, and refusals. The first part of the study is complementedby semi-structured interviews complemented with two teachers of English in Sweden.The findings point to considerable differences in the representation of the three speechacts in the books, with regression from lower to higher levels, and the interviews with theteachers reveal that teachers' complementary activities often compensate for the lack ofpragmatic content in the books. The findings from the present study reveal shortcomingsof the selected textbooks omitting important information, something that might hinderstudents from developing communicative competence. The findings of the present studyhave the potential to inform the practices of teaching professionals in their efforts to teachpragmatic competence.

Most Brazilian students learning English face difficulty when studying thepresent perfect. It is one of the most challenging aspects of the Englishlanguage for Portuguese speakers due to the similar form with a divergentsemantic value. The Brazilian Portuguese present perfect forces iteration andthe student automatically transfers the same meaning when translating anEnglish sentence literally. Brazilian learners get confused about when and inwhat situations to use the English present perfect and frequently are not able todistinguish it from the simple past use. This study is comprised of two parts.First, a comparative study was done to investigate which Portuguese tensetranslators of famous literary books consider to be equivalent to the Englishpresent perfect according to the message which is being conveyed. Thedatabase used was the bidirectional parallel corpus of English and PortugueseCOMPARA. Second, textbooks developed to teach English in Brazil wereanalyzed in order to verify from what perspective students were beinginstructed concerning the present perfect and whether the semantic differencesbetween the two languages were pointed out. According to the translationcorpus, the English present perfect is mostly equivalent to Brazilian Portuguesesimple past. Adverbs are also often needed to express the English presentperfect meaning in Portuguese. The textbooks were found to present poorexplanations and seem not to call the learners’ attention to the source of the problems. Textbooks do not stress the importance of the semantic value and thecontext, and do not call attention to the different meanings between theBrazilian and the English present perfect.