The focus of this study is the correlation between spent time on gaming and student grades. It is my hypothesis that computer gaming has potential for students to acquire communicative competences in English. The aim of the essay is to see what effect computer gaming have on grading outcomes in the English subject for upper secondary school students in Sweden. The study was conducted using a survey concerning: students’ gaming habits, how much time they spent gaming on a daily basis, what kinds of games they were playing and how they felt that they used English whilst playing those games. The survey was conducted on two English classes in an ICT school. 25 students participated from grades 2 and 3 in the Swedish upper secondary school system. Based on the data from the survey, four gamer-groups emerged based on time spent on playing computer games: Non-gamer, occasional-gamer, moderate- gamer and frequent-gamer. Results indicate that occasional game play (maximum two hours a day) led to higher proficiencies in English (as shown by their grades) than the other groups. There was also an indication that no time spent on gaming might be disadvantageous.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a problemática da fala do aluno em aula de Inglês como Língua Estrangeira, por meio das opiniões de alunos e professores. O principal aspecto analisado foi o processo motivacional dos alunos para falar inglês em aula. As respostas foram divididas em oito categorias: o professor, as atividades, os outros alunos, o material didático, a própria personalidade do aluno, a avaliação, o ambiente de aula, a falta de conhecimento da língua estrangeira e outros fatores. No entanto, as razões por que o aluno estuda inglês, as opiniões sobre a distribuição da fala em aula entre alunos e professores e as possibilidades de intervenções que estes utilizam de maneira consciente para estimular os alunos a falar em inglês durante a aula também foram analisadas. Para tanto, foram desenvolvidos e aplicados questionários em 125 alunos, jovens e adultos, que estudavam em Cursos Livres em um Centro de Idiomas da cidade de São Paulo. Ao mesmo tempo, 4 professores da mesma instituição também responderam questionários similares, desenvolvidos de maneira específica para esta pesquisa. Os resultados principais foram a grande diversidade de possibilidades para o processo motivacional do aluno e a importância atribuída ao professor como um estímulo para eles falarem em aula. Conseqüentemente, é necessário que o professor conheça seus alunos (interesses, objetivos, gostos, experiências) por meio de uma comunicação significativa em sala de aula, de modo a compreender o seu processo motivacional. Além de conhecer os alunos, os professores de Inglês devem utilizar estratégias específicas com o objetivo de incentivá-los a falar em aula. A maioria dos professores estudados afirmou utilizar o estímulo direto por meio de questões e debates e a conscientização do aluno sobre o processo de ensino-aprendizagem como estratégias de estímulo à fala. Quanto aos obstáculos para falar em aula, a personalidade do aluno foi o fator mais citado, devido à timidez e ao medo de errar. Além disso, todos concordaram com a idéia de que os alunos devem falar uma quantidade de tempo ligeiramente superior à dos professores durante a aula. Por fim, foi observada na população pesquisada uma clara predominância da motivação instrumental. / This dissertation analyses the students speech in English as a Foreign Language classes, according to the opinions of students and teachers. The main analyzed aspect was the students motivational process to speak English during the class. The answers were divided in eight categories: the teacher, the class activities, the other students, the course material, the students own personality, the assessment, the class environment, the lack of knowledge about the foreign language and other factors. However, the English students learning goals, the opinions about class speech distribution among teachers and students and the strategies intentionally used by teachers to encourage their pupils to speak English during the class were also studied. For that, self-report questionnaires were developed and applied to 125 young adult and adult students in eligible EFL programs in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Also, 4 teachers from the same institution answered similar questionnaires, specifically developed for this study. The main results were the huge diversity in the students motivational process and the importance attributed to the teacher as an encouragement for them to speak during the class. Consequently, it is necessary for teachers to know their students (interests, goals, likes and dislikes, experiences) through meaningful interaction in the classroom in order to understand their motivational process. Besides knowing their students, the teachers used specific strategies to encourage them to speak during the class. Most teachers surveyed said they used direct stimulation through questions and class discussions and tried to make students aware of their learning process as strategies for speech encouragement. The students shyness and fear of making mistakes were regarded as the most frequent obstacles to speak during the EFL class. Besides that, everybody agreed that the students should speak a little more than the teachers in the class. Finally, the instrumental motivation was predominant among the studied population.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Considerando que os mÃtodos e abordagens desenvolvidos ao longo dos sÃculos pouco exploraram a metÃfora e reconhecendo a sua importÃncia no processo de ensino/aprendizagem de InglÃs como LÃngua Estrangeira (ILE), este estudo investiga esse seu papel como elemento facilitador, tanto descrevendo o tratamento que lhe à dado nos manuais didÃticos, quanto analisando se a instruÃÃo sobre mapeamentos metafÃricos e esquemas imagÃticos pertinentes à linguagem figurada contribui para uma melhor compreensÃo do aprendiz. Este trabalho apresenta inicialmente a visÃo clÃssica da metÃfora, que priorizou a lÃgica e a abstraÃÃo, contrapondo, a essa perspectiva, a visÃo experiencialista, que considera a metÃfora instrumento de organizaÃÃo e produÃÃo cognitiva. Essa visÃo tem como base a Teoria da MetÃfora Conceitual, de Lakoff e Johnson (1980, 1999) e as valiosas contribuiÃÃes de Grady (1997a). A metodologia adotada em cada uma das duas investigaÃÃes: a documental (que examinou a abordagem nos manuais didÃticos) e a semi-experimental (que tem o seu foco na anÃlise do papel da metÃfora como facilitadora da compreensÃo do aprendiz de lÃngua estrangeira), assim como todos os procedimentos adotados para obtenÃÃo e anÃlise dos dados sÃo, entÃo, descritos. Em seguida, os resultados sÃo apresentados e discutidos. / Based on the fact that teaching/learning methods and approaches developed in previous centuries haven`t focused on metaphor and taking into account how important it has become to the teaching/learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), this study investigates the role of metaphor as an element which can favor this process.This investigation not only describes the treatment which is given to it in sets of books used in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) courses, but also evaluates if the instruction on metaphoric mappings and image schemas which belong in the figurative language contribute to a better understanding on the learner`s part. First, it presents the traditional view of metaphor, which emphasized logic and abstraction, in opposition to the experiential view, which considers metaphor an instrument of cognitive organization and production. This concept is based on Lakoff and Johnson`s (1980, 1999) Theory of Conceptual Metaphor, as well as on Grady`s (1997a) important contributions. The methods used in the documental investigation (which examines the approach in the sets of books), and those used in the semi-experimental one (which investigates if metaphor favors the learner`s understanding), as well as all the proceedings used to obtain and analyze the specific data are then described. Following that, the results are presented and discussed.

Gamification is a new but upcoming feature in classrooms that has grown with the digitalisation in Swedish homes and schools. The aim of this literature review is to research how gamification can influence upper secondary students’ language proficiency in English as a foreign language. Five sources were analysed, four journals and one conference paper, and the results show that gamification could increase language proficiency if it is used in a moderate amount and that the summative assessment with instant feedback could be beneficial for students when moderating their own language development. Motivation seems to be the key word in the results and the main subject that all the authors agree can be created and beneficial to the students' language proficiency. The results also showed that gamification is a new feature that has to be researched more in order to give a valid answer to the question of whether or not gamification is appropriate to use in school.

One of the hardest challenges that learners may face during the process of acquiring a second language is learning vocabulary. Knowledge of vocabulary is an important factor when achieving the competence to communicate in a foreign language. There are multiple strategies available when it comes to learning new words, depending on factors such as the learner, the environment, and the context. Essentially, as Nation (2001) maintains, there are two ways of learning vocabulary: "incidental learning" and "direct intentional learning". Although there is a growing body of research on vocabulary learning strategies employed by students, studies in the Swedish context that take into consideration both students’ and teachers’ perspectives are scarce. Against this background, this mixed methods study examines on the one hand which strategies to learn and remember new words are preferable from the students' perspective and on the other hand it also investigates what strategies the teachers are actually using and encouraging in the English subject in a Swedish upper secondary school.    The reported preferences of the students indicate that they do not explicitly use vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) to any great extent at all, while their teachers' view is that the students should largely be responsible enough to care for their own vocabulary acquisition. However, the students suggest one VLS to be of great advantage to themselves: to use their teacher as help rather than for example dictionaries or textbooks. This is, however, something that the teachers do not encourage in their classrooms, although previous research has shown the benefits of using source language translations in second language learning.

When teaching English as a foreign language (EFL), teachers use feedback in order to help students to improve their English skills. They can use both oral and written feedback to encourage students to make progress. Oral and written feedback play a significant role in second language acquisition, and this study could raise teachers' awareness of the different feedback strategies that can be employed in EFL classrooms. This could benefit their teaching performance and students’ learning. This study aims to examine the different types of oral and written feedback used in the EFL classroom, as well as teachers’ own perceptions of feedback. The approach used to conduct this study was both quantitative and qualitative. Three types of data material were collected in a secondary school (grades 7-9) for the analysis: three secondary school teachers were interviewed; their English lessons were observed; and their feedback on student essays was collected. The material collected was used in the analysis, which indicated that the teachers used different types of feedback. The most frequent oral feedback types used were recast, elicitation, and praise. However, the teachers employed different strategies regarding to how they provide this feedback. Two of the teachers provided feedback in the traditional way by using corrective types of feedback frequently, while one teacher chose not to correct students too often and instead encouraged them by giving them praise. The evaluation of different feedback types performed in this study suggests that recast as an implicit feedback type provided orally could be more effective in a communicative classroom setting, as it does not interrupt the communicative flow. In writing, on the other hand, explicit feedback combined with face-to-face sessions could lead to better results. It would be interesting to investigate in further research the effects of different oral and written feedback types.

This study explores the motivation that students in Swedish upper secondary school have for engaging with, and learning, English both in and out of school to find out if there is a gap between them and find a way to possibly bridge this gap if it exists. Students’ motivation has been described as important for their learning and motivation and its effects have been studied in several ways. A study with focus on how informal learning and out of school (extramural) English improve students’ English proficiency have been conducted by Sundqvist (2010) and Socket (2013). The effect of schools, and teachers in particular, on students’ motivation in school or during class has been studied by Sundqvist (2015), Bernaus and Gardner (2008) and Ushida (2005), while a study on what actually motivates students was done by Saeed and Zyngier (2012). This study is conducted through group interviews with four focus groups made up of three students each which come from two different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The results of these interviews are analysed through Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory (2000) to determine how motivated the students are and how their motivation is affected by different factors. The results show that students are highly motivated to engage with English activities on their own volition, and that they are highly motivated to learn English. The results also show that teachers have a great effect on students’ motivation and can both raise and lower it depending on how they conduct their lessons. Students want more choice, to learn through authentic English experiences and a teacher that they can relate to.

This is an empirical study based on English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' experiences. The study is on Chinese EFL teachers’ usage of different oral corrective feedback (OCF) types as well as their own beliefs as to what strategies they make use of most frequently and what they do to improve their own OCF. Semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations were employed as instruments for the data collecting process. Four Chinese EFL teachers were interviewed, one male and three female, with varied amounts of professional experience and of different ages. Four observations were made in the classrooms of the same teachers as a supplement to the interviews. The interviews were analyzed by means of content analysis. The results indicate that Recast is the most commonly used feedback method and that the teachers had different thoughts on which feedback method was the most effective or the one they most frequently used. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are differences between teachers’ beliefs about their feedback strategies and the observation results. / Detta är en empirisk studie som bygger på intervjuer med och observationer av kinesiska lärare i engelska som främmande språk (EFS). Målet med studien var att få en uppfattning om kinesiska EFS-lärares användning av olika muntliga korrigerande feedbackmetoder (MKF) samt deras egna föreställningar om vilka strategier som de använder oftast och vad de strävar efter att förbättra i sina egna sätt att ge MKF. Semistrukturerade intervjuer och ickedeltagande observation användes som instrument under datainsamlingsprocessen. Fyra kinesiska EFS-lärare intervjuades, en manlig och tre kvinnliga lärare med varierande längd av yrkeserfarenhet och i olika åldrar. Fyra observationer gjordes även på samma lärares lektioner som ett komplement till intervjuerna. Intervjuerna analyserades utifrån metoder för innehållsanalys. Resultaten indikerar att omformulering är den mest använda feedbackmetoden och att lärarna hade delade åsikter om vilken feedbackmetod som är mest effektiv eller den som de själva använde mest. Vidare tyder resultaten på att det finns skillnader mellan lärarnas föreställningar om sina feedbackstrategier och observationsresultaten.

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.

This essay was underpinned by the premise that the proverb plays an important role in language teaching as a part of gaining cultural knowledge, metaphorical understanding and communicative competence. The purpose with this essay was to examine whether proverbs are a part of the EFL (English as Foreign Language) teaching in the county of Jönköping, Sweden. The investigation focused on the occurrence of proverbs in eleven textbooks for the English A- and B-courses, and on the attitudes toward using prov-erbs in the teaching among nineteen teachers at seven upper secondary schools. Descriptive methods were used, which combined quantitative and qualitative approaches, i.e. content analysis and close read-ing of the textbooks and a questionnaire answered by the teachers. The result showed that proverbs are a small part of the EFL teaching regarding both the textbooks and the use in the classroom by the teachers. Proverbs are mainly used as bases for discussions in the text-books, and by the teachers as expressions to explain, to discuss the meaning and to compare to the Swedish equivalents. There is a positive attitude toward using proverbs and the result showed awareness among the teachers regarding proverbs as a part of the language and the culture as well as for communi-cation. The conclusion of the result was that the knowledge has to increase among educators and text-book authors about how proverbs can be used as effective devices and tools, not only as common ex-pressions, in every area of language teaching.