The aim of this study is to examine how British culture and British cultural identity is discursively constructed and represented in two texts, including images accompanying the texts, found in two textbooks used in the foundation course for English as a second language in the Swedish upper-secondary school, the textbooks published in the 1970s and the 1980s respectively. The aim also includes to see if British cultural identity is represented in a stereotypical manner and to see which views on culture are present in the texts. The methods used in the study are discourse analysis based on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, and Hall’s visual analysis. Two theories are applied to the material, these are Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and Hall’s theory of stereotyping. The result of the present study shows that there are several representations of British cultural identity in the 1970s text and that all are stereotypical. In one of the representations, British cultural identity is understood as someone who is an Englishman which entails amongst other things being brought up in England as a real Englishman. The other representations of British cultural identity included the identities English people, Englishmen and cockneys. The identity English people includes both of the identities Englishmen and cockneys. The representation of English people is that background, class and the way you speak are important and that English people check each other’s background and class by listening to one another’s speech. The representation of Englishmen includes that they are upper-class proper Englishmen who speak the Queens English whereas cockneys are represented as lower-class people who speak a vulgar sort of English. In the 1980s text there are two representations of British cultural identity. The first one of these, which was found to be represented in a stereotypical manner, is constituted by the group identity pupils with British cultural background within a culturally and nationally diverse class in Britain. This representation is culturally exclusive since only pupils with British cultural background are included in this representation. The second representations of British cultural identity found in the 1980s text is a British class made up by a group of pupils with culturally and nationally diverse backgrounds. This representation was deemed to be non-stereotypical and culturally inclusive since this representation of British cultural identity is culturally diverse.

The aim of this project was to explore the jigsaw-method as a teaching tool in English as a Second Language-classrooms, and to design and evaluate a jigsaw-style lesson that aims to promote student activation and communication. To achieve this goal, we conducted a case study in which we designed and tried out a jigsaw-style lesson in two classes. We then evaluated the lessons through a survey which was analysed using thematic content analysis. The results of the survey showed that the negative aspects voiced by the participants belonged to the two main themes Perceived difficulty and Perceived lack of time. Additionally, the participants made several suggestions for improvements which were identified as belonging to the following three themes: Predetermined groups (Based on skill), More time for each step of the lesson, and Pre-activity & Prior Knowledge. The results from the survey, in combination with a review of literature on second language teaching and prior research, was used to propose several changes to the lesson format as it was used in the case study. For example, we proposed the addition of a pre-reading exercise aimed at giving prior knowledge and activating schemas, as well as the addition of graphic organisers to help provide a clear focus to the different stages of the lesson. The proposed changes were aimed at alleviating the difficulties voiced by the participants in the case study. The changes were then applied to the case study lesson as an example.

Grammar teaching has been controversial since the introduction of the Communicative Language Teaching perspective. In addition, the steering documents, namely the Swedish syllabi and the CEFR are quite general on what and how to teach grammar, thus allowing teachers’ interpretations about the importance given to grammar in EFL/ESL classrooms. The present study focuses on English teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices towards grammar in the final year of compulsory school and the first year of upper-secondary school in Sweden. The principal aim is to find out why the English teachers propose grammar or not and how they enact grammar teaching. The research is empirical. The data consist of teachers’ interviews, and they were analysed using content analysis. The results have shown that teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices are mainly related to students’ levels and objectives even if they have different views on grammar. Then, teachers have shown great adaptability in their grammar teaching practices both in the diversity of means and methods. Furthermore, even though there are slight differences between the final year of compulsory school and the first year of upper-secondary school in the steering documents, grammar teaching is enacted differently for each level. Besides, on both levels, grammar teaching is linked to communicative skills and included in a more general communicative task aimed for students’ learning in EFL/ESL classrooms.

The United States is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants who desire to learn English. In contrast to academically-focused English language learners (ELLs), or international students, refugee and immigrant ELLs are often dealing with the stresses of poverty and/or a precarious immigration status, giving them a diverse and complex set of needs that are often not adequately met by ESL programs. Building off a foundation of Activity Theory, Sociocultural Theory, and Language Ecology, which emphasizes an approach to language learning and teaching that does not separate language from the authentic contexts from which it arises (Van Lier, 2002; Leather & Van Dam, 2003; Pennycook, 2010; Swain & Watanabe, 2012; among others), I seek to uncover and address these needs in-context through an ethnography of six Spanish-speaking immigrant ELLs in the western United States. I detail the results of an in-depth analysis of 116 hours of participant observation with these women, paying special attention to their daily routines and how, where, and why they employ English or Spanish. I show how the women's daily routines and participation in Latinx communities curtail much of their need for daily English, how they employ various strategies to get by when they do need English, and how their expressed motivations to learn English are often thwarted by their current life circumstances. I end by summarizing key observations about the ELLs in the study and making general recommendations to ESL programs for how to apply these observations.

Gaming is an activity that many second language students engage in during their free time, however, games are for more than just playtime. The aim of this literature study is to analyse in what way MMORPGs can have a positive impact on ESL and EFL learners' confidence in using English as well as help develop socialization skills. We found relevant empirical studies by using educational databases like ERIC. A total of 9 empirical studies were included, of which 8 focused on the topic of socialization and 6 on confidence. Multiple authors in this study claim that players engage in game-play that involves social interaction, collaboration, and autonomous learning in the MMORPG context. It was concluded throughout this study that playing MMORPGs has a positive effect on players' socialization skills as well as their confidence in using English as a second language. However, few to none of these studies presented the potential risks with MMORPGs. / Självständigt arbete i fördjupningsämne

Feedback can be given in many different forms, and the type that is written and strives to either correct students written errors or support their overall writing ability is suitably enough referred to as written corrective feedback (WCF) of which there are two main types of: indirect and direct WCF. We know that second language writers meet many obstacles, be that lack of motivation and vocabulary or misspellings and phrasal issues; nonetheless, teachers thought processes about what type of feedback to give on what type of error is of importance for the continuation of the development of sound feedback approaches. Therefore, we intend to investigate English teachers perceptions on the WCF they give with the help of the following research questions: What are primary school English teachers’ perceptions about WCF in order to promote their ESL students writing development? What are primary school English teachers’ perceptions regarding their choice between written direct CF or written indirect CF on their ESL students written production?To investigate these questions we wrote an interview guide, and conducted interviews with seven teachers in 4th to 6th grade, asking about their perceptions on the development of writing in English as a second language and how they would describe their corrective feedback and their thought process on what type to give and when to give it on their student’s writing. Our findings showed that all teachers acknowledged two types of students in their ESL classroom: the high proficiency and the low proficiency. The low proficiency need more direct, clear and specific corrections on most of their writing whilst the high proficiency benefit from more indirect CF in order to make use of their metacognitive thinking skills. The findings also revealed that teachers choose to use indirect or direct CF based on the activity and whether the purpose is to learn grammar or not. If the focus is grammar, they would choose direct CF, and if it was to write a fictional story, they would give more indirect CF in order to not stifle the student’s creative process and “take the fun out of it”. Our study points to a need of more research within the field of feedback in general, since there is not much evidence showing what approaches are the most beneficial. Another issue is that there are practically no guidelines for teachers to follow, telling them what type to choose and for what activities. This is something for future research to dig deeper into.

To operate in our modern society an individual need to possess a well-rounded reading ability, and to know of and use reading strategies is crucial for learners to develop this ability. The present study sets out to explore the beliefs of Swedish English teachers regarding the significance of reading and reading strategies. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate to what extent their classroom practice of teaching explicit reading strategies instructions is consistent with their beliefs. In this qualitative study, four 7-9 English teachers and two student groups participated. These come from two Swedish schools with different social-economic backgrounds. The data was collected by conducting content analysis of the teachers' lesson plans and conducting semi-structured interviews with both the teachers and students. The results show that the teachers express positive attitude to reading and reading strategies as they believe that these constitute essential elements in the communicative classroom. However, the results also indicate that the teachers’ actual classroom practice for reading strategies is not always consistent with their beliefs: for example, despite all teachers being positive to reading and reading strategies’ instruction, only the teachers from the school with lower social-economic background provide reading strategies’ instruction explicitly. Further, the results indicate that factors such as the teachers’ theoretical conceptions, time contraints, student composition and proficiency level, the school’s socio-economic background are the reasons for the teachers including explicit reading strategies’ instruction in their repertoire.

Throughout our teacher training program, we have noticed that students struggle to see the reason with writing task designs that are short and concludes upon the end of the lesson. Therefore, this degree project aims to gain an insight to whether the methods used in process writing and its various concepts can be used efficiently within schools to assist students in reaching higher grades and have higher rates of academic success, as well as discover the impacts of motivation tied in with the use of these specific task designs. This paper will firstly introduce an overview of the different theories and concepts that are tied to process writing, such as feedback, rubrics use. In prior studies made, researchers have found that academic success is influenced by the use of strategies that correlate to the methods in process writing, and also describes how this impact is made. Secondly, this degree project is based on interviews made with three active 7-9 English teachers and 15 students (in years 8-9) in the southern of Sweden to research the possibility of motivation being affected in any way through the use of these task designs that, according to researchers, will lead the students to higher rates of academic success. The major conclusions of this study are that (I) students and teachers feel that it is useful to utilize the different key concepts tied to process writing in order to gain proficiency in the English language, (II) teachers often use at least one, if not more, of the methods included in process writing, and feel that they have an impact on student learning within the subject, (III) students feel that their motivation can be impacted through the use of these strategies, and be affected differently based on teacher instruction, (IV) many of the schools that were visited have grade-oriented students that can affect student motivation to learn, and the reasons for learning, (V) in addition to how well the students feel engaged to work with a task depending on their interests. (VI) Lastly, it also has an impact at what stage the teacher decides to assess their students, while working with process writing tasks.

This paper examines how we discuss social issues in the L2 classroom under the guidelines of Lgr11. To answer this, I ask the following sub-questions; How are the overall goals of education and parts (see Appendix B) of the Curriculum for English currently perceived by English teachers? How are the social subjects in the L2 classroom currently handled? Thirdly, what kind of lesson plan can be implemented in the classroom context under the guidelines of Lgr11? Looking at past research and relevant documents along with the qualitative data and through a triangulation of evidence carried out consisting of semi-structured interviews, supported by netnography research I propose a lesson plan using the collaborative action research model. All data was collected through technical means such as Zoom, phone calls and Facebook groups. The results of the interviews with teachers have shown that there is a unity in some respects with similar interpretations of Lgr11 and the curriculum. As well as differences of views and approaches concerning social issues in the L2 classroom. Based on the netnography research findings, most tasks given consisted of receptive skills while productive skills were used less. The netnography also supported the interview findings in the claim that popular topics were used more, whereas unpopular topics were neglected significantly. CLIL as a method was found to be absent in most of the collected data with some exceptions.

This research synthesis investigates the topic of movies in education, and explores advantages and challenges when using movies as a tool for language development in the English classroom. With the framework of language learning theories and methods, scholarly journal articles are synthesized to explore significant themes within this area. There are several advantages relating to the use of movies in language teaching, such as the benefits of multimodality, authentic language input, and knowledge construction. The challenges that might influence the benefits of the use of film as a teaching tool are, for instance, how to create tasks that make the viewing of movies more than just entertainment for learning language and knowledge development.