Oral communication has a central function in society. School has therefore a central role to develop students' public speaking. The aim of the study is to investigate students with speaking anxiety and fear of public speaking in order to explore what would improve their public speaking skills and what kind of support they need to develop a routine in public speaking. The method consists of qualitative interviews. Four research questions are raised: What experiences have students with speaking anxiety when they reflect on oral presentations in elementary school? What knowledge have teachers in the subject of Swedish as well as special education teachers about speaking anxiety? What methods and adaptations do teachers in the subject of Swedish and special education teachers use for supporting students' speech anxiety? How do the teachers assess oral presentations? The results show that students describe that their speaking anxiety developed and grew over the years in school. The interviewed students say it's because they have not been given the opportunity to practise oral presentation in school. The students were given time for preparation, but the focus was on the content and not the performance. The students often received oral feedback, but it was too general and they desired written response. In conclusion, the best way to support speaking anxiety in students would probably be to implement a systematic and conscious methods in the education program. The teachers had not reflected much about speech anxiety, although some of them offered some support to their students.

Examensarbete 15 poäng i lärarutbildningen höstterminen 2007 Sammanfattning Författare: Robert Grandén ”Man är trygg här på nåt sätt” En fallstudie om gymnasieskolans individuella program. ”You feel secure here in some kind of way” A study about the individual program in high school. Antal sidor: 35 Mitt ämnesval tog sin bakgrund i att jag arbetat fem år som högstadielärare och var nyfiken på vad som händer med de elever som inte tar sig in på ett nationellt gymnasieprogram. Den heta debatt som pågår om det individuella programmets vara eller inte vara var ännu ett skäl för mig att lyfta ämnet. Syftet med det här examensarbetet var att undersöka om det individuella programmet hade en större betydelse för eleverna som gick där än att bara läsa upp sina betyg. Jag ville även undersöka vad dessa elever hade för erfarenhet av sina tre år på högstadiet samt hur lärarna på det individuella programmet såg på sin lärarroll. Metodvalet för min undersökning var kvalitativ och bestod i semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra elever och två lärare. Det resultat som studien kom fram till visade att eleverna hade en negativ bild av sin tid på högstadiet och att det individuella programmet erbjöd dem en positivare skolupplevelse.

<p>Examensarbete 15 poäng</p><p>i lärarutbildningen</p><p>höstterminen 2007</p><p>Sammanfattning</p><p>Författare: Robert Grandén</p><p>”Man är trygg här på nåt sätt”</p><p>En fallstudie om gymnasieskolans individuella program.</p><p>”You feel secure here in some kind of way”</p><p>A study about the individual program in high school.</p><p>Antal sidor: 35</p><p>Mitt ämnesval tog sin bakgrund i att jag arbetat fem år som högstadielärare och var nyfiken på vad som händer med de elever som inte tar sig in på ett nationellt gymnasieprogram. Den heta debatt som pågår om det individuella programmets vara eller inte vara var ännu ett skäl för mig att lyfta ämnet. Syftet med det här examensarbetet var att undersöka om det individuella programmet hade en större betydelse för eleverna som gick där än att bara läsa upp sina betyg. Jag ville även undersöka vad dessa elever hade för erfarenhet av sina tre år på högstadiet samt hur lärarna på det individuella programmet såg på sin lärarroll. Metodvalet för min undersökning var kvalitativ och bestod i semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra elever och två lärare. Det resultat som studien kom fram till visade att eleverna hade en negativ bild av sin tid på högstadiet och att det individuella programmet erbjöd dem en positivare skolupplevelse.</p>

The general question in this dissertation is whether the democracy of schools is carried out in a gender equal manner in Sweden’s gender segregated upper secondary school. Students’ experiences of school democracy are measured using the dimensions of influence, discussion and legal rights. Three different explanatory factors are considered: the significance of gender, gender context and the character of the school programmes for these experiences. The study is based on student responses to a poll conducted in the top form classes of Kronoberg County’s upper secondary schools during the school year 2008/2009. The results of a series of regression analyses show that neither gender, gender context or programme character alone had an affect on experiences of school democracy. However, the more males present in a teaching environment, the poorer the experiences of influence and discussion are when all of the three explanatory factors are controlled for. In addition, the school programmes having male-coded character content particularly stand out favourably regarding school democracy. The number of males is usually high in such programmes and therefore the negative effects of male representation cancel out the positive effects of programme affiliation unless an explicit division is made of both of these aspects. Thus, keeping gender context and programme character separate is very important with studies of school democracy, since significant effects otherwise remain hidden. The study demonstrates that school democracy is important for students. Those students who have good experiences of school democracy perceive the school environment as significantly better than those who have poor experiences of school democracy. Concerning secondary effects, it appears that experiences of school democracy have different implications for learning among female and male students. There is a negative relationship between male experiences of influence and their grades in Swedish and Maths, while female experiences of discussion seem to show a positive covariance with grades. There is no relationship found in the data between students’ daily experiences of school democracy and their thoughts on voting in the upcoming parliamentary election.

“The apprenticeship of observation” is a person’s previous experiences as a student and it can greatly affect a person’s beliefs about teaching. This paper aimed to study the effect that previous student experiences had had on English major students at a university in China. A questionnaire was designed in order to collect data. The questionnaire was distributed to 117 undergraduate English majors. The results showed that the English majors considered their previous experiences as students to have greatly affected their current beliefs about English language teaching. The results further showed that the effects had mainly been positive and that the English major students considered “methods for English teaching”, “content”, and “lesson planning” to be the areas that had been affected most. These results were in accordance with most previous studies on the topic. / “Observationens lärlingskap” (min översättning) är en persons tidigare erfarenheter som elev och dessa kan starkt påverka en persons uppfattning om undervisning. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vilken effekt tidigare eleverfarenheter hade haft på engelskstuderande studenter vid ett universitet i Kina. Ett frågeformulär utformades för att samla in underlag. Frågeformuläret delades ut till 117 engelskstudenter. Resultatet visade att engelskstudenterna ansåg att deras tidigare eleverfarenheter starkt hade påverkat deras nuvarande åsikter om engelskundervisning. Vidare visade resultatet att effekten mestadels var positiv och att engelskstudenterna ansåg att “metoder för engelskundervisning”, “innehåll” och “lektionsplanering” var de områden som hade blivit mest påverkade. Dessa resultat stämde med tidigare studier inom området.