This study investigates what can cause significant gaps in grammatical knowledge in a class of English 5 and how such gaps can be healed or avoided. By triangulating results from two diagnostic tests, a focus group of pupils and a semi-structured interview with their teacher, data were analysed statistically and through a phenomenographic perspective.  The results expose grammatical gaps concerning genitive construction, relative pronouns, and tag construction. Moreover, the pupils’ experiences from earlier grammar teaching and learning indicate that cause, development, and possible healing of grammatical gaps are related to how grammar seldom is discussed or practised in school. Furthermore, the teacher’s experiences show how pupils and groups typically unaffected by grammatical issues now are involved and that extensive repair efforts are needed. In conclusion, the results and analysis suggest that grammatical gaps may be related to three main issues: how communicational theory within the syllabi is intended, how it is understood and then brought to the classroom and how teaching professionals’ schooling and tradition related to grammar teaching and testing may affect the outcome of the communicational classroom. If managed, they can be the key to bridging grammatical gaps in the future.

For youths speaking a second language in a classroom can be quite anxious, worrying how their classmates will react or if the teacher will correct every single mistake.For teachers it is as important to teach the new language as to create a welcoming classroom setting where the students feel comfortable to make mistakes. To achieve a good learning environment, it is imperative to develop an understanding from students’ perspectives what conditions are needed for participation and what obstacles are there which prevent them from participating.Three year 8 classes were invited to complete a foreign language questionnaire regarding their will to speak during English lessons. The results showed most students did not have a speech anxiety. Those who showed a certain level of speech anxiety were mostly afraid of how their classmates would react. Also, this group of students were least active at home practising English online such as speaking with others. This indicates the importance to encourage students to practise English daily to overcome their speech anxiety. It is also important for educators to create a learning environment to allow students to feel comfortable to make mistakes without being laughed at or vigorously corrected by the teacher.

English is a global language that surrounds us almost wherever in the world we are. The school has an important role when it comes to introducing the language to young learners. Using teaching materials such as workbooks has been a common teaching method for a long time. This thesis examines three popular workbooks from different Swedish publishers, Learn English, Magic! and Happy. Through a content analysis, verbal interaction activities within these workbooks were examined based on Becker and Roos’s (2016) model of creative speaking. Additionally, interviews were conducted as a way to give insight to how these workbooks can be used in the classroom. This study shows that pupils are provided with support and guidance in most of the interactive activities within these workbooks. However, activity types as well as in what manner the pupils were requested to interact differed when the workbooks were compared to each other. The activity types that occurred were reading dialogues, sharing information and expressing opinions in English. The teachers reported to work with the activities in full class or pairs. / <p>Engelska</p>

This paper investigates if the tools of the Aggression Replacement Training (ART) program, a structured treatment model for the training of social skills, can scaffold secondary learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) with regards to speaking and interaction. Furthermore, with the help of interviews I aim to get a better understanding of teachers´ perception of ART. The tools modelling, roleplaying, and performance feedback are used within the ART program to improve social skills; by looking at the ART-program and by comparing these to how they are used in the EFL classroom, and at the secondary Ung ART school, in general. I will attempt to show how the learning of English as a foreign learning can be improved, particularly regarding speaking and interaction. This paper is primarily relevant to teachers of EFL but may also be useful to other teachers who want to scaffold their students. The ART-program tools modelling, roleplaying, and performance feedback have a positive effect on EFL-learners.

This study investigates the possible benefits of using the extensive reading approach as means of enhancing reading motivation, and through that improve and develop EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ vocabular repertoire. According to the Swedish Media Council, almost 49% of the Swedish youth do not read books in their free time, and the numbers keep decreasing (Statens Medieråd, 2019). At a time where reading is no longer as common, several researchers have claimed that implementing the extensive reading approach in EFL classrooms gives space for incidental vocabulary acquisition to take place. It has been further argued that extensive reading is an appreciated approach by students, since it gives them the freedom to learn at their own pace. However, there is still some disagreement among researchers as to whether extensive reading does increase reading motivation or not. For this study, data and material were gathered through electronic searches from numerous educational databases to investigate this matter and provide an overview of the findings. The overall results indicate that extensive reading does have a beneficial impact on vocabulary acquisition, and that students are generally positive and receptive to extensive reading, especially when combined with reading-tasks and activities. However, further research is necessary to be able to understand whether vocabular gains from extensive reading actually are affected by reading motivation or not.

This study aimed to explore the impact of pedagogical agents in computer-based listening instruction on EFL students' listening anxiety levels and listening comprehension skills. A total of 66 Korean college students received computer-based listening instruction. Students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: American agent condition, Korean agent condition, or no-agent condition. Additional data sources were included in the experimental design in order to investigate students' learning experience more thoroughly. Results indicated that there were no statistical differences in listening anxiety levels and listening comprehension skills between students who worked with the agent and students who worked without the agent. In addition, there was no statistical difference in listening anxiety levels between students who worked with the Korean agent and students who worked with the American agent. However, survey findings indicated a few differences between the agent condition and the no-agent condition when students were asked to describe their learning experiences. Students from both groups enjoyed the lesson overall; however, their comments revealed some differences. Students in the agent condition regarded the agent as an important contribution to their enjoyable learning experience, and specifically chose the presence of the agent as the reason they would want to work with the program again, while students in the no-agent condition mainly enjoyed the useful functions integrated into the computer-based lesson, and indicated they would work with the program again because it was interesting and helpful. Although there were no statistical differences between the groups, these results seem to illuminate that the guidance provided by the pedagogical agent during the lesson positively affected students' learning experiences, which is in line with previous study findings. The findings from the survey can also provide suggestions regarding what aspects of pedagogical agents should be kept or improved for language learning. More data would strengthen the impact of the results. However, these findings offer practical and theoretical implications for using pedagogical agents in foreign language education.

Even though vocabulary skills are the essential key to achieving proficiency in a target language, there are some students who do not like reading. Thus, the purpose of this study is the potential use of digital technology for facilitating and motivating reading and vocabulary building in English. Thanks to technological innovations, children and young people are reading and writing in many ways and digital tools have become a part of everyday life for children and adults. Since 2018, the schools in Sweden have been preparing for the first digital national tests that will be taken in the year 2023. The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) has highlighted the importance of digital tools and the competence that is needed for teachers so that the students will be able to pass and succeed in their education. Digital tools in schools all around the world have become an essential tool in the classroom, especially in Sweden.    Ultimately, this critical literature review investigates whether the use of digital texts in the ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom can help students improve and build their vocabulary as well as motivate children to read. It also examines the advantages, disadvantages, and effectiveness of using vocabulary learning in the classroom to motivate students to read more. The goal is to motivate students to read more so that they will be able to practice reading independently and, thus, become fluent readers. The results indicate that it is crucial that teachers improve their competence in digital technology.    Key terms: Digital, reading, books, motivation, English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL).

No description available.

Reading approaches in Japan and other EFL settings have typically focused on accuracy at the expense of fluency. However, reading rate and fluency are important components of reading that are currently being neglected. A review of the literature reveals growing interest in investigating the effectiveness of reading rate and fluency enhancement approaches such as extensive reading (ER), speed reading, and oral fluency training. Results of previous research indicate the effectiveness of these approaches for increasing reading speed and fluency as well as comprehension, but the overall body of evidence in this area remains weak, particularly in EFL contexts.With these gaps in mind, the purposes of this study were to investigate the effectiveness of the ER approach in developing reading fluency, investigate appropriate ways to measure reading fluency in adult EFL readers, investigate whether reading fluency increases are accompanied by reading comprehension increases, and identify the patterns of reading rate development that occur during an ER course. To this end, a longitudinal quasi-experimental study was conducted with 77 first-year students at a nursing college in Japan, all of whom participated in one 15-week semester of ER with an added fluency training component (ERFT) and one 15-week semester of intensive reading (IR). Silent reading rate, oral reading rate and fluency, reading comprehension, and written receptive vocabulary size were measured at the beginning and end of both semesters. Silent reading rate, oral reading rate, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension were measured using both simplified and authentic texts. Approximately half of the students took ERFT in the first semester and IR in the second semester, and the other half did the opposite, so analyses were conducted separately for these two groups. Repeated-measures ANOVAs showed that for the IR-before-ERFT group, oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for the ERFT treatment (9.79 wcpm) than the IR treatment (3.05 wcpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for the IR treatment (8.26 wpm) than the ERFT treatment (-2.86 wpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts; and oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (15.18 wcpm) than IR (4.37 wcpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts. For the ERFT-before-IR group, silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (19.22 wpm) than IR (-2.50 wpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (12.55 wcpm) than IR (4.81 wcpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (21.86 wpm) than IR (-7.64 wpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts; and oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for IR (13.06 wcpm) than ERFT (6.70 wcpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts. Repeated-measures ANOVAs also showed that for the IR-before-ERFT group, reading comprehension increase for authentic texts was significantly greater for IR (1.00 logits) than ERFT (.17 logits) (p = .010); and vocabulary size increase was significantly greater for IR (.36 logits) than ERFT (-.19 logits) (p = .001). For the ERFT-before-IR group, reading comprehension increase for authentic texts was significantly greater for ERFT (1.05 logits) than IR (.11 logits) (p = .003); and vocabulary size increase was significantly greater for ERFT (.44 logits) than IR (-.07 logits) (p = .001). No significant correlations were found between changes in any of the reading rate and fluency measures (silent reading rate, oral reading rate, and oral reading fluency) and reading comprehension change. For the ERFT-before-IR group, analysis revealed a significant and moderately high negative correlation (r = -.422) between initial silent reading rate and silent reading rate change (on simplified texts) during the ERFT treatment. Analysis of individual students’ silent reading rate change patterns during the ERFT semester revealed a jagged increase to be the most common (22/77; 28.57%) pattern of rate increase. These results add to a growing body of evidence that ERFT yields greater reading fluency gains than IR, suggest that both ERFT and IR contribute to reading comprehension and vocabulary size gains, suggest that ERFT yields greater reading fluency gains among students with initially slower reading rates, and provide insight into how individual’s reading rate changes over the course of a semester of ERFT. / Teaching & Learning

ABSTRACTThis study is an investigation of Japanese university students’ use of metacognitive knowledge for reading an English narrative text for general comprehension and their inference generation while reading. Research in second language (L2) reading and reading comprehension has advanced over the past three and half decades (Grabe & Stoller, 2020). Many studies focusing on L2 reading comprehension have shed light on the strong correlation of linguistic knowledge such as vocabulary and syntax with reading comprehension (e.g., Jeon & Yamashita, 2014). In addition, the literature on L2 reading has shown a strong interest in the role of higher-order processing and metacognition. However, there is a paucity of research on higher-order processing and metacognitive knowledge in L2 reading in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. With these gaps in mind, this study draws on Flavell’s (1979) model of cognitive monitoring and Nelson and Narens’ (1990) model of metacognition. It also draws on Kintsch’s (1988) Construction-Integration (CI) Model that elaborately describes the process of reading comprehension. Ten intermediate- and advanced-proficiency Japanese EFL learners voluntarily participated in this multiple case study, read a narrative text for general comprehension, and reported on their reading. The data collected from the participants’ course assignments, class oral presentation, class discussion, semi-structured interviews, and the think aloud and stimulated recall protocols were transcribed and coded for analysis. The transcribed data together with the written data were analyzed thematically clustering the data into categories manually using Flavell’s (1979) framework of metacognitive knowledge, person, task, and strategy, and by the types of inferences made. This study provides a descriptive account of the participants and contributes to the literature on EFL learners’ strategy use, metacognition, and inference-making in L2 reading. The findings reveal that intermediate- and advanced-proficiency Japanese EFL learners used strategies in combination to solve the difficulties they encountered, and metacognitive strategies to monitor and evaluate their strategy use while reading. Accordingly, this study supports the conclusion that metacognitive strategies are essential to self-regulated reading to achieve comprehension. In addition, the participants’ positive beliefs about themselves as EFL learners appeared to positively contribute to their motivation to read. In particular, their beliefs about good L2 readers helped them set goals with regards to the areas that they problematized. For example, the participants aspired to read faster because they recognized that their present L2 reading speed was slow. The findings also provide a detailed account of how readers constructed situation models for their reader comprehension. In particular, re-reading helped enhance participants’ ability to draw inferences, identify causal relationships, remove irrelevant or contradictory elements, and integrate relevant background knowledge to the textbase in the interest of updating their situation models. The rich description of the multiple cases in this study contributes to our understanding of difficulties intermediate- and advanced-proficiency Japanese EFL learners encounter while reading, how they use strategies to address them, how they draw inferences to connect information, and how they evaluate their comprehension on an ongoing basis. / Teaching & Learning