This independent degree project investigates possible differences and similarities between vocational and non-vocational language learning textbooks in terms of topics covered, use of Swedish, and vocabulary levels. The textbooks analyzed in this study are Viewpoints 1, Viewpoints vocational, Blueprint A version 2.0 and Blueprint vocational, and they are aimed at the course English 5 in Swedish senior high school. In order to compare and analyze the differences between the textbooks, the Swedish words were counted in order to compare the proportion of Swedish words of each textbook. The texts and tasks from each textbook were made into a corpus. The corpus was analyzed with the tool Text Inspector, and connected to the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference and the Academic Word List. The results show that vocational textbooks have a larger focus in the topic of social and working life than the non-vocational textbooks. However, the results also suggest that the textbooks are quite similar in terms of academic words and the CEFR levels. The results also suggest that an investigation of a larger number of textbooks from several publishers could present a different result. The pedagogical implications that can be drawn from the results are that teachers need to know that differences may occur and that textbooks might need additional material.

This independent degree project investigates the vocabulary profiles in English language learning textbooks used in Sweden, and whether the vocabulary profiles follow the expected levels according to the CEFR and The Swedish National Agency for Education. This was done by a corpus-driven method, as well as a lexical analysis using search tools such as the English Vocabulary Profile, Text Inspector, and Compleat Lexical Tutor. The corpus contained texts from six different textbooks used in year 6, year 9, and in the English 7 course, as well as a number of news articles from The Guardian. The news articles served the purpose of comparing the vocabulary levels in the textbooks for English 7 with the vocabulary levels in advanced written English, which is a requirement for students to be able to understand in order to reach the grade E in English 7. The lexical analysis focused on lexical diversity, word families, word frequency, and the CEFR levels. The results showed that the vocabulary levels in the textbooks were appropriate, but that they might not provide enough challenge for students aiming for the higher grades. Results also showed that the vocabulary levels advanced in relation with the school years. The analysis revealed that between 90 and 97 percent of the vocabulary in the texts were categorized as within the CEFR levels that were expected of each of the school years. Pedagogical implictions drawn from this investigation are that teachers should teach about word families and that they can benefit from using the EVP when providing educational material in addition to textbooks.