This study is about the structure and content of two specific English textbooks used in upper secondary school. The aim of the study is to get a deeper understanding of the structure of textbooks in English teaching, and what topics are used and what skills are emphasised when teaching English as a second language with the guidance of those textbooks. The textbooks studied, World Wide English 5 Samhällsvetenskapsprogrammet and In Real Life, are designed for the course ‘English 5’ in the upper secondary school curriculum. World Wide English 5 Samhällsvetenskapsprogrammet is designed for an academic program, while In Real Life is designed for  vocational programs. The study contains a content analysis of the textbooks with both a qualitative perspective and a quantitative perspective. The quantitative part of the analysis shows the different kinds of skills promoted by the exercises while the qualitative part shows what different texts are used in the textbooks. The study of the textbooks shows that when it comes to texts the textbooks emphasise different types of text (eg. fictional or non fictional) for the different programs. The exercises in both books focus on vocabulary and grammar activities. This study concludes that the textbooks are different but also have some similarities and both encourage the communicative aspects promoted in the new curriculum.

This essay deals with the communicative approach towards learning English. The aim is to investigate how and why form and/or function are stressed in course plans in the subject of English intended for the first year of upper secondary school and how the content of these plans are mirrored in teaching materials. This will be done within a small historical frame from the 70’s until today. Based on a background of the school’s development and the research in the field of education and language studies, the investigation is carried out by firstly analyzing the course plans respectively before weighing them against each other, and secondly by examining each teaching material before comparing their content to the relevant course plan as well as to each other. The focus in these analyses is on the language’s function in contrast to form and on how communicating competence is stressed and exercised. The results show that the course plans are vastly different. The older plan emphasises form to a large extent but it does also contain hints of function. The recent plan, on the other hand, is permeated by function and it has communication as the foremost goal. Both teaching materials correspond quite well to the relevant course plan. The older material exercises mainly form and correctness in individual tasks while the newer material promotes group work and features exercises that practically always require interaction and train the pupils’ communicative abilities. The conclusion that is drawn from this investigation is that there is an obvious shift from a prominence of form to a dominion of function in both the course plans and teaching materials studied in this essay.