Because of the globalization of society, English as a foreign language (EFL) has become easier to access through internet and outside school English activities, so called “extramural English activities” (EEA). Previous research indicates a positive relation between pupils’ EFL vocabulary development and EEA (Sundqvist, 2009). This development may influence teachers’ lesson planning, because of pupils’ wide span of interests and the resulting different levels of EFL vocabulary. The focus of this degree project is on year five teachers’ perception of pupils’ EEA and their level of vocabulary. We investigate there is a relationship between those variables, and how teachers are bridging the gap between pupils’ EEA and classroom activities. Further on, different theories of motivation and vocabulary, and previous research are presented and used in the analysis of collected data. The data was collected qualitatively through six interviews with teachers in year five. The results indicate that the teachers, to some extent know what kind of EEA the pupils are interested in. Teachers’ perceptions of the pupils’ level of EFL vocabulary correlated to some extent with their EEA. To bridge the gap between pupils’ EEA and enhancing motivation in EFL classrooms, some teachers tried to include pupils’ experiences in their teaching. Further on, these conclusions are discussed in relation to previous research. Finally, this degree project may motivate teachers to explore the EEA habits of their pupils.

Students today encounter a vast amount of English in their free time, outside the walls of school. They watch English films, play English computer games, and keep international contacts through the internet. This present study focuses on mapping the so called Extramural English activities of two groups of upper secondary high school students in order to find out how and if the overall English proficiency of those students can be derived from the English they encounter in their free time. One of the groups is living and studying at a Swedish school in the UK, while the other one is living and studying at a regular high school in the south of Sweden. Both groups participated in a survey where they were asked to answer questions about their free time habits, time spent on different English activities and how they feel that their confidence and overall proficiency in the subject has improved. The results of this study show that the students living in the UK engage in more English activities outside of school and that they claim overall better results and higher confidence in their English. This study contains proof that Extramural English is an important factor in achieving targetlike language proficiency.

<p>The question of whether second languages (L2s) are best learned implicitly or explicitly has been a topic of much empirical discourse, with the majority of studies pointing to the benefits of explicit instruction when learning L2 grammar rules. However, given the focus on grammar, it is unclear how generalizable these findings are to other linguistic domains, such as L2 speech and L2 vocabulary. The previous focus on laboratory-based settings, and the language bias in the literature, also make it unclear how ecologically valid and applicable these findings are to the real world. To address these macro research questions, two experiments were carried out on English-speaking L2 learners of German.</p> <p>Experiment I (ExI) investigated the effects of implicit and explicit learning on the acquisition of Final Obstruent Devoicing and Dorsal Fricative Assimilation. The effect of the two learning conditions on L2 perception was also measured using a perceptual discrimination task and a perceptual identification task. Experiment II (ExII) investigated the effects of explicit historical instruction on the learning of English-German cognates, which were compared to the effects of a non-explicit learning condition. To examine whether declarative knowledge of relevant historical changes can aid in vocabulary learning, an explicit condition received instruction on the Second Germanic Sound Shift, Ingvæonic Palatalization, and relevant historical semantic changes. Both experiments followed a pre-/post-/delayed-post-test design.</p> <p>Results indicate that the two explicit conditions significantly outperformed the non-explicit conditions, suggesting that explicit learning and explicit instruction can be beneficial when learning L2 speech and L2 vocabulary. In ExI, acoustic analyses of learner speech samples indicate that the explicit condition was more successful in the learning of the two phonological rules. In ExII, the explicit condition was more successful in the identification and learning of cognates, suggesting that knowledge of language history, and instruction on applied historical linguistics, can be beneficial when learning a language that is historically related to a language that learners already speak. The results from this dissertation are discussed in the context of implicit and explicit learning and instruction, the role of attention, and the role of declarative knowledge, with concluding remarks pointing to the importance of metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness in adult or university-level language courses.</p>