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ABSTRACT This essay aims to explain the Swedish pupils’ attitude towards grammar and to give a more specific picture of its teaching in modern languages. The underlying factor for this subject is the author’s own experiences with the pupils’ reactions to the word ”grammar”, which is a term often connected to something negative among Swedish students. This thesis presents the pupils’ thoughts regarding grammar and its pedagogy. Since the author participitates in the teachers education programme, the absence of the word ”grammar” in the syllabus for modern languages will also be discussed and questioned. The basis for this thesis is a survey made in an upper secondary school in the south of Sweden in autumn 2014. Several groups studying a foreign language at different levels participated: three groups studying French and two groups studying Spanish. The results reveal that the majority of the pupils find grammar very difficult and boring, although these students also think that the grammar is an important foundation of the language since its study is regarded as an essential part of their language studies. However, the survey also shows that a small group of students find grammar studies interesting. The results and conclusions given in this essay may be of some interest for other teachers and education researchers.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1980. / Abstracted in DAI-A 41/07, p. 2975, Jan 1981. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-124).

abstract: The use of blogging tools in the second language classroom has been investigated from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives (Alm, 2009; Armstrong & Retterer, 2008; Dippold, 2009; Ducate & Lomicka, 2008; Elola & Oskoz, 2008; Jauregi & Banados, 2008; Lee, 2009; Petersen, Divitini, & Chabert, 2008; Pinkman, 2005; Raith, 2009; Soares, 2008; Sun, 2009, 2012; Vurdien, 2011; Yang, 2009) and a growing number of studies examine the use of microblogging tools for language learning (Antenos-Conforti, 2009; Borau, Ullrich, Feng, & Shen, 2009; Lomicka & Lord, 2011; Perifanou, 2009). Grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engestrom, 1987), the present study explores the outcomes of a semester-long project based on the Bridging Activities framework (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008) and implemented in an intermediate hybrid Spanish-language course at a large public university in Arizona, in which students used microblogging and blogging tools to collect digital texts, analyze perspectives of the target culture, and participate as part of an online community of language learners with a broader audience of native speakers. The research questions are: (1) What technology is used by the students, with what frequency and for what purposes in both English and Spanish prior to beginning the project?, (2) What are students' values and attitudes toward using Twitter and Blogger as tools for learning Spanish and how do they change over time through their use in the project during the semester course?, and (3) What tensions emerge in the activity systems of the intermediate Spanish-language students throughout the process of using Twitter and Blogger for the project? What are the underlying reasons for the tensions? How are they resolved? The data was collected using pre-, post-, and periodic surveys, which included Likert and open-ended questions, as well as the participants' microblog and blog posts. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data was analyzed to identify emerging themes following the Constant Comparative Method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Finally, three participant outliers were selected as case studies for activity theoretical analysis in order to identify tensions and, through their resolution, evidence of expansive learning. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Spanish 2015

In this thesis I investigate the practices and perceptions of some Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) of modern foreign languages (MFL) in Scotland in relation to how they use the target language (L2). I seek to answer the questions “In what different ways do student teachers of modern languages use the target language in Scottish secondary school classrooms?’, ‘What reasons do they give for how they use it?” and “In what way(s), if any, do newly qualified teachers of modern languages change teaching pedagogy in their initial stages of teaching in relation to the use of the target language and what reasons do they give for any changes they make?”. The issue arises because of the continuing gap between what initial teacher education (ITE) advocates in respect of L2 use and what qualified teachers say they do, in so far as there is evidence in this area. There is little empirical evidence relating to how and why MFL NQTs develop the practices and perceptions of qualified teachers. Data was gathered through an online questionnaire issued to all modern languages teachers in Scotland and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a small group of PGDE (Secondary) Modern Languages students at the end of their PGDE year and at the end of their first year of teaching as NQTs. Audio-recordings of the NQTs were also made during this first year of teaching. Data from the four sources were analysed using an inductive approach, remaining flexible in terms of extending, modifying and discarding categories. The findings revealed that the NQTs used considerably less target language during their NQT year and had changed their views on the target language substantially since their PGDE year. They reported that they found it difficult to use L2 for discipline, grammar teaching, explaining things and for social chat. At the same time there were huge changes in their practice and big changes in their views vis-à-vis L2 use. Significantly, the data revealed that these changes in practice and views happened very quickly, were a lot starker and occurred a lot faster than previously thought. This situation seems to have many causes – influences from experienced colleagues, survival tactics, how teachers develop their own pedagogy and identity as teachers. This thesis recommends that those involved in ITE and Career Long Professional Learning look particularly at the two areas of situated learning and teacher cognition in relation to the use of the target language. It further recommends collaborative research between teachers in schools and other agencies, such as Education Scotland and local authority quality improvement officers, together with teacher educators to develop an understanding of how to promote effective learning and teaching strategies in relation to the use of the target language in class.

The aim of this paper is to examine the different learning strategies among the students of primary and upper-secondary schools and their use by developing the different proficiencies of modern languages. This study will also try to clarify if and how these strategies differ between the students of primary and upper-secondary schools and what cognitive, metacognitive and social effective aspects lie beyond these differences. The data used in the presented paper is previous research made on different learning strategies and their use in the modern language education in primary and upper secondary schools. This paper also uses a number of interviews with the pupils from primary and upper-secondary schools in order to illustrate if and how the use of their strategies differs and what aspects contribute to this difference.

<p> Online foreign language course offerings have grown exponentially in secondary and post-secondary schools during the last two decades. Although numerous instruments and surveys exist to assess readiness for a student to take online courses, insufficient research has dealt with the particularities of learning a foreign language online. This study was designed to ascertain the attributes that determine readiness for the online foreign language student. In addition, questions used in the Educational Success Prediction Instrument 2^nd Version, ESPRI V-2, an instrument created to test online readiness for secondary students, were presented to the participants to determine if the instrument would be efficient to evaluate online foreign language readiness. Those surveyed and interviewed were online instructors of foreign language who: taught the foreign language at least two years; taught foreign language at least six months online; and were willing to participate. Data were gathered via a 25 question Google Survey, as condensed by John Siko (2014), which included four open ended questions pertaining to foreign language instructors&rsquo; experience and opinions as well as one to assess their willingness to participate in an interview. The results led to verification of the appropriateness of four attributes used in the ESPRI V-2: achievement and self-esteem beliefs (motivation), responsibility/risk-taking, technology skills and access, and organization and self-regulation (learner autonomy). In addition, a sub-component of motivation, or having a concrete motive for learning the foreign language, was found to be an indicator for online FL readiness.</p><p>

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