This research paper has the aim of examining Swedish and Australian teachers’ knowledge base and use of learning strategies in their language classes. After conducting qualitative interviews, the interviewees’ answers are tabled to corresponding descriptions of how strategies are communicated in current curricula of the two countries. The answers confirm that teachers’ understanding of learning strategies partly agree with previous research on strategies. While teachers place an emphasis on learning strategies for themselves as well as their pupils, they are observing strategic methods used by pupils rather than deliberately implementing learning strategies within their classrooms. The result of the study implies that teachers should put more focus on explaining and delivering learning strategies within the curriculum.

The goal for this essay is to research the action of “I don’t know” as a problem solving strategy with antilearning consequences, and as an action, with help from Dewey’s pragmatism and Krashen’s theory about affective filters (Krashen, 1987). The data is gathered from a group of nine-graders learning German as a third language, and the language skill in focus is oral production. The main questions are: ”How does an awareness raising about affective filters affect the pupils use of the action ’I don’t know’” and ”How does teaching about strategies affect the pupils use of the action ’I don’t know’”. As I interpreted the pupils use of “I don’t know” as a bad kind of problem solving action I wanted to give them better solutions, by teaching three language learning strategies. From the results of the data collection it is clear, that affective filters at first is an abstract theme for the pupils to understand and discuss, and that a more concrete work around the effects of “I don’t” is easier to handle. The result shows that both awareness raising and teaching strategies help the students to avoid the action “I don’t know” and in the last recording of the oral exams the action is not heard at all.

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The aim of this study is to investigate what educational approaches and strategies that are used by five teachers of English as a second language (ESL) and how they differ between three different schools. This was done through reviewing literature about educational approaches and strategies in ESL and analyzing the responses from a questionnaire given to five teachers in grades seven to nine at three different schools. The results showed a wide usage of the following approaches and strategies: using computers, including drama and role-playing, watching films and TV programs in English, listening to radio, news, or songs in English, using code-switching, encouraging pupils to speak like native speakers, teaching about cultures where English is spoken, and promoting discussions and social interaction.   The results of this study showed that most of the differences exist between the individual teachers rather than between the schools, when it comes to the use of and attitudes towards these approaches and strategies. However, the two which differed the most, judging from the responses, were: using code-switching and encouraging pupils to speak like native speakers. In these two cases it was possible to see differences both between specific schools and teachers.