This essay applies a critical lens to Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf. The aim of this essay is to investigate if and how Mrs. Dalloway can be utilized for students to practice critical consciousness in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf criticizes her own contemporary society by deliberately writing about the obnoxious social class system in London during the inter-war period. This deliberate social critique is analyzed by both looking into the author’s background and the historical time period the novel was written. The Marxist literary critic, Terry Eagleton argues that in order to fully understand literature, you must compare both the author and the author’s contemporary society to the novel itself. By analyzing these aspects, it is possible to understand any piece of literature from any given historical time period. Moreover, this essay desires to ascertain if canonical literature is relevant when teaching students about social class and inclusiveness. Furthermore, this essay argues that having a Marxist perspective can help students become critically conscious of both their environment and society. Also, it examines if the combination of Marxist theory together with critical pedagogy can create an educational situation that is equally fair for all students, regarding their socioeconomic status. The results of this essay concluded that applying either Marxist theory or critical literacy pedagogy to literature, could make students become more critically conscious about their environment, which could help to replicate the teaching philosophies of critical pedagogy by Paulo Freire.

The aim of this study is to examine upper secondary teachers' selection processes, strategies and reasons for why literature is used to address ethical and existential issues in the EFL classroom. Additionally, it is also of interest to examine what advantages, challenges and learning outcomes are evident when addressing this specific issue. A qualitative approach was used for this study and the data was gathered through interviews with eight upper secondary English teachers. The results in the study showed the reasons for selecting literary works to address ethical or existential issues was adding new perspectives and the assets which literature offer. The results also accounted for various advantages and challenges, where pupils' development and the possibility of a free space were mentioned as advantages and language proficiency as a challenge. The learning outcomes were development of both critical thinking as well as the empathic ability.

This thesis aims at analysing the novel History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera using a queer phenomenological lens in order to reveal to what extent it depicts aspects of sexuality, consent and relationships in a non-heteronormative way. Furthermore, the thesis discusses different ways of making visible the effects of normativity on student’s learning and development through the proposed queer phenomenological pedagogy.  The literary analysis is conducted by implementing queer theory, queer phenomenology and reader-response to reveal and convey the above-mentioned aspects in a way that enables critical thinking from a non-heteronormative perspective. The pedagogical implications show how the different aspects of sex/sexuality, consent and relationships can be put in juxtaposition and evaluated to broaden the pupils’ understanding and perception. The thesis concludes that the novel History Is All You Left Me contain several examples of sexuality, consent and relationships, amongst others, in a non-heteronormative way, which can be put in juxtaposition in the classroom to further enable critical thinking regarding the topics. Furthermore, the thesis concludes that a queer phenomenological pedagogy can work against normalisation and for pupils finding or expressing their identity and uniqueness.

The current study investigates what recent research tells us as to how creative writing can support language learning in English as a second language (ESL) classrooms at the primary and secondary levels. The results show that teachers must implement a variety of approaches when structuring creative writing lessons to help reach the knowledge requirements in the syllabus for English. Furthermore, the presented studies establish that creative writing is an excellent method to develop writing skills and encourage pupils to write. This investigation also shows that implementing creative writing into ESL classrooms helped develop vocabulary, grammar, and imagination. Finally, it appears that confident pupils are more likely to enjoy a creative writing class and advance faster in their language learning.

Out of the debate in Swedish media about homework, the idea for this study was born. The idea was to investigate the popular belief of many foreign language teachers which suggest that homework glossing is a necessity in the English classroom for pupils vocabulary acquisition, while other assumes this method doesn’t lead to knowledge that last. Therefore, the purpose for this study was to examine how learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) manage to learn new words when they received glossing as homework and when they studied the words in a context during class. Furthermore, out of the argument that homework stress pupils and lowers their interest and motivation for the subject, a secondary purpose was to find out pupils’ opinions about learning new words through glossing as English homework. The study was focused on two teaching methods for vocabulary acquisition: the traditional teaching method designed to teach vocabulary by giving glossing as homework, and teaching new words during class with a focus on teaching the new words in context. Through the survey of these two different methods for vocabulary learning and an empirical study with two primary school classes in which these two methods were put on test, contrary to the expectation that learning words through homework glossing wouldn’t lead to vocabulary knowledge that last, the results of the empirical study showed that the group which received glossing as homework, did better on both test than the group which studied the word in context. Similarly, the data results showed the average pupil had a positive attitude to vocabulary homework as for the most part they felt it benefited them to study this method because of the effects of learning.

In this qualitative case-study, EFL teachers’ experience and views regarding homogeneous and heterogeneous ability groups are investigated. Four EFL teachers working in the Introduction program in upper secondary school were interviewed through semi-structured questions. The interviews were held individually and conducted by the researcher. The questions focused on a teacher perspective as well as a student perspective and the teachers were also asked whether they preferred any of the two ability groups and possible reasons for this. The answers were quite similar and the teachers mentioned some common factors, such as time and efficiency, assignments, lectures, student interaction and learning progression. It was clear that the teachers found homogeneous ability groups easier to manage and this was also the group that three of them preferred working with. Additional reasons for this choice was the experience that this type of group was more beneficial for students and the teachers also felt more successful in their roles as teachers. Although one teacher mostly agreed with the others she was more in favour of heterogeneous ability groups, or a mix of both groups, because it allowed students to develop in their own pace and from their individual preferences and she also experienced more satisfaction in finding the right structure and strategies for each student. / I den här kvalitativa fallstudien undersöks engelsklärares erfarenheter och perspektiv angående homogena och heterogena nivågrupper. Fyra engelsklärare som arbetar på introduktionsprogrammen inom gymnasieskolan intervjuades genom semistrukturerade frågor. Intervjuerna genomfördes individuellt och av forskaren. Frågorna fokuserade på ett lärarperspektiv likväl som ett elevperspektiv och lärarna fick också svara på frågan om de föredrog någon av de två nivågrupperingarna och ange möjliga orsaker till detta. Svaren var någorlunda lika och samtliga lärare lyfte några gemensamma nämnare så som tid och effektivitet, uppgifter, genomgångar, elevinteraktion samt inlärningsprogression. Det var tydligt att lärarna ansåg det enklare att hantera homogena nivågrupper och det var även den typ av grupp som tre av dem föredrog att arbeta med. Ytterligare orsaker till detta var upplevelsen att denna typ av grupp var mer gynnsam för elever och lärarna kände sig även mer framgångsrika i rollen som lärare. Även om en lärare ofta höll med övriga så föredrog hon heterogena nivågrupper, alternativt en blandning av båda grupper, då detta lät elever utvecklas i sin egen takt och utifrån sina individuella förutsättningar. Hon upplevde också mer tillfredsställelse av att hitta rätt struktur och strategier för varje elev.