Syftet med uppsatsen är att se vad forskningen om språkängslan säger om vad språklärare kan göra för att skapa en låg nivå av ängslan och därmed ett bättre klimat för språkinlärning i ett kommunikativt klassrum. Uppsatsen är forskningskonsumerande och bygger på tidigare forskning om språkängslan i främmandespråksinlärning. Avstamp tas i det kommunikativa klassrummet, som förespråkas i styrdokumenten för dagens svenska skola, och som bygger på kommunikation. Sedan presenteras olika affektiva faktorer som kan påverka främmandespråksinlärningen i denna kontext. Därifrån belyses vad språkängslan (language anxiety) är samt vilka metoder som använts för att mäta det. Dessutom ges olika perspektiv på relationen mellan språkängslan och främmandespråksinlärning samt vilka konsekvenser språkängslan har för elever i främmandespråksklassrummet. Utifrån forskningen presenteras även en, av författaren till uppsatsen skapad, modell för hur man som språklärare kan minska och hantera elevers språkängslan i främmandespråksklassrummet. Modellen bygger på tips för att minska och hantera språkängslan som forskningen om språkängslan förespråkar, grupperade i sex olika kategorier. Som språklärare kan man exempelvis tänka på att lägga upp undervisningen på ett sätt som minskar språkängslan, eller direkt diskutera språkängslan med eleverna. Studien visar att elever som känner språkängslan i främmandespråksklassrummet får sämre förutsättningar och därför är det något som språklärare måste ta hänsyn till i undervisningen. Avslutningsvis diskuteras relationen mellan tipsen för att minska språkängslan och fördelarna med det kommunikativa klassrummet. Till exempel är risktagande i språket något som värdesätts i det kommunikativa klassrummet såväl som av forskningen för att minska språkängslan. Kontentan i uppsatsen är att inlärare är personer som inte bara kan tänka, utan också känna, och därför måste språkängslan tas hänsyn till i ett kommunikativt främmandespråksklassrum.

This investigation reports on a study that explores the views of students, teachers and parents about the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach in learning English as a second language in Bangladesh. This study focuses on the improvement of English language outcomes in Bangladesh. Though compulsory for fifteen years of schooling, public examination results indicate that students perform poorly in English. This research is conducted at the secondary schools in Bangladesh where English is compulsory because of its global nature as the second or foreign language. Mainstream students learning English using the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach are facing many challenges. The study employs a mixed methods approach which includes qualitative interviews, semi-structured focus group interviews and observations; and quantitative data involved achievement tests to find gaps between oral and written attainment, in order to determine the effectiveness of CLT developing language skills to communicate in and outside the classrooms. ESL learners in Bangladesh have been using CLT for nearly two decades, but the attainments are not satisfactory particularly in oral language (listening and speaking) compared to written language (reading and writing). Four schools (two high and two low achievement) were selected from two divisional cities according to the public examination results. Five students, all English subject teachers and five parents from each school were invited randomly to participate. Findings indicated a confirmation of the gap between oral and written language achievements and highlighted that CLT is not working effectively to develop communicative competence to the learners. The participants identified several factors causing this. Among these were large class sizes (number of students), an extensive curriculum, insufficient class time (duration), an inappropriate examination system, excessive teacher workload, lack of parent awareness of CLT, and negative relationships between home and school. All of these factors impact on the effectiveness of CLT in Bangladesh. All participants agreed that CLT as an approach is better than other approaches used in Bangladesh to develop English language learning, but the varied interpretation and implementation (practice) makes it less effective. Therefore, they suggested some issues for local and national level policy makers that could enhance the CLT practice in Bangladesh.

This study investigates the use of English during English lessons in Years 5 and 6. In order to do that, three research questions were formulated. In order to collect material to answer these research questions, two methods of data collection were combined, namely observations and interviews. Two English teachers at a school in the Stockholm area were observed and interviewed. These observations and interviews helped to collect the material. The result showed that the Swedish language dominates during English lessons. The teachers reported to be determined to use a large amount of English during their lessons; however, it was clear from the observations that this was not the case in practice. The teachers justified their choice of language by stating that the latest research proves that the students should not devote most of their energy to understanding the language as they should instead focus on the tasks. In order to answer the third research question both the teachers were interviewed. They stated that they use different exercises to address the goals of the curriculum.

本研究旨在探討用溝通式教學法所編寫之教科書對高中英文教師教學實務之影響，並試圖了解高中英文教師教學實務是否符合教育部頒布的高中英文教學要領。 本研究以問卷調查方式進行，對象為大高雄地區(高雄縣市)21所高中的254位高中英文教師，共計回收問卷205份，回收率為80.7%。問卷內容改編自Littlewood (1981)溝通模式及教育部頒布的高中英文教學要領。 本研究主要結果摘要如下： 1. 部份符合溝通式教學法的項目為授課語言、文法教學、課堂時間分配及溝通式活動等四項。 2. 多數高中老師花最多課堂時間在講授課程，練習活動次之，最少時間於英文說寫活動。 3. 多數高中老師的課堂活動主要為溝通前之練習，而非溝通式活動。 4. 老師的教學實務包括聽力、口說、閱讀及寫作較符合溝通式教學法之精神。 5. 和男性教師相較之下，女性教師的教學較符合高中英文教學要領且和溝通式教學法有正相關。此外，和未修過TESOL教師相較之下，修過TESOL之教師的教學也和溝通式教學法有正相關。 根據問卷調查結果，本研究最後提供相關建議以供參考。 / The major purpose of this study is to know how English teachers conduct teaching activities concerning four skills in their classes with CLT-based textbooks. In spite of the popularity and prevalence of CLT approach, it is by no means applied and practiced without any impediments or constraints. In actual teaching practice, there exist a variety of differences for senior high school English teachers when conducting teaching activities with CLT-based textbooks. In this study, the focus will be on senior high school English teachers’ teaching practices with CLT-based textbooks in greater Kaohsiung area. In addition, the consistency of teachers’ classroom practices and the Instruction Guidelines is examined as well. The 254 participants selected in this study were English teachers from 21 different senior high schools in greater Kaohsiung area. 205 questionnaires were collected from the targeted 254 respondents, yielding a return rate of 80.7%. The questions in the questionnaires were mainly adapted from the communicativeness model of Littlewood (1981) and the Instruction Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education. The major findings are summarized as follows: 1. Instruction language, grammar teaching, classroom time for PPP and the communicativeness of activities conformed only partially to the creed of CLT. 2. Senior high school English teachers spent most of the classroom time for presentation, less time for practice, and least time for production. 3. Most teachers’ classroom activities were mainly pre-communicative activities, instead of communicative ones. 4. Teachers’ teaching practices, including listening, speaking, reading and writing, are consistent with the core of CLT. 5. Female senior high school teachers conform more to the Instruction Guidelines and correlated more positively in classroom practices than male teachers. Besides gender, teachers who had taken TESOL-related courses before correlated more positively in classroom practices than those who did not. Based on the findings, some suggestions have been made for pedagogical implications and further studies. The limitations of the study are mentioned as well.

The Swedish syllabus for English promotes a communicative approach to language teaching, but does not offer concrete guidelines regarding how a communicative classroom should be enacted. This leaves a great deal of interpretation up to each individual teacher. The purpose of this study is to observe and understand how teachers at upper secondary schools in Sweden perceive and enact the communitive guidelines stipulated by the syllabus for English. This qualitative study is based on classroom observations combined with semi-structured interviews with four teachers of English at upper secondary schools in Sweden. The findings reveal that the teachers use a range of strategies when enacting their communicative classroom. However, the most significant finding is that there is considerable focus on meaning rather than form across all of the four participants. This suggests that the teachers perceive communicative language teaching largely in terms of a natural approach, where the learning of form happens by itself as long as the target language is used in an anxiety-free classroom environment. Furthermore, corrective feedback on language form is perceived as potentially harmful for the pupils’ willingness to communicate in English, and hence it is largely avoided. Since the latest research in the field of communicative language teaching has restored the significance of form, there is a need for teachers of English to develop strategies that are a hybrid of both meaning- and form-focused activities in order to successfully accomplish all facets of communicative language teaching. The syllabus for English should offer clearer guidelines to support teachers in this endeavour.

With radical social change and educational reform taking place in China since 1976, the English teaching system there has been changing accordingly. The Chinese Traditional Method (CTM) is giving way to the Western Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach. This research is a study of both Chinese and expatriate English teachers who are involved in classrooms and affected by reforms. The goal of this research study is to identify the extent to which Chinese and expatriate English teachers use CLT in China, to discover the possible factors that prevent them from using CLT and to explore an English teaching method that may fit into the Chinese setting. The finding shows that both Chinese teachers and Americans used the CLT approach in their teaching. As for the extent to which they use CLT, overall variation between the two groups is not as obvious as variation within groups. Both Chinese and American teachers have encountered obstacles in introducing CLT. Recommendations were offered for teachers, students, and administrators.

The current study is a collection of three publishable articles addressing a similar theme. Each article is an examination into the role textbooks play in Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms and, specifically, a look at textbooks as an element in the classroom environment, their relationship to pressures from high-stakes exams, and an exploration into any paradigms about the nature of EFL learning they may be explicitly or implicitly promoting through their content and methodologies. The first article, a grounded theory look at underlying methodologies and ideologies in common Chinese textbooks, reveals that there may be competing paradigms promoted by different texts that could be sending conflicting messages about the nature of EFL study. The second article, a critical discourse analysis of textbooks as items of cultural discourse, finds that subtle wording and structure in common textbooks could be reinforcing ideologies of the dominant paradigm about English study. The third and final article again uses grounded theory to compare the content of a common textbook series to passages from the national college entrance exam and to goals of the national syllabus to suggest that while in several aspects, the textbook series is in harmony with stated educational standards, there are certain ways in which the textbook and the exam seem to be misaligned in their goals and structure.

For students of English as a foreign language (EFL), a certain level of knowledge of vocabulary is required for successful communication to occur. Based on personal experiences in the classroom which have shown that students often lack language variation, accuracy, coherence and descriptiveness, this paper deals with the issue of teaching vocabulary in a more conscientious and focused way to help ensure that students will become more competent in using the language effectively. The Swedish curriculum for English, LGR11, is built up around the ideology known as communicative language teaching (CLT). This entails that as long as a learner is exposed to a foreign language, and has sufficient opportunities to use that language, the learning of the language will occur. The results of this paper suggest that we cannot only rely on a pure form of CLT for students to reach higher ability levels, but that a certain amount of focused vocabulary teaching, in context with classroom activities, is also necessary.

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