This study investigated Swedish primary school EFL learners' foreign language anxiety in years 1-3 by using mixed-method research. The aim of this study was to illustrate what factors caused foreign language anxiety (FLA) and unwillingness to communicate among the second language learners. In this study, a total of 85 pupils and five teachers participated. The study includes Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope's (1986) foreign language classroom anxiety scale, in a pupil-based questionnaire. The study was also complemented with classroom observations and interviews with the teachers and the pupils. The results showed a tendency for girls experiencing more foreign language anxiety than boys. The study also showed that FLA increased throughout the grades. The pupils' expressed beliefs of FLA were the fear of making mistakes and different factors related to their low self-esteem.

The diploma thesis concentrates on characteristics of bilingual teaching at international school. The aim of this thesis is to find out, how is the bilingual teaching at international school organized, what are the specifics of the bilingual teaching, its advantages and disadvatages. The theoretical part of this thesis based on the literature review describes the terms bilingualism, bilingual teaching and international school. The practical part of this thesis is a case study, which describes the organization of bilingual teaching at two Prague international schools. As a method of research were the document analyses and interviews with teachers, who are teaching at bilingual programms in these schools. The outcome of this thesis is data analyses from documents and interviews and based of this analyses determines the recommendation of making bilingual teaching more effective. KEYWORDS bilingualism, foreign language teaching, education in foreign language, international school, bilingual teaching, cooperation between teachers

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This study investigates the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). The involvement load hypothesis posits that vocabulary learning is determined by involvement load or mental effort. Involvement load has three components, need, search, and evaluation and each component is scored for three levels: index 2 for the strongest, index 1 for a moderate degree, and index 0 for none. Each participant learned six words with graphic organizers at the high involvement load (need index 1, search index 1, evaluation index 2, total index 4) and six at the low involvement load (need index 1, search index 1, and evaluation index 0, total index 2). Immediately and one week after completing the graphic organizer task, vocabulary knowledge was measured using three vocabulary tests that tested different levels of vocabulary knowledge: a translation test, a difficult multiple-choice test, and an easy multiple-choice test. Quantitative analyses of data from 291 university and college students in Japan were conducted, and audio-recordings from five pairs were analyzed to examine learning processes. Repeated measures MANOVA and ANOVAs revealed significant differences between the conditions of the two involvement loads in the translation test and the easy multiple-choice test, but not in the difficult multiple-choice test. The effects of Task and Time were statistically significant, but there was no interaction. There were significant differences between the immediate test and delayed test observed in the translation test and the easy multiple-choice test, but not with the difficult multiple-choice test. The current study supports the involvement load hypothesis, but caution is advised. Even though the high involvement load graphic organizers yielded more vocabulary retention than those with less involvement load in two out of the three vocabulary tests, the differences in mean scores were small and extensive differences were not observed in the participants' discussions. Additional statistical analysis indicated that the three vocabulary tests measured three levels of vocabulary knowledge. Determining the effectiveness of graphic organizers for vocabulary learning was only mildly successful as forcing greater involvement load proved to be challenging. / CITE/Language Arts

Providing written feedback is a time-consuming part of an English teacher’s work life and there are many ways in which feedback can be provided. According to the Swedish National Agency of Education (2011), teachers must provide their students with feedback. Studies have been conducted investigating feedback provision and teachers’ feedback practices, but few studies have shed light on the students’ perception of feedback, especially in Swedish, and even Nordic, contexts. This study investigated students’ perception and use of teacher feedback on written assignments in an EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom in mid-Sweden. The study investigated both student perception of feedback, with specific focus on WCF (written corrective feedback), and students’ use of the feedback. The method used for data collection was a semi-structured internet survey containing 21 questions. The participants were 30 upper secondary school students. The results of the study showed that students mostly perceived feedback as important and useful, especially when it contained concrete tips and proposals for text improvement. They regarded CF and WCF as important as they wanted to become aware of what errors they made to avoid making those in future writing. Nevertheless, they reported that too extensive feedback (unfocused CF) was not preferred. Both positive and negative feedback were considered useful for future writing and a large majority read the feedback they received every time. Feedback provided together with a grade was also read by the students, as they wanted to have information about strengths and weaknesses in the text as well as motivation for the grade. To conclude, feedback was mostly perceived as important and useful, and the students used it to improve their writing.

The question of the asset of early foreign language learning is a frequently discussed topic. Following prevailing opinion in society, that ‚the sooner, the better ', the beginning of compulsory foreign language learning is continually shifting in lower grades at primary school. A lot of children have already started with foreign language learning in kindergarten. Researches, which support the benefits of the approach, focus on a very narrow aspect of foreign language acquisition (pronunciation) or survey these facts with a specific group of inhabitants (immigrants). As experts point out, there is no significant benefit of early instructions ascertained in the Czech Republic. However, the research focused only on adults. We do not have any further evidence of the advantages of starting to learn a foreign language early. Therefore, the author focused on comparing the level of foreign language competences of two groups of pupils after their two-year compulsory instructions of English at primary school. The aim was to compare the level of their language competence in English and the learners' potential difficulties by the learners with early learning experience and by the learners without previous experience of foreign language learning before the beginning of compulsory learning at primary school....

This qualitative study investigated the experiences of students during their reading tasks for their university Spanish courses during the Fall 2013 semester at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The purpose of this research was to explore what types of reading strategies university Spanish students use during literary readings tasks and their perceptions of the reading strategies they use. This case study employed stimulated recall protocol interviews, student reading logs and student notes in texts. Interviews were conducted within 24 hours of the reading, while reading logs and notes were completed during the reading. The data collected were analyzed for recurring patterns. Results suggested that students employ a variety of reading strategies but are less aware of metacognitive and affective strategies. Furthermore, it was found that individual affective factors such as stress, fatigue, frustration, confidence level and motivation might have a greater impact on strategy use than proficiency in the second language. Assessment and time constraints were also found to affect strategy implementation suggesting a strong washback in the foreign language classroom. Finally, participant comments demonstrated that students perceive reading in the foreign language class to be a pragmatic stepping-stone towards individual learning goals that may differ from the learning outcomes of a literature course.

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