Currently, the complexity of concepts of globalization--taking place in a variety of ways in the local economic, cultural, and political flows, and in the notion of World Englishes-- has been widely discussed (Saxena & Omoniyi, 2010). With the recent interest in internationalization, one of the issues in research on English teaching is expected and/or perceived roles of native teachers and non-native teachers in English language classrooms (Braine, 1999). In order to meet demands of international trends, the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET Program) was established by the Japanese government in 1987, and it has played an important role by importing "internationalization" into actual classrooms in an EFL country (McConnel, 2000). Despite the long history of the JET program, very little research has been done on the program itself and related issues (e.g., McConnell, 2000; Miyazato, 2009; Fujimoto-Adamson, 2010). This study drew from a teacher-based perception of the Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs) and Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) roles, and it illustrated how English teachers, including both JTEs and ALTs, act locally in the globalized/globalizing classroom while negotiating the governmental expectations for the JET program. Following the examples set by ethnographic research conducted in language teaching environments (e.g., Watson-Gegeo, 1988; Canagarajah, 1999), classroom fieldworks were conducted at three high schools in Hokkaido from May to August in 2010. More specifically, this research employed multiple data sources: participant observation, audiotape recording, interviews and questionnaires, which delivered thick descriptions of concrete reports from these sources (Richards, 2003; Canagarajah, 2006; McKay, 2006) for investigating the grounded perspectives and the practice of the JTEs and ALTs in the classrooms. The findings showed that the macro-level expected roles from the policies were not always directly projected onto the micro-level perceived roles, and there was emerging role at the micro-level as evident in the JTEs' role as guides to entrance examinations. In addition to this, through the classroom observations, this study revealed the perceived roles of JTEs and ALTs are negotiated in the classrooms in various ways. The JTEs sometimes played the perceived roles of ALTs and vice versa depending on the classroom pedagogical contexts, which were sometimes influenced on the power relationship between them. Those findings of the negotiation of roles in the classrooms led to the conclusions that the power of JTEs and ALTs is not something those teachers have a priori, but was negotiated through the interactions of JTEs and ALTs in the actual classrooms. The notion of power is dynamically implicated by language practice, which will be dedicated to the future study of English classrooms in Japan. Also, this study will contribute to casting a light on potential improvements to the JET Program before their quarter-century anniversary.

This thesis investigates whether there are differences in language comprehension and language production between highly advanced/near-native adult learners of a second language (late L2ers) and native speakers (L1ers), and if so, how they should be characterised. In previous literature (Sorace & Filiaci 2006, Sorace 2011 inter alia), nonconvergence of the near-native grammar with the native grammar has been identified as most likely to occur at the interface between syntax and another cognitive domain. This thesis focuses on grammatical and ungrammatical representations at the syntax-lexicon interface between very advanced/near-native Dutch learners of English and native speakers of English. We tested differences in syntactic knowledge representations and real-time processing through eight experiments. By syntactic knowledge representations we mean the explicit knowledge of grammar (specifically word order dependence on lexical-semantics) that a language user exhibits in their language comprehension and production, and by realtime processing we mean the language user’s ability to access implicit and explicit knowledge of grammar under time and/or memory constraints in their language comprehension and production. To test for systematic differences at the syntax-lexicon interface we examined linguistic structures in English that differ minimally in word order from Dutch depending on the presence or absence of certain lexical items and their characteristics; these were possessive structures with animate and inanimate possessors and possessums in either a prenominal or postnominal construction, preposed adverbials of location (locative inversions) followed by either unergative or unaccusative verbs, and preposed adverbials of manner containing a negative polarity item (negative inversions) or positive polarity item followed by either V2 or V3 word order. We used Magnitude Estimation Tasks and Speeded Grammaticality Judgement Tasks to test comprehension, and Syntactic Priming (with/without extra memory load) and Speeded Sentence Completion Tasks to test production. We found evidence for differences in comprehension and production between very advanced, near-native Dutch L2ers and native speakers of English, and that these differences appear to be associated with processing rather than with competence. Dutch L2ers differed from English L1ers with respect to preferences in word order of possessive structures and after preposed adverbials of manner. However, these groups did not differ in production and comprehension with respect to transitivity in locative inversions. We conclude that even among highly advanced to near-native late learners of a second language there may be non-convergence of the L2 grammar. Such non-convergence need not coincide with the L1 grammar but may rather be a result of over-applying linguistic L2 knowledge. Thus, very advanced to near-native L2ers still have access to limited (meta)linguistic resources that under time and memory constraints may result in ungrammatical language comprehension and/or production at the syntax-lexicon interface. In sum, in explaining interface phenomena, the results of this study provide evidence for a processing account over a representational account, i.e. Dutch L2ers showed they possess grammatical knowledge of the specific L2 linguistic structures in comprehension and production, but over-applied this knowledge in exceptional cases under time and/or memory pressure. We suggest that current bilingual production models focus more on working memory by including a separate memory component to such models and conducting empirical research to test its influence on L2 production and comprehension.

In preparation for Thailand to join AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) in 2015, the Thai Government has made efforts to prepare its citizens for this competitive market by improving their English competence. This has driven the Education Ministry of Thailand to establish bilingual Thai-English education, namely through the English Programme (EP) and Mini English Programme (MEP) in both public and private schools. While in-service teachers are trained in teaching in EP and MEP through the cooperation between the Educational Ministry and four institutes: ELI (English Language Institution), ERIC (English Resource and Institutional Centre), British Council and Chulalongkorn University (Ministry of Education, 2003; Punthumasen, 2007), it is found that pre-service teacher training for bilingual education is relatively new and there has been little/no research in terms of its effectiveness in Thailand. This study examined Thai pre-service teachers’ perceptions of an English teacher education programme at a university in Bangkok, regarding the programme potential of preparing them to work in bilingual schools, especially for teaching in EP and MEP in the future. A mixed-methods methodology underpinned the study by providing method and data triangulation. This methodology involved the adoption of self-report questionnaires (n=37) and follow-up Facebook-chats (n=17) as method triangulation, and from Thai pre-service teachers in different year groups as data triangulation. Descriptive analysis i.e. frequencies and percentages was used to analyse closed questions of the questionnaires and content analysis was employed for analysing data from open questions of the questionnaire and the Facebook-chats. A good understanding of the English bilingual education system and teacher requirements respective for work in bilingual schools in Thailand was displayed and in line with the Ministry guidelines as expressed in the Ministry’s order number Wor Gor 65/2544 as of 9 October 2001.The findings revealed that they felt they needed English knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge and Experiences in preparing them for work in bilingual schools also involved. It was also found that native-English speaker norm regarding communication and pronunciation skill resulted in less confidence in English proficiency. They desired to learn more about English especially relating to oracy skills, followed by a topic relating to teaching through English. The findings of the study contribute to the development of teacher training programme for bilingual education. Practical suggestions and future research are firstly related to the shift from native English speaking norms to bilingual or multilingual speaking norms to eliminate the feeling of failure to the linguistic competence. Secondly, CLIL and Content-based instruction are suggested to respond to the participants’ need in learning a topic relating to teach through English.

The aim of this paper is to report on students´ attitudes and their awareness towards different English accents. With changes in the latest Swedish syllabus for English (Lgr11), the aim is no longer to sound in a specific way by speaking with a certain accent. This has been the case since 2000, but the Nativeness principle is still powerful. However, we discuss that a clear pronunciation is important for students and teachers a requisite for being understood and avoiding confusion. Students in four different schools, secondary and upper secondary schools, took part in our research by answering a questionnaire. We found that many students were aware of different accents, but also that students preferred the Inner Circle accents with AmE and BrE being the most popular ones. Also, we found a difference between secondary and upper secondary students where teacher influence was more important to the former and personal preferences to the latter.Keywords: Accent, pronunciation, comprehension, intelligibility, ESL, EIL, EFL, ELF, English as a Global Language

Despite the predominance of English used by non-native speakers in international communication, the approach to teaching this language is still centred on the notion of acquiring English for the purpose of communication with native speakers. This thesis argues for acknowledgement of English as a lingua franca in the approach to teaching English. It also stresses the necessity of further investigations into the global use of English to better understand this phenomenon. A questionnaire was conducted with ten English teachers to see their opinions about some of the key issues of English as a lingua franca (for instance the concept of nativeness, the role of a teacher and the understanding of an error). As a result, it was found that despite some slow changes in individual opinions, the traditional view on teaching English is still prevalent. Both the theoretical research and the analysis of the questionnaire stress the need of implementing the concept of English as a lingua franca into teaching English as it is necessary to prepare students for the reality of global use of this language. Key words: English as a lingua franca, second language acquisition, nativeness, error, variation

This thesis reports on a study on the ultimate attainment of grammatical intuition in Swedish in 29 adult hearing native signers, bilingual in Swedish Sign Language and Swedish. It is reasoned that measures of such intuition in adults may indicate implicit linguistic entrenchment in Swedish during early language development. Although Sign Language Linguistics and Second Language Research on deaf signers are two established fields of research in Sweden, there is little research on hearing native signers. A few international studies have focused on early child language development in hearing native signers, showing that these children develop their two languages simultaneously from birth even if the signed language dominates the linguistic environment. However, studies focusing on older children indicate that their morphological and syntactic proficiency in the majority language resembles that of second language learners. Deductively this paper rests on neurobiological and psycholinguistic theories claiming that early language development is naturally and genetically constrained within a critical or maturational period. Grammatical intuition was measured through the use of two versions of a GJT-test (written and auditory) and a cloze test. The results showed that the average grammatical intuition of the hearing native signers was comparable to that of a group of early L2 learners of Swedish, but significantly different from that of a group of native speakers of Swedish, indicating that for some of the native signers, Swedish might have been successively learned. This thesis contributes unique data to second language research, while shedding a light on a group of bilinguals that is scarcely known to the study of linguistics. / Denna explorativa och explanatoriska studie testade grammatisk intuition i svenska hos 29 vuxna hörande tvåspråkiga i svenskt teckenspråk och svenska. Vid statistisk analys och jämförelse med testresultat från tidigare andraspråksforskning indikerar denna studie att deltagarna kan ha lärt sig delar av svenskans morfologi och syntax successivt. Teckenspråkslingvistik och svenska som andraspråk för döva är idag två etablerade forskningsområden. Trots en växande kunskap om teckenspråkiga saknas svensk forskning om tvåspråkigheten hos hörande infödda teckenspråkiga. De internationella studier som gjorts har fokuserat på små barn och visar att hörande infödda teckenspråkiga är simultant tvåspråkiga från födseln även om det tecknade språket dominerar den första tiden. Å andra sidan visar studier på lite äldre barn att kunskaper i majoritetsspråket (det talade språket) hos vissa individer, har morfologiska och syntaktiska drag liknande dem som andraspråksinlärare uppvisar.  Med stöd i neurobiologiska och psykolingvistiska teorier om en biologiskt betingad språkinlärningsmekanism som kräver triggning från födseln, undersökte denna studie, hypotes-deduktivt, huruvida deltagarna utvecklat implicita kunskaper i svenska under en kritisk period för språkutveckling. Denna studie bidrar med nya, unika data till tvåspråkighetsforskning och kastar ljus över en inlärarpopulation som tidigare inte uppmärksammats inom språkinlärningsforskningen.

This study investigates Swedish upper-secondary teachers’ views and reported practices regarding pronunciation instruction in the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom. It adopts a mixed-method design, analysing qualitative data collected from a focus-group interview (N=4) and quantitative data collected from an online survey (N=54).  To investigate the views and reported practices of teachers, the following research questions were posed:  1. What are the views and attitudes of English teachers in the Swedish upper-secondary school regarding pronunciation and pronunciation instruction?  2. How do English teachers in the Swedish upper-secondary school describe their own practices in pronunciation instruction?  Results indicate that teachers generally value comprehensibility as the most important aim of pronunciation instruction. However, a native-like accent still seems to be highly valued, and nativeness norms still seem to affect teachers’ views and practices to some extent. Finally, our findings indicate that teachers spend very little time on pronunciation teaching in general, and they highlight that other aspects of language instruction are more important.