I det sociokulturella perspektivet som vi har utgått ifrån är synsättet på lärandet att det utvecklas i sociala sammanhang där kommunikation är en central del. Lärandet sker i samspel mellan individer där en genom stöttning och vägledning utvecklar nuvarande kunskaper. I detta arbete har vi beskrivit arbetsmetoder som lärare använder sig av i sin undervisning för att främja kommunikationen i klassrummet. Eftersom kommunikation är en central del i det sociokulturella perspektivet blir detta en lämplig teori att utgå ifrån. Motivation och språkligt självförtroende är grundpelare för att främja kommunikativ interaktion i undervisningen. Dessa komponenter är av betydelse för att lära ett nytt språk eftersom kommunikation gynnar andraspråksinlärning, där målet är att kunna tala det nya språket. I arbetet intervjuades fem lärare där det framkom att komponenter som motivation, språkligt självförtroende och val av arbetssätt är alla centrala för att främja kommunikation. Enligt lärarna är par- och grupparbete nödvändigt eftersom elever lär sig ett nytt språk genom interaktion. / The sociocultural perspective, this essay theory, approach of learning is that it develops in social contexts where communication is a central part. Learning takes place in interaction between individuals where, through support and guiding, one develops current knowledge. In this essay, we have described methods that teachers use in their teaching to encourage communication in the classroom. Because communication is a central part of the sociocultural perspective, it is therefore an appropriate theory to use. When establishing communicative interaction, motivation and linguistic self-confidence are among the pillars. These components are important when learning a new language because communication favors language learning, where the goal is to be able to speak the new language. In this essay, we interviewed five teachers where it emerged that components such as motivation, linguistic self-confidence and choice of methods are all central parts to encourage communication. According to the teachers, pair-and group work is necessary for students because in order to learn a new language, you need to interact.

This study examines teachers’ approaches and attitudes towards their choice of content in English language teaching and learning. The study identifies if, and in what amount, teachers use students’ interests and experiences in English language learning. To examine this, interviews with teachers, material and lesson plan analysis and ethnographic observations focused on the teachers’ actions were conducted. The results reveal that some teachers attempt to use students’ interests and experiences when planning English lessons, but in diverse amounts. Because of the time constraints of the English subject in Swedish primary school, the aspect of using students’ interests and experiences is often set aside.

Background:The curriculum for English underlines the importance of speaking. Pupils and teachers should speak English in the classroom. The study’s theoretical frame is based on Dysthe socio cultural perspective. Pupils need to use the language in order to gain knowledge. We have used Krashen’s five hypotheses and Kugel’s five stages in our study. Other literature that has been used is previous curriculums for English, Backlund, Tholin and Hedge. These writers use theories about learning and the importance of developing language. The study took place at three different schools in western Sweden.Aim:The purpose of the study is to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards speaking English in the language classroom in relation to writing, listening and reading.Procedure:The procedure used is qualitative interviews. By using qualitative interviews the respondents had the ability to ask questions and underline and clarify their answers when needed. The interviews were recorded on mp-3 players. They were later transcribed and analyzed in order to find a valid resultResults:The result that emerges is that teachers consider speaking the most important tool in the classroom. They feel that it is important for students to be able to communicate in English. Even though they think that speaking is the most important aspect they are aware that it is not easy to live up to. The teachers believe that speaking anxieties are one of the reasons of why children in school do not speak English. / Uppsatsnivå: C

This study is a qualitative examination of second language (L2) learning processes by four advanced learners of Japanese in the community of a summer intensive full-immersion program in the United States. Using L2 socialization theory as a theoretical framework, this study conceives of L2 learning as a process of social participation in a community of practice and examines L2 learning processes by four learners, focusing on the dynamic interplay between the affordances of the social community and the agency of the individual learners. The purpose of this study is twofold: (a) It investigates the ways in which the four learners exercise their agency to pursue their goals of learning Japanese and (b) it documents how the different ways in which the four learners exercise agency form different trajectories of learning and create different experiences of L2 socialization. This study has adopted an ethnographic case study approach to the investigation of research inquiries. Through the analyses of data obtained from multiple sources, including interviews with the four learners, observations of their engagement in the community of practice of the summer intensive full-immersion program, their audio-recorded conversations with other members of the community, and various artifacts, this study explores the role of L2 learner agency in the process of L2 socialization and describes in depth their experiences of learning Japanese from their emic perspectives. The case studies of the four learners have highlighted the different ways in which they engaged in the community of practice, understood their tasks of learning Japanese, interpreted the affordances of the social community, negotiated the meaning of their participations, defined and redefined their sense of self, and eventually achieved their L2 learning goals. The findings suggest that the richness and effectiveness of a social environment are not characterized by the physical and academic affordances of a social community alone; rather they are constructed in a dynamic relation between the affordance structure of a social community and the L2 learners' agency in the pursuit of the joint enterprise of making L2 learning happen. With regard to the role of L2 learner agency, the study has foregrounded the important role of the aspirations of the four L2 learners for personal transformation and negotiation of the meaning of self of the past, the present, and the future. The findings suggest that L2 learners' diverse and complex social and personal desires for learning an L2 may not be able to be explained using the notion of investment (Norton, 1995, 2000) alone. Since the SLA debate initiated by Firth and Wagner (1997, 2007), SLA research has begun to reconceptualize L2 learners as socially situated beings with diverse needs, wants, and identities. This study presents four portraits of L2 learners who engaged in the enterprise of learning Japanese, as a means of contributing to this reconceptualization, and explores for these four learners what it meant to learn Japanese in the summer of 2010.

The aim of this study is to examine the digital tools that are available for students and teachers to use in an English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom and their perceptions of the inclusion of digital tools. A questionnaire intended to provide the results has been distributed. The questionnaire consists of both open and closed questions. A further analysis of previous research concerning the inclusion of digital tools is also included in this study and is used to compare with the raw data collected. The data retrieved demonstrates that educators mainly use digital tools when teaching. The results also show that students have access to a myriad of online learning platforms which induce motivation. In conclusion, digital tools are appreciated amongst both teachers and students, although the teachers appear to view the inclusion of digital tools in the classroom as more positive than the students.

For adult English speakers studying Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese), the acquisition of the Mandarin prosody presents major difficulties. One particularly problematic aspect of the Mandarin prosodic system, and the one singled out for research here is the acquisition of tones by second language (L2) learners of Mandarin. This thesis involves a literature review and a description of an experiment conducted for the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of a new teaching method for educating students in Mandarin prosody generally, but especially with regard to "tones." Most studies investigating the acquisition of Mandarin tones by L2 learners have treated tones as separate from other aspects of Mandarin prosody such as stress, loudness and duration. The teaching method examined in this thesis, however, takes an alternative approach. Here the acquisition of Mandarin prosody is approached as a complex dynamic that has tones as an integral part. The aims of the study are twofold: (1) to identify the principal problems encountered by most learners in order to discover the causes of recurrent error patterns and, (2) to find out how a multi-sensory approach, which in this study was called the Somatically Enhanced Approach (SEA), might influence the acquisition of Mandarin prosody in these areas. The experiment involved 22 adult Australian students studying Mandarin in the first three months of language training. The experimental component of the study consisted of an evaluation of two groups of students� oral conversations. The two groups of students were divided into a control group and an experimental group. The control group was trained in a nonmulti- sensory but communicative approach in 2001 and 2002. Their results are compared with those of a test group and with a group of students trained in the multi-sensory communicative approach (SEA) in 2003 and 2004. The test materials consisted of short dialogues that were likely to occur in everyday communication. Data was collected from each group, once during the first half of the first semester of study in each year. The findings of the experiment were that the order of difficulty of the four Mandarin tones was found to be similar for both the experimental and control groups of students. However, the order of difficulty differed from what has been reported by previous researchers. This suggests that the input and the type of task used to collect data might exert a significant influence on the learning of tones. In other words, the performance of subjects in the dialogues suggests that in the initial stages of learning, the major cause of errors was first language (L1) interference rather than the physical "difficulty" of articulating particular phonemes (or any features of Universal Grammar). Therefore, by using a multi-sensory approach (SEA) to the learning of Mandarin, it may be possible to considerablly lessen the influence of learners� L1 from the outset. Finally, a number of suggestions for improving the teaching of Mandarin prosody are made and future research directions outlined. Some salient suggestions for teaching of Mandarin prosody that arise from the research are: (1) To use movement and gesture in the early stages of learning to enhance students� perception and production of Mandarin. This approach provides students with useful memory tools for learning both in class and in self-accessed learning; (2) To teach Tone 3 not as a full Tone 3 but as a low level tone. This should not be done solely through a simple verbal explanation but through a combination of movement and gesture, provision of visual and auditory feedback and a large amount of exposure and perception training so that Tone 3 is recognised as a low level tone rather than a full Tone 3. By so doing confusion is reduced between the various realizations of Tone 3 during the initial learning stages; and (3) To caution students about the common error patterns caused by interference from their L1. This should be supplemented with opportunities for students to observe their own production of Mandarin and then experience how physically they can find ways of reducing the interference. A qualitative analysis of interview and question data obtained from this research also revealed that the extensive use of computer enhanced language learning and SEA work well together, not only efficiently conditioning students to the phonology of Mandarin, but dramatically changing students' strategies in learning and increasing their learning opportunities.

<p>I have chosen to write this essay on language development in a preparatory class due to the fact that I live in a city where diversity is big and newly arrived students from different countries are constantly increasing in schools. My study has been made in a preparatory class in Södertälje. The National Agency for Education highlights the deficiencies in preparatory classes and believes that education is not adapted to each student's knowledge and maturity and it is therefore difficult for students to reach the goals in school. According to studies by the National Agency for Education, it appears that many newly arrived students do not recieve study guide in their native language, a resource that they are entitled to. Teachers and principals do not take charge of  students knowledge from previous school attendance in their home countries such as mathematics, history and other subjects. The purpose of this essay is to find out how to work with language development in a preparatory class. The focus of interest is to investigate how much the Swedish and the native language are used in class. My theoretical starting points will consist of theories of second language learning, language development, language switching and native language.</p><p>In my studies I have used the qualitative method in which I have observed in a preparatory class for three school days and have interviewed three teachers and four students.</p><p>The conclusion which I have found from my empirical material is that the teachers in the preparatory class work with language development by first and foremost providing security to their students in the classroom. When this security is created, their main tool for language development is constantly support in the native language in all subjects.</p>

The aim of this thesis is to explore school classes with a higher level of achievement in reading than could be expected, with regard to socio-economic background factors and language background. What do those classes practice? Which attitudes towards reading and schooling do those children and their teachers display? The teacher and the classroom environment are in particular focus. The thesis is based on three studies. Firstly, over-achieving and underachieving grade three-classes in reading are compared in a large-scale statistical study. Reading tests, student questionnaires and teacher questionnaires provided data. The results indicate that a positive classroom climate, frequent voluntary reading, the use of authentic literature and many years of teaching experience characterise the over-achieving classes. In a second study eight over-achieving classes, in the same data material were in focus. The schools were located in a low-income, low-education multicultural suburban area. In-depth interviews were performed with adults active in those classes at the time of the data collection. The joint analyses of quantitative and qualitative data indicate that teachers’ ways of relating to their students is important as the Deficit Discourse is replaced by future oriented pedagogy with features such as aesthetic activities, dynamic assessment, strong raming, abundant reading of fiction and a lot of writing. In a third smaller, qualitative study five young university students, former students in one of the targeted classes in the second study, were interviewed in-depth about their school experiences and their Future Time Perspective. The informants emphasize the importance of being acknowledged in school, reading competency and knowledge of oral and written Swedish as factors for success. / Syftet med avhandlingen är att utforska de faktorer som bidrar till att vissa skolklasser presterar på högre nivåer i läsning än vad man skulle kunna förvänta med hänsyn till socioekonomiska bakgrundsfaktorer och språkbakgrund. Hur arbetar dessa klasser? Vilka uppfattningar och attityder visavi läsning och skola kännetecknar dessa barn och deras lärare? Framför allt fokuseras läraren och undervisningen. Avhandlingen baserar sig på tre studier. I en första storskalig statistisk studie jämförs över- och underpresterande klasser i läsning i skolår tre. Lästester, lärarenkäter och elevenkäter låg till grund för analyserna. Resultaten indikerar ett positivt klassrumsklimat, höga frekvenser av fritidsläsning, autentisk litteratur i undervisningen samt lärares långa yrkeserfarenhet som karaktäristika. I en andra uppföljande studie, fokuserades åtta överpresterande klasser i samma datamaterial, i ett multikulturellt förortsområde med låga utbildnings- och inkomstnivåer. I denna studie djupintervjuades även vuxna som varit aktiva i de överpresterande klasserna under tiden för datainsamlingen. De samlade analyserna av kvalitativa och kvantitativa data indikerar att lärares förhållningssätt intar en nyckelroll, då ett brist-synsätt ersatts av framtidsorienterad pedagogik, med inslag som estetisk verksamhet, dynamisk utvärdering, fasta strukturer, riklig läsning av skönlitteratur och eget skrivande. I en tredje, mindre, kvalitativ studie djupintervjuas tidigare elever från en av de undersökta klasserna, nu unga vuxna i början av sin akademiska karriär, om sin skolgång och sitt framtidsperspektiv. Informanterna betonar värdet av att få lyckas, att bli sedd och uppskattad för den man är, samt hemtamhet med litteratur och svenska språket i tal och skrift som framgångsfaktorer.

This study investigates how 4 newly admitted Chinese international graduate students participate in classroom discussions at a Canadian university. This qualitative research provides rich descriptions of their backgrounds and classroom participation, as well as their voices related to their classroom experiences. Framed by Language Socialization Theory, the study examines the classroom contexts where the students are socialized, particularly the social relations in the classroom that influence the 4 students’ participation. The study also investigates the role of the 4 students’ agency in the negotiation of access and participation in classroom discussions, as well as their identity formation in classroom communities. The findings of this research highlight the co-constructed and bi-directional nature of language socialization. The 4 students’ classroom experiences are not only shaped by their educational, cultural and social backgrounds, but are also jointly constructed by local contextual factors in Western classrooms. Pedagogical implications are also discussed.

This study investigates how 4 newly admitted Chinese international graduate students participate in classroom discussions at a Canadian university. This qualitative research provides rich descriptions of their backgrounds and classroom participation, as well as their voices related to their classroom experiences. Framed by Language Socialization Theory, the study examines the classroom contexts where the students are socialized, particularly the social relations in the classroom that influence the 4 students’ participation. The study also investigates the role of the 4 students’ agency in the negotiation of access and participation in classroom discussions, as well as their identity formation in classroom communities. The findings of this research highlight the co-constructed and bi-directional nature of language socialization. The 4 students’ classroom experiences are not only shaped by their educational, cultural and social backgrounds, but are also jointly constructed by local contextual factors in Western classrooms. Pedagogical implications are also discussed.