The aim of this paper is to highlight and analyze the attitude towards and expectations of ICT and digital tools amongst Swedish EFL teachers in secondary/upper secondary school. In addition, this paper also contains results and analysis of how teachers most commonly acquire new digital learning tools, as well as what they consider to be most important when incorporating ICT in the classroom. Another contributing factor behind conducting this study is the upcoming changes to the current curriculum, as the Swedish Government (Regeringskansliet) decided that changes shall be made in order to ensure and enhance the digital competence amongst Swedish students (Regeringskansliet 2017). The results and analysis are based on a questionnaire sent out through Facebook and Google Forms, targeting two different groups with the purpose of serving as networks for teachers of English within the Swedish educational system. Combining their answers as well as comparing to previous research, this study identifies, and argues for, two key aspects responsible for improving the ICT competence amongst Swedish EFL teachers in secondary/upper secondary school; high quality digital learning tools and the ability to identify your ICT skill and pick digital tools accordingly. Moreover, this study reinforces the claim made in previous studies that the attitudes towards ICT and digital learning tools amongst Swedish EFL teachers are overwhelmingly positive. However, the study also shows a lack of quality concerning in-service teacher training, resulting in a majority of teachers learning ICT and digital learning tools on their own. Finally, answers show a juxtaposition regarding what teachers actually wish for in order to facilitate the work with ICT and digital learning tools.

Pragmatic competence has become an essential component of L2 (second language) proficiency. The purpose of this case study is to investigate how pragmatic competence in English is taught in a public Swedish secondary and upper secondary school. The aim with this study is to reach an in-depth understanding of how the teachers in this specific school view, value and teach pragmatic competence. The study has a qualitative approach and was conducted through semi-structured interviews with two teachers. In addition to the interviews, an analysis of the pedagogic material used in the classroom was made. The most significant findings of the study show that pragmatic competence and cultural knowledge are teachable and are indeed being taught in the studied school. Different types of oral activities are the mostly used pedagogical practices to teach different aspects of pragmatic competence. The aspects of pragmatic competence that are in focus, in both secondary and upper secondary school, are formal and informal language, adaptation of the language and politeness.

This study regards the central content and knowledge requirements for the subject of English 5 in the Swedish upper secondary school system. The study is based on an analytical reading of the documents and is complemented by a questionnaire that was answered by upper secondary school teachers. The aim of the study was to investigate what parts of the documents lack clarity, from a new teacher’s perspective. The study finds a few examples of terms that are likely to confuse new teachers when grading students. Furthermore, questions were raised regarding the course in general, such as how to give the students confidence to speak English, when to use Swedish in the classroom and which English speech communities and cultures teachers should focus on. The questionnaire provided answers that could be helpful to newly graduated English teachers who are preparing to work in the Swedish upper secondary school system.

The purpose of this essay is to identify effective ways of teaching English vocabulary at upper secondary level in Sweden. We have answered three research questions: -  In what ways do local English teachers at the upper secondary level teach vocabulary? -  How do local students at the upper secondary level perceive their acquisition and learning of English vocabulary? -  According to research regarding vocabulary acquisition, what is necessary to include when constructing an effective module for teaching vocabulary?  We gathered the data needed to answer the research questions by conducting interviews with both teachers and students as well as an independent study. The independent study investigated which of six pre picked vocabulary teaching methods gave the best results in a single English 6 class and was the most preferred by those students. The interviews as well as the independent study indicated that one of the most effective ways of teaching vocabulary is through context-based exercises. Our conclusion is that the students’ retention of new vocabulary may be directly connected to the amount of context in which the words are taught. Based on our findings, we have constructed frameworks for a series of lessons which focus on teaching vocabulary.

The aim of this study is to investigate how the transition into remote education in Swedish upper-secondary schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the implementation of communicative tasks during lessons in English as a foreign language, and its consequences on students’ willingness to speak. For this purpose, the following three research questions were posed: 1. In which ways have communicative classroom activities in Swedish upper-secondary schools been affected by remote education according to English as a foreign language learners? 2. According to English as a foreign language learners, in which ways have their willingness to speak English been affected by remote education in Swedish upper-secondary schools? 3. What are some aspects that have influenced English as a foreign language learners’ willingness to speak English during remote education in Swedish upper-secondary schools? A total of 128 students from different upper-secondary schools and regions in Sweden were surveyed, after which three of them were interviewed. The data were then analyzed using a univariate and content analysis method. The results of the study suggest that remote education has entailed an immense impact on the communicative classroom. All studied communicative activities decreased in amount, as did the students’ willingness to speak English. This is a consequence of aspects such as technical complications, difficulties in reading others’ body language, locational restraints, and learning objectives.

This study aimed to investigate in what ways a group of Swedish teachers and students of English at upper secondary school can provide and maintain motivation for learning English when required to transfer their teaching from the physical classroom to online mode. Two questionnaires were answered by 46 upper secondary school students and eight English teachers. The questionnaires were supplemented with separate interviews in which six students and two teachers participated. The questionnaires were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis model (2006), while the data resulting from the interviews was analysed through a phenomenological approach inspired by Amedeo Giorgi’s four-phase phenomenological method described in Phenomenology and Psychology Research (1985). The result of the study showed that students are motivated to learn English if they have a functioning relationship with their teacher, if they have friends who motivate them, and if lessons vary in format. However, when transferred to online mode, motivation was difficult to sustain. The students’ primary source of motivation, in the form of physical- and social connections was lost. Both students and teachers experienced online education as time-consuming.

Grammar is an essential part of language learning. Thus, it is important that teachers know how to efficiently teach grammar to students, and with what approach - explicitly orimplicitly as well as through Focus on Forms (FoFs), Focus on Form (FoF) or Focus onMeaning (FoM). Furthermore, the common use of textbooks in English education in Sweden makes it essential to explore how these present grammar. Therefore, to make teachers aware of what grammar teaching approach a textbook has, this degree project intends to examine how and to what degree English textbooks used in Swedish upper secondary schools can be seen to exhibit an overall explicit or implicit approach to grammar teaching. The aim is to analyze three English 5 textbooks that are currently used in classrooms in Sweden, through the use of relevant research regarding grammar teaching as well as the steering documents for English 5 in Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis was carried out with the help of a framework developed by means of research on explicit and implicit grammar teaching as well as the three grammar teaching approaches FoFs, FoF and FoM. Thus, through the textbook analysis, we set out to investigate whether the textbooks present grammar instruction explicitly or implicitly and through FoFs, FoF or FoM. After having collected research on the topic of how to teach grammar, it became apparent that researchers on grammar teaching agree that FoF is the most beneficial out of the three above mentioned approaches, and thus, we decided to take a stand for this approach throughout the project. The results of this study showed that two out of three textbooks used overall implicit grammar teaching through FoM. Moreover, one out of the three textbooks used overall explicit grammar teaching through an FoF approach.

To gain a deeper understanding of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers’ knowledge, thoughts, and beliefs about written feedback (WF), this thesis explored four Swedish upper secondary school EFL teachers’ cognitions about WF, the sources of their cognitions about WF, and ways in which their cognitions about WF are reflected in their actual feedback practices. To carry out this exploratory investigation, the study made use of semi-structured interviews, sample student texts with teacher WF, and stimulated recall interviews. Using thematic analysis, the findings revealed five main themes of cognitions about WF: WF as a tool based on student needs, basis for discussion, precise error, progression tracker, and self-sufficiency. The findings also show that the three main sources of cognitions about WF were receiving WF, practicum & teacher education, and learning by doing. An implication of this study is that EFL teachers need to give different types of WF depending on the learner.

According to the Swedish school law, pupils should have the possibility to influence their education – both in learning methods and content. However many teachers find it hard to operationalize the pupils’ influence in their teaching. The motive for this study was therefore to explore how pupils’ influence can be incorporated in education in relation to subject traditions, here exemplified in the discipline of biology. The data was analysed from a sociocultural perspective by using a model of the didactical triangle for natural sciences. Inclusive methods for pupils’ influence in biology was also used as an analytical tool. The analysed material was derived from interviews with nine pupils and five teachers and was categorized using an abductive thematic method. The results demonstrate that pupils’ influence was strongly expressed in the relationship between the pupils and their teachers. However, in the relationship between the pupils and the biology content it was considerably less expressed. Teaching traditions in biology are often textbook oriented and tend to affect the teacher’s possibilities for allowing pupils’ influence. Methods for pupils’ influence in biology can include more diversified and interactive teaching practises. Using modelleling is another possibility which liberate the biology content and provides examples for influencing biology education.

Uppsatsen syftade till att undersöka skolpolitiken som låg till grund för Lgy 70 och Lpf 94. Specifikt fokus låg på att i utredningsmaterialet undersöka politikens styrande effekter genom att utifrån argumenten blottlägga dess människo- och kunskapssyn. Metoden som har använts var Carol Lee Bacchis What’s the problem represented to be?-approach. I uppsatsen har en analys av diskursen genomförts på det material som ligger till grund för de nämnda läroplanerna. Undersökningen har funnit att den övergripande problemtiken gällande gymnasieskolorna var att gymnasiet framställdes som omodernt och icke-anpassningsbart till samhället. Dock var det en specifik grupp elever som utgjorde problemet och som skolan var tvungen att anpassas till. Gruppen varierade mellan de olika tidsperioderna, men innefattade dem som inte klarade av skolan i dess dåvarande form. Lösningarna på den av utredningarna antagna problematiken riktades oftast mot den här gruppen och medförde att elevernas valfrihet ökades. Denna valfrihet var dock en strategi som staten använde för att styra in eleverna mot en av staten sedd ”rätt” utbildning. Den underliggande människo- och kunskapssynen i samtliga utredningar var behavioristisk. Utredningarna antog att ungdomarna till stor del påverkades av sin bakgrund och sociala klass i valet av utbildning. Slutsatser som dras är att gymnasieskolan anpassas för arbetsmarknadens behov. Utbildning anses göra ungdomarna mer kvalificerade för yrkesverksamhet. För dem som inte klarar av detta måste skolan anpassas. Således reformerades gymnasieskolan efter de lågpresterande eleverna. / The purpose of this paper was to examine the Swedish school policies that formed the basis for the curriculums Lgy 70 and Lpf 94. Specific focus was on finding the governing effects in the exanimated material by extracting its view on humans and knowledge. The method used was Carol Lee Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be?-approach. With this method authors conducted an analysis of the discourse in the material. The investigation of the material found that the overall problem concerning the Upper secondary school was their portrayal as outdated and non-adaptive to the society of that time. However, a group of students were represented to be the problem to which the school needed to adapt. The content of the group differed between the two time-periods (the 1960s and the 1990s), but the group included those who were not capable of managing the school of that time. The solutions to the, by the investigations assumed problem, were directed towards this group of student and resulted in an increased freedom of choice for them. This freedom of choice was however a control strategy used by the government to direct student towards a, by the government considered, “proper” education. The underlying view of humans and knowledge was a behavioural one. The exanimated investigations assumed that young people were largely influenced by their background and social class in their choice of education. In conclusion the Swedish upper secondary school were adapted to the demands of the labour market. Education was considered to make the students more qualified for their future life as workers. The school needed to adapt to those who were not capable of this.