Via a systematic literature review, this thesis investigates the possible benefits of employing social media as a learning tool in English as a second language classroom. The thesis is focused on the motivation for learning, potential grammar and vocabulary gains as results of using social media at the upper-secondary level. This systematic literature review is relevant since the current Swedish upper-secondary school’s curriculum promotes technology implementation and at the same time social media has become an everyday feature of many students’ lives. In order to measure the possible benefits of social media, this thesis uses a modified version of Koole’s (2009, p. 27) The Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model, which originally was used to determine the optimal way for learning on a mobile platform. This thesis adapted that model and altered it to be applicable for social media platforms instead of mobile devices. The literature review found relevant peer-reviewed studies for this topic through a scholarly education database. The age of the participants in the chosen studies vary from 15-19 years old, and all the chosen studies focus on English as a second language in relation to an education system. The reviewed studies show that social media usage is mainly beneficial for motivation to enhance English vocabulary and grammar proficiency. However, social media usage does not show any significant benefits for grammar proficiency and vocabulary gains when students engage with social media. Although motivation to partake on various social media platforms in ESL does show that students tend to have a desire to expand their ESL knowledge. This review study is in agreement with the reviewed studies regarding the potential benefits of social media for ESL. The reviewed studies on their own were inconclusive as to why social media usage was beneficial. By comparing all the studies result, this literature review thesis promotes the idea that it is the social factor from engaging with social media that is the main reason that motivates students to acquire further ESL knowledge in a school setting or extramurally. Thus, the thesis suggests that an integration of social media in the Swedish upper-secondary school should be taken into consideration due to its proven motivational benefits

This licentiate thesis, When emotions are allowed to rule, a study on reading literature in a multicultural classroom in upper secondary school, attempts from a didactic perspective to understand literature reading in the school subject Swedish in the light of a multicultural and changing society. From a socio-cultural perspective, the study illustrates the teacher's choice of literature, the teacher's and the students' attitudes to literature, and the ways of reading that are being negotiated in the common reading and what opportunities for understanding and meaning making that are made available. The analyses are based on reception theories and have an underlying intercultural perspective. The study has been conducted in a class represented by students with many different mother tongues in the school subject Swedish during the first year at the natural science programme at an upper secondary school. The main methods are recordings of literature discussions, which have been documented by video and digital voice recorder, qualitative interviews with students and teacher, log books, and the students' novel reading logs. The empirical material is presented in two chapters. The first chapter, The conditions of the reading, focuses on the teacher's and the students' attitudes to literature and literature reading while the second chapter, The actual reading, brings forward the ways of reading that are being negotiated in the common reading of two novels in the class. The results show that there are several factors that are of importance to the understanding and the meaning making that are made possible in the teaching of literature. The students speak about experience oriented attitudes focusing on life experiences and cultural meetings. This differs from the teacher's attitude which is focused on providing the students with language skills and literary history education. The study shows how the reading of the novel Herakles (Kallifatides 2006) results in ethic ways of reading and a rejection of the text while the reading of the optional novel leads to a subjective reading and a common interpretation from ways of reading of enjoyment. The study discusses the importance of safeguarding the students' knowledge, experiences, and emotions and of making explicit their different ways of reading as well as the different readings of the teaching. Discussed further is the need for a teaching that catches and challenges the students' general and literary repertoires from various perspectives in order to provide context and contribute to an active meaning making. The study suggests a caring way of reading, which is characterised by interpretive communities focused on openness to the foreign and different view and a reading that strives towards a cognitive, moral, and emotional understanding.